Animated Gif

I have decided to create an animated gif to go along side my book cover design. I propose to do this by asking my model to make a series of movements standing in one area. I will take a photo of each of these movements, and later put them together in Photoshop. The advantages/ disadvantages of making an animated gif are:

Simple, Effective, Can be looped or told to play ‘x’ number of times.

Used a lot within HTML web based pages.

Can be used to animate text on a webpage as well as images.

Really only designed for fairly small images, no higher than 600px otherwise playback can be slow.

Only has a maximum of 256 colours so can be limiting in detailed colour information

This information was sourced from image animation options on the VLE

Before I begin to create my gif I have set up a practice gif with my peeps and tutors based on Edward Muyerbridge’s Horse movement images. I have uploaded the final result onto my blog as a URL.

To create my stop motion in Photoshop, I began by uploading each individual horse image. After this process was done I then selected my first image I want for the animation and drew around it using the rectangular marquee tool. See image 1.

Image 1

After this process is carried out I then go to edit – copy. Image 2.

Image 2

I then go to file – new with will open a blank box. As I have used the rectangular marquee tool to draw round my first box, the new box should bring up another box the same size which is what I want. Image 3.

Image 3

I then click edit – paste. This should then copy the first image into this box. Image 4.

Image 4

I then repeat this process for all of the 12 images and then I can begin making my animation.

I firstly need to go to window – animation. All of the frames should be selected at this point. I do this by clicking on the first frame, hold down shift and then click on the bottom frame. They should then all appear highlighted. Image 5.

Image 5

This should then bring up the animation frames all together in the bottom left hand corner of your screen. Image 6.

Image 6

Now I am ready to play my animation. I do this by pressing the small triangle.

My animation can then be turned into a webpage or an MP4 movie. To this I simply to to file – save for web and devices. Image 7.

Image 7

It will then bring up the box shown in image 8 (shown below) and you are then able to save it however you please.

Image 8

After following this easy procedure I will apply my findings to my own animation.