Animation is the process of creating the illusion of motion by rapidly displaying a series of static images in succession. The most common form of animation is known as “frame-by-frame animation,” which is used in both traditional hand-drawn animation and computer animation. With frame-by-frame animation, each frame or “key frame” is drawn by hand, then scanned into the computer where it can be edited onscreen.
The first step in creating any frame-by-frame animation is to sketch out your idea in a storyboard format. This will give you a good idea of what your final animation will look like and help you plan out the individual frames.
Once you have your storyboard, you can start drawing the individual frames. If you’re animating on paper, you’ll want to use a lightbox to help keep your drawings in register. If you’re animating on the computer, you can use a software program like Adobe Photoshop to create your frames.
To create a frame-by-frame animation in Photoshop, you’ll first need to create a timeline. To do this, go to Window > Timeline.
This will open up the timeline panel on the right side of your screen. Next, click on the “Create Frame Animation” button at the bottom of the timeline panel. This will create a new layer for each frame of your animation.
Now that you have your timeline set up, you can begin creating your frames. To do this, simply select the layer for the frame you want to work on and begin drawing or adding images.
You can also add text or other effects to each frame if desired. Once you’re happy with a frame, click on the “Next Frame” button at the bottom of the timeline panel to advance to the next frame. Repeat this process until all of your frames are complete.
Once you have all of your frames created, it’s time to add some movement. To do this, select the layer for the first frame of your animation and click on the “Tweens” button at the bottom of the timeline panel.
This will open up a menu of different tween types. Select the type of tween you want to use and then click on the “OK” button.
Now that your tween is set up, you can preview your animation by clicking on the “Play” button at the bottom of the timeline panel. If everything looks good, you can save your animation as a GIF file by going to File > Export > Save for Web (Legacy).
In the save dialogue box that opens up, select “GIF” from the format drop-down menu and then click on the “Save” button. That’s it! You’ve now created a basic animated GIF in Photoshop!
Animation is a great way to add some interest and interactivity to your web projects. By following these simple steps, you can easily create basic animations using Photoshop
