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A
S WELL AS BEING
unsurpassed at
creating still images,
Photoshop can create
animations – those animated
GIFs that show short
sequences of action, and
which are often used for
avatars.
Animations are made using
the Timeline panel – choose
it from the Window menu.
Here, you can set timings for
each frame, create new frames
and play the animation.
You can move layers
between frames, hide and
show layers, but that’s about it.
You can’t rotate or scale layers
between frames: do so and
the layer will be transformed
through all the frames in your
animation.
It may sound limiting, but
take a look at the How to
Cheat in Photoshop Reader
Forum and you’ll see just how
masters of the art can create
utterly convincing movement
using just a small number of
frames.
Here we’ll look at
the basics of creating an
animation. Since you’ll use
File > Save for Web to save
the animation as a GIF file,
we’ll also look at what settings
you should use here.
Making it move
1
Preparation is the key to successful animation. This file
contains seven layers: the man; his open mouth; his
eyeball and iris; his hand separated into fingers and rear
thumb; and the apple, with a Layer Mask that matches the
shape of his upper lip, and is not linked to the layer.
2
Start by moving the
hand and apple layers
down, off-screen – the open
mouth layer can simply be
hidden.
3
Click the New icon in the
Timeline to make a new
frame, then raise the hand
and apple, and reveal the
open mouth layer.
4
From the pop-up menu in the
Timeline panel choose Tween,
and add 3 frames. This places a smooth
transition between the hand movement,
and fades the mouth open gradually.
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Print and the internet
445
5
Add more frames, opening and closing the mouth and
moving the hand and apple upwards. Because the mask
on the apple layer isn’t linked with the layer, the apple will
disappear inside the man’s mouth as it moves upwards.
7
Here’s the Timeline as it looks at the end. Frames 2, 3, and 4 are set to a timing of 0 seconds – as fast as possible, in other
words – so the initial movement looks small. The first frame is set to 1 second, so there’s a pause before it all runs again.
6
Once the apple has gone into the mouth, hide its layer
on a new frame and move the hand downwards. You can
use as many frames as you like to get smooth motion: but the
more frames there are, the larger the resulting file will be.
HOT TIP
You can specify a
different timing
for each frame, if
you wish. Leaving
the timing at the
default setting of 0
seconds will make
the animation
run at the fastest
speed possible.
A fast animation
deceives the eye.
In the example
here, the apple is
clearly too big to
fit into the mouth.
But as viewers.
we’re so fooled
by the motion
that we accept it
without thinking
about it.
This menu selects the
way colors are selected.
Adaptive or Perceptual
give good results, with
fairly small file sizes.
This determines the ‘dither’ method, or
how intermediate colors are displayed.
Diffusion is generally the choice here,
but try None for smaller files (and a
more graphic appearance).
Save for Web: animated GIFs
Be sure to choose GIF rather than JPEG,
or you won’t see any animation (even
if it’s there in the original Photoshop
document).
When you find a combination
of settings that works well,
save them as a preset.
The ‘lossiness’ is one factor that determines the
file size. The higher this value, the worse your
animation will look – but the smaller the file.
The fewer colors you use in your
animation, the smaller the file size will
be. Starting with 256 colors, you can
reduce them in powers of 2 (64, 32 and
so on).
When you use fewer colors,
they need to be ‘dithered’,
using noise patterns to give the
impression of colors that aren’t
there. The higher the dither
amount, the smaller the file.
The web snap is the degree
to which the colors in your
document match the 216 ‘web
safe’ colors.
How to Cheat in Photoshop CC
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