A lot of you were wondering how I made that animated image that you saw on this week’s Wordless Wednesday post, so I thought I would give you a quick explanation! Step right this way….
First off, I did not actually make it myself — my human did! I just posed for the photos. There are probably several different programs that do it, but since she has Photoshop, that is what she used. As you probably already know, there were five photographs. Usually, when you are going to make one of these images — they are called “Animated Gifs” — you put the camera on a tripod and do not move it. Well, my human did not realize she was going to do that when she started taking photos, and she was just lucky that she barely moved. Even so, she had to adjust the photos to make them better conform to each other. First she had to rotate the photos slightly so they were all at the same angle.
The next part was actually the hardest: my human had to crop each photo so that it was exactly the same size — and all the furniture was in the exact same place in each photo. She did not get it 100% right; as you can see in the end result, the photos jump a little bit, but she felt it was “good enough for blogging.”
Then she made a file that contained all the edited images, each one on a different layer.
Now onto the fun part — the animation! So my human opened up the Animation window…
Which opened up under the windows with the photos and layers. Using this window, you are able to determine which layers are active and how long they run. This was a very simple sequence, since it was just one photo at a time. She had each one run for 1 second, and set it to “forever,” which means it keeps running over and over again infinitely. When she was done, she saved it as a special kind of file called a “gif” (the majority of photographs are jpg, or jpeg files). That was it! And once again, here is the finished image.
My human was making animated gifs back in the late 1990s, when she first started building websites, so it’s really a very old technique. There’s a more sophisticated version of animated gifs called cinemagraphs, and you can see some samples here. My human wants to start experimenting with that, but she needs to get the latest Photoshop upgrade first.
See all of Summer’s merch at her Designercat Shop, available on Zazzle.
Very cool, but my Human had a similar reaction to Spitty’s! Too bad my Human can’t photoshop, we’re really missing out…(Maybe I should become Photoshop Cat???)
The gif was so cool – I think I missed commenting on that post, but it was a great one! I have a free photoshop-like program, and I’m not sure if it does gifs, but I’m going to use your tutorial and give it a go.
WOW–you’re human did that? You’re so lucky to have a talent human! My human Tommy right after “Animated”…..can I move to California and live with you guys? Your human can do things…
Noir
Make that “aFter”
Hi Sparkle. My Human’s brain a-sploded ater she readed one sentence but she wanted to say Hi anyway!
Sparkle
SOOOO cool!
purrs
>^,,^<
♥Abby♥Boo♥Ping♥Jinx♥Grace♥
We make our animations in PhotoShop Elements… just click Save for Web and it gives you the options to animate.
nice share.. and tell your human .. it’s nice shoot over ther 😆
Thats a cool thing ta do! Unfortunately, our Photoshop Elements 6 doesnt have that animation feature…
we definitely have to strong arm mama into buying photoshop 🙂
that is way too cool.
Hi Sparkle, thanks for stopping by to say hello! And thank you for the tutorial too… never knew that I could do that in Photoshop – will have to give it a go =^..^=
Those cinemagraphs had me fascinated too but I think they are beyond my skillset!! 🙂
Your human is very talented Sparkle! Our mommy was lost from the beginning but that’s okay, we’ll enjoy your animations!
Your human trumps ours on so many levels. Yours takes the time to properly prepare photo shoots and photos, even making you animated gifs. Ours barely even lets us blog or visit!
Holy cow Sparkle that was difficult!!! I have photoshop and can only do the most rudimentary things with it, I find it so complicated…I think I have to take a course.
Wow!!! Neato and interesting on how it’s done. Human mom don’t have PhotoShop.
This is all waaaayyy over TW’s head. She just learned how to do type in PhotoShop and work with .psd’s. Maybe in the year 2525, she’ll learn it.
Thanks for sharing Sparkle! We wants our mommy to try it now.
But she is pretty lame. How did yous get the human who rocks!
Kisses
Nellie
Yet another reason our Mommy is lame. NO PHOTOSHOP.
Your mom can really REALLY make use of a great program so that we can enjoy you and your fur siblings even more. xox
This is one thing I never knew how to do with Photoshop! I am definitely going to have to use your tutorial and give this a shot!
This is brilliant – thank you!!!
We thought it was very clever! The mom doesn’t think she can do that with only PhotoShop Elements, not sure. But she probably wouldn’t have the patience to try anyway! LOL.
So well done to your human, Sparkle!
your human is very clever indeed. My publicist is not so smart
That is so cool. It’s kind of you to share the how to 🙂
That was pretty cool, Sparkle! Thanks for showing us how it was done. But there’s no way our mom could ever figure it out even with your step by steps!! She’s so technologically challenged.
Wow – you has a really talented, smart ooman. That looks like a lot of work too.
That was a really good explanation. Our Mom tried to do that Photoshop but didn’t have the patience to really learn how to do it. But that sequence is so great. Good for your human Sparkle. That was fun. Have a great week end.
That’s really cool to know and to watch! Julie can’t wait to try some of the Photoshop techniques, once she gets it, that is, hehehe!
As always, you’re looking huggable, Sparkle!
Tom
xoxo
What a great instructional post. Love knowing how things work.
pawhugs, Max
“Good enough for blogging”. Hmm.
Very informative, Sparkle. Thanks for the tutorial.
That was way cool though and thanks for telling us the magic secret!
We would love mum to do that for us but we don’t know if she’ll have the patience – we’ll have to see.
Luv Hannah and Lucy xx xx
I have a question, since you’re doing q&a’s… how did you get to be SO bootiful? *swoon*