lets
you choose the in and out points using the controls at the bottom. Use
the scroll thumb to quickly look through the movie, and drag the
bookends below that to set the range of frames to import.
"Limit To Every [n] Frames" will cut your frames by at least half, at the expense of choppier animation.
"Make Frame Animation" enables both the conversion of the movie into
layers, and turns the layers into an animation. Deselecting it will
still import the movie into layers, but does not then create an
animation. For this tutorial, we will leave it selected.
When you're set up, click OK to import your movie. It will
take a couple seconds, then you will see all the individual frames in
the Layer menu, and each individual frame spread out across the
timeline.
4
Apply adjustments.
You can use Photoshop's adjustment layers to add effects, color
correction, brightness and contrast, and more. Adjustment layers are, by
default, applied to all layers below them.
You can apply a wide variety of built-in adjustments. You can also
add a new layer using an overlay to change the character of the video,
or a new base layer to add a background.
For example, you could have a short video of somebody just standing
there looking around. On the lowest layer, you might add a picture of
the city—or the country—to place them in a particular environment. You
could then add adjustment layer on top of everything, to give it a sepia
tone. You could even recreate the look of the animated newspapers in
the Harry Potter movies.
5
Edit individual layers.
Click on a frame in the Timeline window, and find the matching layer.
By default, the frame number is the same as the layer's name, i.e.,
frame 18 can be found on Layer 18.
You can modify any individual layer, either to add effects, or clean
up glitches, or whatever strikes your fancy. If you do this over
several frames, you can even animate your effects.
For example, if you add a lens flare to one frame, in the next frame
you could type Control-Alt-F (Command-Option-F on Mac) to bring up the
same filter. Reduce the effect by 10%, then move to the next frame and
repeat the process. Continue until you've reduced the effect to 0, and
it will look like the lens flare is animated.
6
Save your animated GIF. From the File menu, select Save for Web... This will let you set the size and output options for the GIF, as needed to fit your requirements.
Method 2: Photoshop CS3, 4, and 5 Extended
1
Create a document. Put each frame of the animation on a different layer.
Alternately, open an existing video. From the File menu, choose Import > Video Frames to Layers...
2
Select the layers to be used in the animation from the Layers window.
Note: To select a group of layers, select the layer at the top of
the group. Then hold the shift key and click on the bottom layer. This
will highlight every layer in between.
3
Open the Animation window. From the Window menu, choose Animation. When the Animation window opens, it should look like the photo below. If it doesn’t, that means it opened in the Timeline view.
4
Change to Frame Animation. Click on the "Flyout" menu in the upper right hand corner of the Animation window and select “Convert to Frame Animation.”
Create frames for each individual layer. Click the "Flyout" menu on the Animation window and choose “Make Frames From Layers.”
Note: All layers don’t have to be selected. To select a few layers,
use the copy layer button at the bottom right of the animation palette
to add layers.
5
Modify each frame as desired. Select the frame on the Animation window and change it as desired in the main Photoshop window.
Note: To add or remove a graphic from another layer to any frame,
select the frame and in the layers palette. Click the “eye” to toggle
the visibility for that layer either on or off.
6
Click on the arrow head under each frame to display the timing menu. Select the display time for each frame.
7
Save your GIF. From the File menu, choose "Save for Web and Devices" and choose GIF from the drop-down menu.
To save as a movie, select Export > Render Video from the File menu to export the document as a movie.
Because Adobe ImageReady is no longer being developed, most of the
features from ImageReady are available on Photoshop CS3. Those which are
not will be available on Adobe Fireworks.
If you save an animated GIF file from Photoshop CS3, the animation
frames are lost. To solve this, open the animated GIF file in Adobe
Fireworks, which provides editable layers and timelines for GIF files.
Note: To loop your animation continuously, choose "Save For Web and
Devices" under the Save option. Under "Looping Options, select "Forever"
and save the animation. You can also pick "Others" and select the
number of times that you want your animation to loop.