Introduction


Working Space
This is how my working space looks when I'm making graphics with gifs:

Big Screenshoot:

*That's part of an old gifset I did for tumblr... not every tutorial I make will have Rose Tyler, I promise lol*
For this class, we are gonna be working with those 3 areas. Area no.1 is, of course, our Graphic Window; Area no.2 is the Animation Window (if you don't have it open, you can go to Window > Animation) and the Area no.3 is the Layers Window.
--Edit--
Like Touxedo Mistress said, since Photoshop CS6 the Animation Window became the Timeline Window, so if you have CS6, you can continue this class but take in consideration the change of names
--EndEdit--

Graphic Window
I don't have much to say about this one, it's pretty obvious. This is the window where you see how your graphic is coming out xD

Animation Window
So here is the big deal, here is where we are gonna mostly be working on, and I'm gonna explain a few things


1- Frames
Frames are individual pictures in a sequence of images that make our gif. Animation in photoshop works like a flip book:

Each frame would be our piece of paper for the flip book.

2- Delay
Lets you pic the delay time you want for each specific frame

For example, here is the delay time for the gif I made for this class title:

As you can see, I wanted a longer delay at the end, and the first ones go pretty quickly because the delay is smaller.

3- Looping Options
Let's you pick how many times do you want the animation to repeat itself. Usually in gifs we set this to 'forever', this way the gif keeps repeating like we normally see.

For example, here you have the same gif but saved with the 3 different options, the first one only repeats once, the second one repeats 3 times and the last one is the normal gif that repeats forever





4- Reproduce buttons
From left to right: The first one sends you to the first frame, the second sends you to the previous frame, the third plays the animation and the fourth sends you to the next frame

5- Tween
This option makes your frame fade into another frame. This is good if you don't want your gif to abruptly cut at the end. To use this, you select the frame where you want to start the 'fading process' and click the button, then you'll see these options:

The only things I use to change here are the Frames to add (and this depends on how long I want my gif to be) and the "Twin with" option, that lets you decide with which frame you are going to twin your selected frame:

For example, I selected the last frame and used the Twin tool with the first frame, and this was the result:

As you can see, the gif doesn't abruptly ends like before, now the last frame fades into the first one. Now I kinda wish I had done that in the original gifset ;_; it actually looks better this way u_u

6- Duplicate and Delete Frame
Pretty self-explanatory, the first button duplicates the selected frame and the second button deletes the selected frame... nothing new xD

7- Option Menu
Here we'll find some options that we've already covered, and some new ones. Let's see:

- Delete animation: Deletes all but the first frame
- Reverse Frames: Does exactly that, reverses all frames, so your animation will go backwards
- Make frames from layers: This option is very important if you have a bunch of screencaps that you want to convert into a gif, instead of making each frame one by one, this option makes a frame out of each layer

Layers Window
The layers window is specially important if you are making a graphic in addition to the animation (like adding text, resources and all that)

We are going to focus on the selected options, that are the ones that we used while making animations.


"Unify Layer Position"
If activated, this option makes that the layer selected keeps the same position during all the animation.
For example, let's say we have this:

In the work place we would have this:

But we don't really want the font to move all over the place -.- instead of going frame by frame matching the position of the font, we just select the frame with the right position of the font, then we select the text layer and click on the unify layer position, then we will have this:

And our gif will change into this:

(now it wont have any animation, since every frame is the same)


"Unify Layer Visibility"
If activated, this option makes the layer selected keep the current state of visibility or invisibility in all frames.
For example, let's say we have this:

In the work place we have this:

But we want our text to be visible in all frames. We select the font layer (while visible) and activate the unify layer visibility option, like this:

and again we get the same gif with no animation, since all frames will be the same:



"Unify Layer Style"
If activated, this option make the layer selected keep the current style and opacity
For example, let's say we have this:

In the work place we have this:

But we want the font shadow to show in every frame u_u So, we activate the unify layer style, like this:

and again we get the same gif with no animation, since all frames will be the same:


Saving Gifs
So, now we finished our animation, and we are ready to save. Usually if it's a common graphic we just go to File > Save or Save As, but since this is an animation, and we want to save it .gif we have to go to File > Save for Web and Devices:

Then, is gonna open a big window with a bunch of options... I honestly only check 2:

The one on the left tells me how much does my gif weights (I always try to make them less than 1mb) and the one on the right is to make sure that the animation go 'forever' (Like I explained before... this time is just to make sure xD)

Conclusion and tips
Well, I hope that now you feel more confident working with gifs, it's actually pretty simple if you practice with them. Now I'm gonna list some general tips, not only for gifs but for graphic making in general

• SAVE ALL .PSD this is really important, because if later you want to make a change or you want to see how you did something or even if you want to SHOW someone how you did something, you can do it only if you have the .psd file. I can not stress enough how important this is
  
• Push all the buttons If you don't feel confident enough in photoshop (or any software) just open it and begin pressing buttons until something happens, really, that's how I learned what I know  i haven't taken any class, I'm just really curious
  
• TRY every tutorial That previous thing being said, I do enjoy replicating tutorials, even if I have my own way of doing things, it's always important to see if someone does it easier or better
  
• Practice, practice, practice this is self-explanatory  
  
• ASK if you have any doubt
  
• Resources are your best friend, keep a big collection
  

AAANNNNDDD WE ARE DONE     
I really hope that you have learned something out of all this  
And please excuse me if there is something that doesn't makes much sense or if isn't written as it should  my first language isn't english, and I'm not used to write this much  


[/justify]

#ag #agclass

thanks gurl <3

no problem hun  
I'll think about what else I can do a class/tutorial about  

Just one thing: Starting with CS6, the "Animation" window becomes the "Timeline" window.

but it's the same!

great class, btw! =D

Sailor Jupiter wrote:

Thank you for this amazing class! <3
you're so good with gifs, and even though you say they're easy, for me they're evil (?) >.<
I didn't know you could add a fade effect to them D: and lol, it's always a pleasure to see the DW cast in your tutorials  

I'm glad you like it  
gifs are not evil, I promise  you just have to understand them  
and I chose that DW gif and in the middle of the class I realized that I've used her for all both of my tutorials  I guess I just like her too much lol

Tuxedo Mistress wrote:

Just one thing: Starting with CS6, the "Animation" window becomes the "Timeline" window.

but it's the same!

great class, btw! =D

Ohh I didn't know that! Thanks!
I'll clarify that now