In Tutorials Aug 26, 200910
Photoshop 101 – Simple Animation in Photoshop
Did you know you could create simple animations in Photoshop? This is another one of those lesser utilized features. In versions previous to CS3 animation was handled in a separate program called Image Ready, but now the animation capabilities are included with versions CS3 and beyond! In this tutorial ill show you how to create some simple animations with bananas 
Plan your animation
In this animation I’ll be using some text and an image of bananas. I’ll be making the bananas move on and off the screen, tweening (creating transitions between frames) and changing the positioning and color.
The Animation Palette and creating frames
Create a new document in Photoshop and open the animation palette by going to window>animation.
The animation palette has two views: Frame view and time line view. You can click on the icon on the bottom right (highlighted in pink) to toggle the views. We will be working on frame view today.
Create your images on separate layers. Animation is created by moving your images around to different positions in each frame.
Frame length
You an also change the time length each frame displays.
Creating a Tween
Create a new frame. Turn the banana text layer off and turn the banana image layer on.
Next create a new frame again. Click on the 2nd frame and move the bananas to the left of the screen so they are not visable.
Select the 2nd and 3rd frame and click the tween icon:
A pop-up box will then appear asking you how many frames to tween and what parameters to include. We have only changed the position of the bananas, but you can also use Photoshop effects, and opacity as well.
After the tween photoshop ads the frames to your animation. Click the play button to preview your animation.
Saving For Web
When you are all done go to file>Save for web and save it as a .gif file. Piece of cake!
So go ahead and go nuts! Be creative and spice up your animation. I spent just a few more minutes and created this ballet of bananas:
What do you think?
Want to know how to do something in Photoshop? Have a question? Leave a comment and let us know what you think!
Tutorial written by Niki Brown – author of The Design O’Blog and Daily Design Bits. Follow Niki (@nikibrown) on twitter!
10 Comments
Aug 26, 2009
Thank you – Thank you – thank you very much – after Adobe stop `Image ready` i lost all my hope of animation in photoshop – along with Photoshop CS4 i did install Photoshop 7 (n Image Ready) – so i can have animation capability whenever i needed. but after this post – i definetly gonna uninstall Old version and stick with new one only.
thanks again
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Aug 26, 2009
thanks for sharing, that’s awesome!
Aug 26, 2009
Amazing result!!
Aug 27, 2009
[...] Photoshop 101 – Simple Animation in Photoshop | Design Reviverdesignreviver.com [...]
Aug 27, 2009
[...] Oh, hey! I didn’t realize you could create animated images with Photoshop! [...]
Aug 28, 2009
[...] Photoshop 101 – Simple Animation in Photoshop | Design Reviver – Although not a common use of Photoshop, this is a great post showing how things can be animated using it. [...]
Aug 28, 2009
Cool tutorial! Tnanks for sharing. I linked it on my blog.
Dec 13, 2009
[...] to animate your bananas? Here’s a really good tutorial that’ll show you how to do it in Photoshop. From the people at Design [...]
Dec 13, 2009
Great tutorial! I am still a complete n00b with PhotoShop. But… less n00b than I was before practicing this tutorial. Thanks!
Feb 11, 2010
thanks, i feel like a photoshop novice – everytime i am getting somewhere – there is something else – BANANAS!
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