How To Create An Animated Gif In After Effects Cs6
A GIF, or "Graphics Interchange Format", is a compressed prototype file format that allows for animation. There are many ways to create a GIF, simply Photoshop is fast and easy, with born tools for epitome manipulation and animating.
Just like classic animation, an animated GIF is made upwards of a series of still images played sequentially to create the illusion of movement. Find a GIF off the internet and drag information technology into Photoshop, and yous will encounter the carve up frames that brand up the blitheness. These frames are what we're going to build in this tutorial in guild to animate a killer banner advertisement GIF.
Without further ado, here's how to make an animated GIF in Photoshop.
Step 1: Set up upwards the dimensions and resolution of your Photoshop document
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Prepare your document alee of time. Even if your only ambition is to create a shareable GIF for your friends on social media, letting the size of your photos or video dictate the size of your document might make the file larger than you lot need it to be, which translates into a poor quality GIF. In general, somewhere in the region of 600px-800px is fine for a square image.
Dimensions
For this project, we are working with a banner advertizement GIF, which has standard sizing guidelines. I chose the 720×300 layout. Make certain your units are in pixels.
Resolution
To keep the file size as low as possible, a resolution of 150 is fine. I went with 300 since I know my GIF isn't going to exist that big. Make sure your units are in Pixels/inch.
Color mode
Finally, blithe GIFs are made for the screen, and so gear up your color way to RGB color. Press Create to open your new document.
Step two: Import your image files into Photoshop
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Making a GIF from still images
Go to File > Scripts > Load Files into Stack and select the Browse button in the Load Layers window that comes upward. This brings upward the Finder/Explorer window where y'all tin can browse for your files and select all of the ones you lot demand. When you're finished, click Open and and then OK in the adjacent window. The files will exist imported into a split up certificate, from which you tin select all layers and drag them into your working certificate.
Making a GIF from video
If you are converting a video into a GIF, become to File > Import > Video Frames to Layers.
Step 3: Open the timeline window
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Become to Window > Timeline. This will open up a panel in the lower third of the canvas. In the center of the console, click on the arrow to open the dropdown menu, and select Create Frame Animation.
Pace iv: Convert your layers into frames
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Your first frame will already exist set up, made of all of the visible layers (meaning the layer visibility, or eye icon, is switched on) in your certificate. Now all you have to practice is fill the Timeline with multiple frames to simulate motility. In that location are two ways to do this: import frames you have already prepared or create your animation from scratch in Photoshop. This section will cover the first scenario.
If you have already ready all the same, sequential images alee of time (or are working from imported video frames, see Step two), click on the hamburger menu icon in the upper right corner of the Timeline panel. Select Brand Frames From Layers. Yous will see the timeline populate with frames from your layers.
Step five: Duplicate frames to create your animation
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If you accept not prepare the nonetheless images alee of time or need to accommodate parts of the animation yous created in Step 4, you tin create the animation manually frame by frame (which is how I fabricated my animation). To do this, duplicate the last frame in the timeline (click on the earmarked folio icon in the tools panel beneath the timeline), make the changes you demand to make on your epitome, and repeat.
For example, my blitheness is a pair of sunglasses sliding down over the discipline'south optics. To practise this, I duplicated the frame, moved the sunglasses downward a few pixels (how many pixels was a thing of trial and fault—more on that later), and repeated this procedure until I had about xv frames and the sunglasses were where I wanted them, resulting in polish downwards glide animation.
Stride 6: Set the delay time of each frame
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You tin detect the delay timer at the lesser of each frame (the time in seconds with a dropdown pointer next to it).
Click the arrow to bring up the carte and choose the amount of time you want the frame to display on screen.
Yous can set the duration of individual frames or multiple frames at one time by selecting all of the frames you demand and using the dropdown menu for one of them.
Tip: Many frames with short delays is the key to smooth animations whereas few frames with long delays creates a jerky, cease-movement effect.
Pace vii: Fix the number of times the animation will loop
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Besides located in the tools console beneath the timeline is the loop setting. You can fix your animation to loop Forever, Once, or a specific number of times.
Footstep 8: Preview and iterate on your animation
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The play button in the timeline window'south tool console allows you to preview your blitheness. Use this to make sure that your blitheness is conceivable and behaving as it should. If it isn't, try tinkering around with filibuster or adding more than frames until you get the results that yous want. Conversely, this is also a groovy time to experiment with removing equally many frames as you tin can without breaking the illusion of move in gild to get the lowest file size possible.
Step nine: Export your Photoshop document as a GIF
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Start of all, don't forget to save your working PSD!
One time yous're ready to export your final GIF, get to File > Export > Save for Spider web (Legacy). (Note: if you are working with an older version of Photoshop, it will likely be File > Salvage for Web & Devices). This volition bring up the export window.
There are a lot of options here, but we only need a handful for our purposes. First, make sure you set the file type to GIF in the dropdown box in the upper right. The rest of the options I've highlighted in the image beneath are optional but helpful for producing a lightweight file. Allow's walk through them now.
Trim the file size
Your principal goal with the remaining options is to continue your file size low by decreasing the amount of details in your GIF without sacrificing image quality. Remember that a large file size ways a tiresome load fourth dimension, which can be especially punishing for marketing purposes like banner ads, where the viewer wasn't looking for your content and won't be waiting around for it to load. Aim to stay beneath 1MB. Up to 5MB is doable on virtually websites merely pushing information technology. You lot tin can run across your GIF's file size in the bottom left corner of panel containing the preview image.
Reduce the colour information
Unnecessary colour data is the biggest culprit when information technology comes to a big file size. To cut it down, conform the total number of colors in the dropdown box labeled "Colors:" and reduce the dither (the blending of pixels to create seamless shading) setting below it. As y'all make changes, continue an center on the preview paradigm of your GIF on the left side to see how the resolution is being affected.
Convert to sRGB
sRGB, or "Standard RGB," has a narrower range of colors than the default "Adobe RGB," so make certain to check that box.
Salve
In one case you're happy with your resolution and file size, hit the relieve button at the lesser of the window. To brand sure that everything came out alright, you tin can preview the finished GIF file by dragging information technology into a browser'south URL box.
Step x: Share your finished Photoshop GIF!
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And in that location you have it—your finished GIF, ready to be shared all across the world wide web. At present that you have the skills to create basic Photoshop animations from videos and still images, you tin gifify almost anything!
While this method is useful for quick, fun GIFs, GIFs for professional purposes should be a lot more robust than my silly sunglasses ad. Learning the software is straightforward, but animation itself is a tricky art form that takes practice and expertise. When you're gear up to upwardly your GIF game, brand sure you're working with a professional.
Looking for professional help creating an animation?
Work with one of our talented designers!
This article was originally written by Rebecca Creger and published in 2013. It's been updated with new information and examples.
Source: https://99designs.com/blog/design-tutorials/create-a-gif-in-photoshop/
Posted by: eldercovis1990.blogspot.com
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