Create an Animated Gif in CS3.

Hi all,

Ever since the demise of imageready which was part of CS2, I have wondered how to create animated Gif images using CS3 Photoshop. I have figured it out and below is a basic tutorial, enjoy -

First step is to load up all the seperate images in your animation as layers, in order, with the first image in the animation at the bottom.



Next, hold down the Alt key and click on the "EyeCon" of the first image or layer at the bottom, this will show just that layer and this is our first frame of the sequence. Now go up to "Window" in the menu bar and open the "Animation" window, after the window has opened you should see your first layer you have visible loaded as the first frame. For my animation I wanted to include a white background, so throughout the sequence I will have the white background always selected, as well as another layer as I build the animation.



Above you can see the animation window open, and the first frame of the sequence has loaded using the layers that were selected. Next we want to set the time for each frame, and this is done by clicking at the bottom of frame 1 in the animation window, this will pop up a small menu showing time in seconds, choose one or you can enter the time for the frame manually by selecting "Other". Now go to the top right of the animation window and click on the little arrow, which activates the pop up window, and select "New Frame. Next step is to head back to the layers palette and turn off the layer we just used for frame 1, by clicking on the "EyeCon" then turn on the next layer in the sequence for frame 2 by clicking on its "EyeCon". This will put the contents of the second layer in the sequence into frame 2.



The time for this frame will be copied over from the first frame, but it can be changed individually if you like. From here you repeat the above procedure until you have a frame for each of the layers in your sequence, you can hit the "Play" button at anytime to test out the animation. Below is my animation sequence complete with all frames created.



Once you are happy with the order and time settings of the frames, hit SHFT+ALT+CMD+S to open Save for Web, and it should have automatically changed the file type to Gif, ready to be saved.

Thats about it, nice and simple, and without the use of Imageready, hope I have made it clear enough to understand.

Very nice. Although it seems like an arduous process.

Is there an easier way?

Great thread, thanks. I love step-by-step documentation. It helps a lot.

Great tutorial! Thanks for this!

jotdess said:

Very nice. Although it seems like an arduous process.

Click to expand...

MacBurg said:

Is there an easier way?

Click to expand...

At the part where you add a new frame, instead of selecting "New Frame" select "Make Frames From Layers."

Gene said:

At the part where you add a new frame, instead of selecting "New Frame" select "Make Frames From Layers."

Click to expand...

Thanks, I have since noticed this feature and use it for animations where you only require one frame per layer, and you have the layers set in order. However, some of the larger animated banners I create have many layers of varying opacity, which get used many times throughout the sequence. To deal with this I simply created a quick action that creates a new frame simply by pressing f8, saves a bit of time fiddling with the menu to access "New Frame", especially when you have over 60 frames in an animation.