Animations in Photoshop. Drawing the carbon fiber texture. Animating static images
If you wanted to make a GIF animation of text in Photoshop, for example, for a postcard, or create any other interesting animation, in this article I will try to tell you step by step how to make an animation in Photoshop and save it on your computer.
At first create animation from pictures, and then we’ll look at how to make gif animation for text.
Create in Photoshop new file: “File” – “New”. Draw two shapes on it: on the “Shape 2” layer – a target, on the “Shape 3” layer – an arrow.
Now go to the “Windows” tab and select “Animation” from the drop-down menu.
The following window will open, in which we will create the animation.
If your window looks like the picture below, click on the button in the lower right corner "Convert to frame animation".
The principle of creating animation is as follows. There is a main image, we duplicate it. Then on the duplicate we place the objects in the positions in which they should be at the end. Select the duplicated frame and click on the “Tweens animation frames” button, this way we will make additional frames between the first and the duplicated one - this will create the animation effect.
Now let's talk about everything in order. Select the first frame and click "Duplicates selected frames".
The main layer will be duplicated and frame 2 will be created. Select it and place the objects in the final positions in the image. In the layers palette, select the layer on which the arrow is drawn, and using the “Move Tool” (the top one on the toolbar) we move it to the center of the target.
In the next dialog box you need to select the number of intermediate frames “Frames to Add”. It all depends on your image, but the more there are, the smoother the transition.
In the animation creation window between frame 1 and frame 2, 5 additional frames were added. Their numbers are from 2 to 6. As a result, our last layer, on which the objects are located in their final positions, became 7.
By clicking on the “Play” button, see the result. I have selected long delay time for each frame: 1.4 seconds, so the arrow in the animation moves very slowly. Let's reduce the time to 0.1 sec - the value can be selected from the drop-down list under each frame.
In the lower left corner of the window you can select how many times the animation will repeat. Let’s select “Forever” from the list so that each time after finishing it starts anew.
To do this, you need to duplicate the layer with the target. Then in the animation window we will create a new group of frames, they will start from number 8. For these frames, turn off the layer with the first target in the layers palette, and we will work with the duplicated target and arrow.
Create a duplicate of the “Shape 2” layer in the layers palette. Click on it right click mouse and select “Duplicate Layer” from the menu.
Now, in the animation window, let's duplicate the last seventh frame. Click on the button "Duplicates selected frames".
In the same way we duplicate the new eighth frame.
The first frame for the second part of the animation will be frame 8, and the last will be frame 9, its number will change after we insert intermediate frames. Select frame 8 and in the layers palette turn off the visibility of the layer on which the first target was drawn - remove the eye in front of the layer.
Select frame 9, it will be the last in the group, and place objects in the image in their final positions. To do this, use the “Move Tool”. To move the arrow, you need to select the layer on which it is drawn - “Shape 3”, to move the target, select the layer “Shape 2 copy”.
Let's create intermediate frames between 8 and 9. Select frame 9 and click the "Tweens animation frames" button.
Select the number of frames. In the example there are 5 of them.
Let's move on to the first frame and look through our animation.
In order to save gif animation in Photoshop, click on the “File” tab – “Save for Web & Devices”. In the next window, select the options as shown in the image below. Your animation size may be different “Image Size”. Click "Save".
The animation made in the example looks like this.
Now let's move on to creating GIF animation for text in Photoshop.
In the example we will create animation for next text, step by step creation I described this text in a previous article. If you are interested in how to make a beautiful inscription in Photoshop, follow the link and read the article on this topic.
So, open the image with the text, and then the animation window, as described above.
If you have an image with text written on it for which you will create animation, in the layers palette, select the layer that corresponds to this text.
Let's create intermediate frames. Select the second frame and press the button “Tweens animation frames”.
Select the number of these frames.
Let's make sure that the text moves along more than one trajectory. To do this, duplicate the last one created on previous step, frame 10, and then frame 11. A new group frames will start from 11, and 12 (at this moment) frame will be the last. Select it and move the inscription to the final position.
Let's create intermediate frames between 11 and 12. Select frame 12 and click on the “Tweens animation frames” button. I added 8 additional frames.
Let's make animation in Photoshop
Let's define it from the very beginning...
What is GIF animation?
This is an animated image, i.e. an image that can move. GIF animation can be made from several images or from a video. Today it is possible to make animation online. Upload the images, click create and you will get a ready-made GIF animation. You can also make a GIF animation from a video.
Today we will create GIF animation in Photoshop.
We need photographs, images, pictures. I won't tell you how to edit photos! We will deal with one process of creating animation!
I needed to make a GIF animation. I thought, why not, based on this animation, write a page dedicated to the topic of creating animation in Photoshop!?
We will fully describe the process of creating animation!
Open Photoshop and create a separate layer for each image.
How to create a separate layer for animation?
I do this: load all the images into Photoshop, cut out the desired part of the image and paste these pieces into a separate file. Separate file necessary so as not to inadvertently spoil some photo on your computer!
When you insert a cut piece into an animation, a layer is created automatically!
If you do not have the “Animation” menu item, then click in the drop-down menu, show all menu items.
A menu for controlling your animation will appear at the very bottom of the Photoshop program. We create as many copies of the selected frames as your animation will change.
My gif animation will change the image 9 times. If suddenly the number of frames turns out to be more than you need, then just to the right of the add button there is a delete button.
How to set the display time of each frame in an animation?
We will need to show every frame different time. In order to edit the display time, click on the small line - the triangle.
Select from the drop-down menu right time showing each frame. If you need a different time for displaying the frame, then select another and set the required time.
How to save GIF animation?
Hello, readers of my blog!
Just as promised, Photoshop lessons continue!
Today we will discuss the following question: “How to create animation in Photoshop?”. I'll try to give you detailed instructions on creating animation. And at the end I will provide a short video tutorial...
How to create animation in Photoshop?
How to make animation in Photoshop: what does it mean and is it difficult?
Making animation in Photoshop is quite simple if you know how to do it =) But to be honest, after trying once, you will do everything with eyes closed... It is in this article, under my clear guidance, that you will learn how to make animation without any problems!
Animation, will we become real animators?
Our animation is smooth appearance inscriptions that we will make using the tool Animation in Photoshop, that's exactly what we'll do. Today you can play the role of a novice animator =)
Let `s start?
First, let's decide what we need! But we need Photoshop: it doesn’t matter what version. You can use the version that I use, you can download it!
Open the Photoshop program and display the Animation tab on work environment: Window - Animation. In my version of the program this tab is called Time scale, so I do this ( put a tick):
As a result, you will have a panel like this below:
P.S. I trimmed it a little...
Well, now using tabs File - Create..., or by pressing the CTRL+N keys - create a new file. Set the sizes, click OK and write our text from which we will make animation. This is what I got:
P.S. I played a little with deformation I =)
This frame automatically becomes ours Time scale, set it to speed 0.1 sec and with the help Making a copy dedicated frames create 10 more ( it depends on how you set the transparency - look further and you will understand everything):
P.S. This is a finished picture.
On the first frame we turn off the picture ( click on the second picture and in layers turn off the visibility of the layer - inscription, and this picture drag to first place). As a result, I have 10 frames at a speed of 0.1 seconds, and the last one ( Frame 11) — 1 sec.
In the second picture, the text should be turned on, we only change the transparency: in layers, right-click on the layer with the inscription, select the tab - Blend options...
IN Main parameters - Opaque. We set it to 10%. We repeat these actions with each frame, increasing the transparency: the second - 20%, the third - 30%, etc., until we reach 100% - the final frame ( the number of frames depends on how you use transparency).
Also in Blend options you can try using additional chips ( you just need to check the box and the result is in front of you).
Other buttons Time scales I don’t explain: I think the play button and others are familiar to you... ( to see what kind of button is in front of you, just hover your mouse over it and an inscription with the designation will appear before your eyes)
How to save animation in Photoshop?
Choose Gif format(it’s already there automatically) and click Save…(select the save path, for example - desktop), All animation is preserved =)
P.S. You can remove the background from the animation by deleting the “Background” layer (but for me it merges with the template)
I think everything is clear here even without a video tutorial... But still, as promised, look here:
That's all for today, bye!
Greetings friends! Sometimes I come across the question, is it possible to make animation in Photoshop? So, in this lesson I will show that this is possible, and that it is not at all difficult. After this, you will understand that it is not at all necessary to download and install programs for yourself if you suddenly need to make an animated banner or some other animation. And believe me, it's very simple. As an example, let's make our own simple preloader or, as correctly indicated in the comments, a throbber. And so, let's get to work!
Open Photoshop and create a 9x9 pixel file.
Let's zoom in to increase our small square to the maximum (Z key). There are several ways to enlarge. First, right-click on the picture from the drop-down menu and select Fit on screen. Second, just click several times until the image is enlarged to its maximum value, and third, the simplest in my opinion, click on the left top corner canvas and holding left button mouse, move it down and to the right until we cross our square.
Now the most important thing we need to create a GIF animation is working space with the right tools. Go to the menu Window -> Workspace -> Video. It should look something like the screenshot, but there may be differences. We will be interested in the animation panel at the bottom.
Below we can just see our first animation frame highlighted.
Now let's draw with a pencil (B) in the lower left corner, let's say orange 3x3 pixel square.
Duplicate our layer (grab and drag our layer onto the icon for creating a new layer.
Turn off the background layer (eye icon), and on the new layer move our square to the lower right corner. Fill the opened transparent canvas with white color (G).
Duplicate the top layer again and move the square up to the right. Then another take with the square moving up to the left. It should look like this:
Next, let's move on to working with our animation panel. Click on the Duplicates selected frames icon (the icon looks like the icon for creating a new layer) 3 times so that we get 4 frames in total. By clicking on the first frame, select it and leave only the bottom layer visible in the list of our layers. After that, click on the second frame and leave visible second bottom layer. And so on. You will get the following:
In principle, our animation is almost ready. By clicking on the Plays animation icon you can see what we get. Now let's add a little smoothness through intermediate frames. To do this, select the first and second frames (holding the Ctrl key) and click on the icon on which the Tweens balls are drawn. Click OK.
Let's do the same with frames 2-3, 3-4, 4-1.
Now we select all our frames and on any frame we select the transition time between frames that you like. Let's say 0.1 sec.
Check that your animation is looping:
That's all. All that remains is to save our banner in gif format; to do this, in Photoshop you need to go to the file menu and select the menu item “Save for Web & Devices” (Save for Web & Devices) or, more conveniently, press the key combination Ctrl+Shift+Alt+S . In the dialog box, select the Gif format. Here you can play with the settings that affect the quality and size of the resulting Gif file. After saving our Gif animation as a file with Gif extension, enjoy our own preloader! For example, you can end up with these beautiful Loading Preloaders:
Nowadays you can probably view the Gif banner that we made in Photoshop with any graphics viewing program, the most common of which are IrfanView, XNView, FastStone Image Viewer and many others.
I think now you understand that there is nothing complicated in creating Gif animation in Photoshop, and you will begin to create your own banners and other creative things, especially since animation frames can have any effects thanks to Photoshop itself.
If you just need trobbers/snippers, then there are special java script libraries for their generation. A selection for creating loading animations can be read in my article
Make it animated gif picture Photoshop is quite possible even for a beginner. Photoshop allows you to create frame-by-frame animation by changing frames, and then save the work as a gif image.
This means that Photoshop does not create the animation itself, but only organizes a frame-by-frame presentation of pre-prepared images and outputs them to the final format. The number of frames in the finished gif animation can be any, but the larger the number, the larger the file size will be. Therefore, you should always strive to reduce the number of frames to a minimum. However, the more frames reflected in a second of animation, the smoother it will be. It is generally not a good idea to increase the number of frames per second beyond 30, because the human eye cannot distinguish more frames per second. Even in films and videos they use 24 frames per second.
Also, when creating animation in Photoshop, you should take into account that various devices and browsers can at different speeds play animation with big amount frames per second, depending on your technical capabilities. So, cellular telephone, for example, can only play back 10 frames per second. This means that a second of animation with 30 frames on it will take 3 seconds, therefore the animation will slow down.
When choosing the number of frames per second of an animation, it all depends on what will be depicted in the animation and its purpose.
It should be noted that the number of frames per second gif animation not constant, and easily changes when creating animation. Simply put, it is possible to specify the display time of each individual frame. For example, you can set the first frame of an animation to last one second, and the second frame to last five seconds.
This is very useful when you need to hold a certain frame longer, for example with text, without increasing the weight gif file. Typically, a simple animated picture can have up to 10 frames in total, usually about 4-6.
By setting the timing of different frames, a 4-frame animation can last anywhere from a fraction of a second to a minute or longer. But it should be borne in mind that too long animations should also be avoided - animation is not a video clip, some browsers do not wait for the end of the animation, and start playing it from the beginning, if it is instantly lost gif images from the screen.
You also need to pay attention to the fact that the quality and color rendition of a drawing in the gif animation format is usually noticeably lower than in jpg format or similar, this
peculiarity.
Animation should also not be done in high resolution, this will cause additional load on browsers or phones, and, most likely, will simply slow down the speed of its playback. Depending on the purpose of the animation, the recommended resolution can be up to 100 - 150 pixels in width or height. Moreover, the smaller the height of the animation, the larger its width can be, and vice versa. For example, a frame resolution of 400X50 pixels is an acceptable resolution, but 400X150 is already too much and is only suitable for special purposes.
But, still, the most important thing you need to pay attention to when creating gif animation is its weight. For general use on Internet pages or on devices, the size of the animation should not exceed 400KB. This is maximum.
General recommendations in the parameters of gif animation for general purposes (avatars, userbars, signatures, etc.)
Weight- no more than 400KB, better than 150KB - 200KB.
Permission— a total of no more than 30,000 pixels (the amount is the height times the width, for example, 400X50 = 20,000).
Full playback time- no more than 15 seconds.
Number of frames can be anything, as long as the weight of the gif file or the animation time does not exceed the above recommendations, usually the smaller the better.
Number of frames per second- no more than 30, depending on need.
Create Photoshop Animation.
Photoshop can only create animations starting with version CS3. To create an animated file, you need to either prepare the necessary pictures in advance, or create pictures directly using Photoshop.
In our example, we use all options at once. We will make an animation for the “Avatar” signature.
Ready option:
Creation:
First, let's find the source images for creating the animation:
Now let's create a new file in Photoshop. Specify width 400, height 50. Color mode- 8 bits.
Now let’s activate the “Animation” window. Window > Animation. A special area for working with animation will appear at the bottom. 
It shows all the frames that are in the animation in sequence. So far there is only one frame, duration 0 seconds, but we can always add new ones. Frames can always be rearranged until the picture is saved in gif format.
Each frame displays the layers visible to it. In animation mode, for each frame, separate conditions for the visibility of the layer or its other characteristics, transparency, outline, color, etc. are set.
Please note that the layer characteristics for the first frame apply to all animation frames. This means that, for example, if you change the text color for the tenth frame of the animation, it will change only on the tenth frame, and if on the first, then on all frames of the animation at once.
Fill the canvas with color. Select the Fill Tool (default, letter G), and the color #3a55a4, and fill the canvas.
Let's add the original pictures to the canvas (File > Place, or you can simply drag them from the folder), and change their size.
When adding new pictures to the canvas, they form a new layer. It is these layers that we will work in the process of creating animation.
Don’t forget to save your work periodically so as not to lose your changes. Keep working Photoshop file available in PSD format. (default).
First you need to create the layout of the picture and the first frame. It is important to note that browsers or devices that will not be able to play the animation will
show only its first frame. Therefore, the first frame of the animation should reflect its entire essence.
Display and move the animatsiya1 layer to the left edge of the canvas. To do this, select the desired layer (animatsiya1), then: Edit > transform > flip horizontally. Then we'll just move the layer.
On the first frame, we don't need the animatsiya2 layer, so we need to hide it. If you hide a layer, it will not appear in the selected frame. Let's add some text (letter T). You also need to change the color of the text, for example, to white, otherwise it will completely merge with the background.
The text is also a separate layer. The first frame of the animation is ready. Let's create a second frame. More precisely, let's create a copy of the first frame. To do this, click on the leaf sign in the animation area.
The second frame is selected automatically, but we can select any frame we want to work with.
For the second frame, we will hide the first layer animatsiya1, and make the animatsiya2 layer visible. Also, apply an effect to the text layer and repaint it a different color. Double-click on the “AVATAR” layer, Styles > Color Overlay, and click on the small box with the color. Let's set the color #8fbeff.
As a result, this is what the second frame looks like now.
While Photoshop doesn't create animation itself, it can create in-between frames. Let's add 5 intermediate frames between our two. To do this, you need to select “Create intermediate frames”, to the left of the “Duplicate frame” button in the animation area. But first you need to select two frames, between which intermediate frames will be created. You can select several frames at once by holding down the Shift key.
Let's add 5 frames.
Now, the animation frames ribbon consists of 7 frames. Intermediate frames provide smooth transition from one frame to another.
You need to set the frame display time. Now all frames have no display time - 0 seconds.
The time for displaying frames can be set in bulk - when selecting several frames, or separately for each. Let's set the display time from frames 1 to 6 to 0.1 seconds, and frame 7 to 1 second. To do this, click on the arrow next to the frame display time.
Ready! The animation frames ribbon is ready. It can be viewed directly in Photoshop by clicking on the Play arrow in the animation area.
The format needs to be set to Gif. All other settings affect gif quality animation, and its original weight. If the animation turns out to be too heavy, you can reduce the number of colors to 128, for example, or immediately optimize the animation for the desired file size. To do this, click on the icon with three bars at the top right, select “optimize by file size,” and enter the initial weight. The animation itself is optimized for the required weight with minimal possible loss of quality.
Of course this is the simplest example creating gifs animation in Photoshop, but it shows the basics - how animation is created. With experimentation, you can make better, more detailed and beautiful animations, but the principle of their creation is the same.
