How Do I Make an Animated GIF?

H
Posted By
Homeboy
Jun 7, 2005
Views
500
Replies
9
Status
Closed
I need to create a horizontal animated GIF for a webpage consisting of a half dozen photos that fade in and out. Imagine 6 photos in a horizontal sequence. The background is white. Photo 1 fades in, and as photo1 is halfway faded out photo 4 fades in, then as photo 4 is half faded out, both photos 2 and 5 fade in, and so forth.

1. I assume I can do this in Photoshop. Is there a step-by-step tutorial somewhere?
2. Is there dedicated software, either a PS plug-in or a separate program, that makes this really easy?

In my mind’s eye, I see each of the 6 photos on it’s own timeline layer.
Related Tags
animation how make

MacBook Pro 16” Mockups 🔥

– in 4 materials (clay versions included)

– 12 scenes

– 48 MacBook Pro 16″ mockups

– 6000 x 4500 px

K
KoperniK
Jun 7, 2005
I create each frame in photoshop then use Ulead Gif Animator (www.ulead.com) to compile the gif – it’s fairly straightforward with the included wizards. IIRC there is a 14 day trial.

K

wrote in message
I need to create a horizontal animated GIF for a webpage consisting of a
half dozen photos that fade in and out. Imagine 6 photos in a horizontal sequence. The background is white. Photo 1 fades in, and as photo1 is halfway faded out photo 4 fades in, then as photo 4 is half faded out, both photos 2 and 5 fade in, and so forth.
1. I assume I can do this in Photoshop. Is there a step-by-step tutorial
somewhere?
2. Is there dedicated software, either a PS plug-in or a separate program,
that makes this really easy?
In my mind’s eye, I see each of the 6 photos on it’s own timeline layer.
JO
Jim_Oblak
Jun 7, 2005
The ImageReady section of the Photoshop manual would be a good place to start.
DM
Don_McCahill
Jun 7, 2005
Fading in and out is not an option in an animated GIF. You can have several images, each with different levels of fade. If you have enough steps, it might blend smoothly. However a GIF grows larger with each step you add.

Ideally this should be done with Flash. There you only place each image once, and the program can actually smoothly blend from one step to another. It also has all the timeline features you also want.
H
Homeboy
Jun 7, 2005
Thanks. I guess I am looking for something a little easier. Or maybe something that takes me step-by-step the way tutorials customarially do.
H
Homeboy
Jun 7, 2005
My previous response was to Jim. Thanks, Don, for the heads up about Flash. I have it on my computer but I’ve never even opened it. What would you say the learning curve would be to do something like this? Hours? Days? Weeks?
GD
glen_deman
Jun 7, 2005
Homeboy, such a task should take you a couple hours to learn, Flash makes it very easy.
H
Homeboy
Jun 7, 2005
The folks that asked for this header asked for a simple GIF or JPG with pictures. I was going to surprise them (my best customer) with an aminated GIF. An aminated GIF requires nothing special; you upload it just like any other image. Would what I get from Flash be like that or would it require special "other things" to make it work? I know (at least I think I know) that users need to have a Flash plug-in to be able to see Flash sites. But do I also need to make sure the peopole who wrote the site can deal with this Flash header that I might create?
DM
Don_McCahill
Jun 7, 2005
Almost all browsers can access Flash, particularly if you save it as a Flash 3 rather than the latest level … you only need the most recent versions of Flash if you get into some of the more complex programming that is possible with it. What you described is quite simple.

You can use a setting that will provide a static image to the few people who do not have a Flash player installed.

You can pick up the fundamentals of Flash in a few hours … just follow through the tutorials that come with the program.
A
adolf
Jun 8, 2005
You don’t need flash to do it.
Imageready let’s you do it, buit it will take more time.

If you want to make a simple flash movie, I highly recommand SwishMax. It is much simpler and has many effects build in (e.g fade-in, fade-out).

Adolf

MacBook Pro 16” Mockups 🔥

– in 4 materials (clay versions included)

– 12 scenes

– 48 MacBook Pro 16″ mockups

– 6000 x 4500 px

Related Discussion Topics

Nice and short text about related topics in discussion sections