The Basic Animation video tutorial I released a few years ago has been one of the most popular videos on the site, consistently being in the top 5. In that video I demonstrate how to build up basic animated scenes in the full version of Photoshop using options and techniques such as the animation panel and tweening. In this tutorial things will be a trifle different – we’ll work in Photoshop Elements, we’ll make a block of text flash using a simpler technique, and we’ll use layers instead of a frame-based animation panel.
So first things first, take a look at the image below to get your head fully around what we’re going to create.
Create a New Document and Add the Text
To start us off I’d like you to create a new document (File > New) measuring 400 pixels in width and 200 in height. You can name the image whatever you like, all the other options should be left set to their defaults. Click OK.
Now activate the Type Tool from the toolbox on the left side of the screen. We want the type to be black so go ahead and press the letter ‘D’ on the keyboard to set the foreground and background colours to their default of black and white. Now go ahead and set the Type Tool up with the following options-
Now insert your cursor into the centre of the image and type ‘3photoshop’ or whatever you’d prefer. To centre align it, activate the type layer in the layers panel, grab the Move Tool, select the entire image by going to Select > All, and then using the Align button in the options bar (see below) to align the text vertically and horizontally. Now deselect the image by going to Select > Deselect.
Merge and Duplicate the Text
Now we’ll focus on the Layers Panel (Window > Layers) as we’re essentially creating a different layer for every frame contained in the animation, in this project we’ll create two frames but imagination is your limit.
Make sure the text layer is active and then go to Layer > Merge Down. This will flatten the image into just one layer. Now go to Layer > New > Layer Via Copy to duplicate it and follow good layer practice by naming them both. I’d suggest the bottom layer is named ‘Black’ and the top one ‘Orange’ or whatever colour you’re thinking to apply. By now your Layers Panel should look like the example below-
Re-colouring the Text
We now need to re-colour the orange layer to, well, orange! So make sure it’s active in the Layers Panel and open up the Hue/Saturation dialogue Box by going to Enhance > Adjust Colour > Adjust Hue/Saturation. If you want the same orange I apply then follow me, if you want to add your own colours feel free to experiment. To add orange apply the following values and toggles –
We now have two layers, or frames, we can use to create the animation. Nice going!
Previewing and Saving Flashing Effects
So we’ve got our raw frames, now we need to animate them. Go to File > Save for Web as all the good work we need doing now happens inside this one dialogue box. If you’re curious of how the final effect will look on screen then you’ll need to preview in a web browser as it’s not possible to view directly inside Photoshop Elements. The good news is it’s relatively easy to do once you’ve got things set up.
Locate the ‘Preview In’ option at the bottom of the dialogue box and click on the little icon, even if it’s displaying a question mark. That should open the graphic in your default browser, Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari etc. If you want to add another browser that’s available on your system you can use the down pointing arrow button and select ‘Other’ to find another browser to use, or ‘Edit’ to create a list of browsers for the future – really handy if you create animated files regularly.
Now we’ll turn our attention to the options on the right of the dialogue box, once again I’ve created an image to show you my exact settings but I’ll also guide you through the important ones so you get a sense of what’s happening.Preset – This must be set to GIF, as GIF is the only format offered that supports animation. Transparency can be off for this example but animate must be on. The colours should be set to whatever it requires to make the image look sharp and fluid. Too few colours and the image will display signs of jaggedness and rough transitions of colour, banding and worse. Too many colours and you’re wasting bytes and ending up with a larger sized file than necessary. You can judge for yourself the number of colours by keeping an eye on the right side image as you’re making changes to the settings.
Image Size – Since we are not changing the size of the image we can leave all these option as are.
Animation – Make sure loop is selected as this will ensure the frames roll continuously and don’t stop once they reach the end. The frame delay controls the time it takes the frame to move on to the next one; a value of 0.2 is good for our project. The playback controls underneath permit you to skip through the frames, check their quality and ensure everything’s alright.
Once you’re satisfied with the settings click OK to proceed to the saving dialogue box, find a suitable location on your hard drive, double check the file is being saved as a GIF and click save. You have successfully saved your first animated file inside Photoshop Elements, congratulations!
As mentioned before, I have a whole video tutorial called ‘Basic Animation’ that runs through the stuff you need to know for animating inside the full version of Photoshop, so if you’re interested check it out. In the meantime, I’d love to hear from you if you’re interested in this kind of stuff – animating in Photoshop Elements can be a lot of fun and I’m interested in writing some more.
Well as always, thanks for joining me and I hope you found this tutorial helpful.
