Tutorial: Making simple gifs in Photoshop

Hey Everyone!!

In light of the fact that many of members are making .gifs for this year's Triathlon I thought it might be helpful to give a quick tutorial on how to make simple .gifs using Photoshop for those who are interested/have never made one before.

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[TD]Before we get started, I want to impress that this is a very rudimentary .gif example made expressly for this tutorial and that there are thousands more neat things you can add, do, create with .gifs. Don't let this limit you, find shortcuts, experiment, and create!!
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To begin, you will need your pictures and Photoshop (I would strongly suggest you use a tripod when taking your pictures, to stabilize your image)....

Don't worry about editing/cropping/rotating your photos just yet, you'll be able to this in Photoshop when you position
your images!!



I'm sure most of you lovelies who edit photos are familiar with "layers" but if you're unsure, Tutorial9 has a thorough
introduction to them HERE
The easiest an simplest explanation is a bunch of images stack one on top of the other like a pile of papers. If you look at
the list, the layer of the top of the list is on top of the pile, etc...



Be sure to make a new layer for each image you want to use!
Also, be sure to keep the images you are using in sequence!! (For instance, the image you want to start your
animation should be layer #1, the second image should be layer #2, and so forth... This method will not be using the
transparency technique - I'm going for simple here - to it's imperative that you keep things in order from the beginning!!)
It doesn't matter which image is visible on your pallet just yet, we'll get to that ​

NOTE: If you plan on editing any of your photos you may do so now, layer by layer, but don't crop any of your images!! Editing can include photoshopping out a stay hair, a weird lense-flare, adding texture effects, etc... (Special effects for the .gif themselves can be done later using the tween tool, but for the purposes of this tutorial I won't be covering it... If there is interest, I may include it late ^^)

Now we're going to work on position the images overtop one-another for the purposes of flow. Like film, the more frames you have, the less choppy the image will be, this is essentially stop motion ^^ Ready? Let's go!!

This step will let you see two layers at once so you can line up the images (you don't necessarily need to do this step, but
your images will jump around a bit like shaky film if you go with your originals, even if you've used a tripod or maybe
that's just me because chances are your doll has nudged a touch here or there during the repositioning!!)



Trippy! I should note that you do step #4 in reverse to readjust the opacity back to 100%... so instead of choosing 45
you choose 100 XD
Also, for the visibility, you only want to see the layer you're nudging and the layer directly beneath it unless you are using
a stationary point in the background for alignment purposes! For example, if you are working on Layer 5 at 45% then
only layers 4 and 5 should be visible using the little 'eye' icon. Choose your alignment carefully, this will make your
image flow smoothly ​

My goodness this is looooong!!
Please continue to the next post ^^

 

March forth and continue!

As you can see at the bottom of my image, I had quite a few discrepancies once I aligned my images... This is like cutting
off the rough edges ^^
Also, if your image must be, say, 400px by 400px you might want to adjust the canvass instead of the image size by:
Image > Canvass Size > selecting the desired size
Adjusting the Image Size will force you image to keep it's proportions, so unless you are lucky with your crop, you will
most likely have one side that is an odd number (say 400px by 238px, etc...) adjusting the canvass size will crop off the
extra bits and make the image a perfect 400x400.



This step right here is why it is so important to keep your layers in order!!
I also find this much easier than adding each layer manually *shrug*



Here is where you would add effect using the tween or add layers/frames in if you don't like the flow!!
Note if you are using an image overtop of a stationary background (the background should replace the white space and
be visible in each frame - so don't delete it!! - you can check this by running the gif and if it becomes invisible, click on
each frame on the "Animation bar" one by one and on the layer list make the "eye" icon visible for each frame. You
shouldn't need to do this, but just in case!!)



The default frame rate is 0.00 seconds - quick - but making the frames go by too slow can be tedious, be warned!!



This one should be pretty self explanatory, but just in case, save you file in a place where you can find it


... and as a treat terrible though it might be:
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Well there you have it, I hope this can be of some use ^^
Cheers everyone!!

 

You're very welcome Depoupee!! I'd love to see it when you're done ^^

 

Thanks Mimi! We should definitely start up a gif-making game

 

Hehe, there are other programs, especially online, but I find they usually add a little watermark... photoshop is pretty easy, especially if you're already working to fix photos with the program ^^

You're welcome Sakaki!!

Thanks SteamWitch! I'd love to see your results

Haha *blush* Thanks Hellwinga!!

 

You're very welcome cewie!!