Animated Gifs in Photoshop and image ready
This tutorial will show you how to make an animated gif (an avatar in this case) by using photoshop and image ready. Note that the image I have used to base this tutorial on is copyrighted by me and model Caroline Traitler (model) and therefore cannot be used by anyone else.
Feel free to use it to practice on, but do not use it anywhere else (that includes blogs & websites!)
Start by opening the image(s) you want to use in photoshop. In this case, I have chosen to use one single image.
What I have done in this particular case, is decreasing the image size in four steps.
After defining the images you want to use for your animated gif, drag them into the same file. Your layer palette should look something like this:
When you are satisfied with your layers, hit the 'Jump to Image Ready' button (Control-Shift-M), which can be found at the bottom of the tools menu on the left of the screen.
After a few moments, Image Ready will open, and the file with the seperate layers has opened exactly like in photoshop.
Make sure the layers and animation palettes are opened (if not, you can open them through the window option in the menu).
One image will be shown in the animation palette. This image should correspond with the first image you want in your animated gif. To change it, alt + click on the eye of the image you want to select in the layers palette (in my case: layer 1).
As the animated gif is made up out of several static images, it is time to add the movement. Click on 'duplicates current frame' in the animation palette (the white sheet). Then alt+click on the next image in the layers palette. Continue making new sheets and assigning layers to them untill all your layers are in the animation palette.
Beneath the images in the animation palette, there are two options I'd like you to notice.
1. You can change the option forever to once or other, depending how long you want your gif to stay animated.
2. You can change the individual duration of each layer by changing the time it is shown. In this example, I've set the time to one second for each image.
The only thing needed to be done now is saving it.
Choose the option Save Optimised As (Control-Shift-Alt-S) and your image is ready!
Here is my final result:
