Animating Images in Photoshop Tutorial
So, the lovely stubblehale asked me to make a tutorial, and well, how can I say no. So this is to show y’all my process for making something like this.
This will require some serious patience (seriously it can be super tedious the first time playing with these tools in photoshop). Mastery of what I call keyboard photoshop is really helpful here. Anyway, lets get started.
First of all you need to put together your final composition. The one I made here is pretty simple, but make sure that you are using shape layers and naming them as you go. For example I named each of my rectangle shapes based on where the are placed in the composition. Also, for the figures, I made all the adjustment layers (levels, brightness, gradient map etc.) and then I made them into a group and named after the characters contained, for example there is a “derek” group and the other one is called “sterek”. When naming things, it’s not important what you call them, just so long as you’ll remember it. Additionally, I created the type with each word on a different layer. Of course you won’t have to name that as they name themselves (thanks photoshop)
The other important thing here is using layer masks. Here I’ve used 3 masks that don’t have an effect on the final composition, but will be crucial in making this animation work. This is the point where you really want to start having an idea of what the animation will look like. By putting things all on separate layers, you’ve given yourself the most flexibility, but at this point, once you have everything where you want it, you’ll need to start making decisions about where things are going in the final product. This will determine where you place the masks. You can see the masks I’ve created here.
There is also a mask on the Sterek layer. Just to give you an idea, I wanted the bottom rectangle to look like it was sliding out from behind Derek, so I makes off everything to the right of him so that when it slides back into place it will only be visible on his left side. Also, it’s important to unlink the mask from the shape, that way you can move the object independently of the mask.
Ok, so once you have everything where you want it,you’ve planned what you think you want the animation to look like, and you’ve prepared any layer masks that may be needed for that, here is the fun part.
Open your timeline window (I think it used to be called animation in older versions of PS, I’m using CS6)
Now, with the move tool slide everything out of the image into the grey outside the frame. Make sure you move it in the direction you want it to come in from. This is where your layer masks will come in as well. For example the Sterek layer, I just moved it behind the mask I created so it looks like it’s sliding behind the white line at the top there. Same thing for the crown, I just moved it behind the mask. The only things that I left in the image were the rectangle on the bottom, and the word “king”. That one I actually just turned off the visibility of the layer.
At this point you should have a blank slate basically. At the bottom of your timeline window find the button that looks like a little earmarked post it note.Click it to duplicate your frame
When you’re done you should have this
2 empty frames.
Now, with the second frame selected, begin moving elements back into the image. like this.
Now some of the elements from the image are in the second frame, but not the first. The next thing is to tween them. Tween is the most important tool here, it’s how you will cause the shapes to move and not just appear suddenly without having to manually move each thing incrementally (and then hurling yourself off the nearest tall building, that would be AWFUL). The tween button is the one to the left of the sticky note one that looks like series of little circles fading in opacity. Select the first frame and then click tween.
These setting pretty much don’t change, with the exception of the number of frames to add. The more frames you add, the longer the animation (obviously) but also the smoother it will be. For this, I usually don’t mess with the frame delay very much (only for the last frame, or if I want something to be still for a few seconds before changing.)
Once you’ve done that, your timeline should look something like this,
See, photoshop just gradually moves the objects from how they appear in the first frame, to how they are in the second one.
Now, I like to have the objects kind of start off moving kind of fast and then slow down a bit before they stop. To do this, just select the second to last frame, and then tween again, this time with like 2 frames.
Once you are satisfied with this section of the animation, move on to the next elements that you want to appear in the image and repeat the process. If you want the next element to start sliding into place before the last one has stopped moving, you can make one tween’d (is that the word, I have no idea) section just have a part of the motion. Like move the line half way, tween, then with that last frame selected duplicate it and move it the rest of the way and move the next objects to where you want them ( forgot to take caps of that while I was making this and it’s kind of a huge pain to try and show anyway so I hope my explanation makes sense)
Also, if you don’t want the object to move but rather to fade into the image, the same thing applies, duplicate the last frame, but then rather than moving it into the image, you’ll just make the layer visible. That’s what I did with the word “king” here. Tweening will cause it to fade in slowly.
Anyway, once you’re done your frames should look like this
You’ll see the last frame has a frame delay of 2 seconds. Thats so that you can enjoy the final product for a bit before things start flying around again.
Optionally, you can actually have the whole process reverse itself. Simply duplicate the first empty frame and drag it all the way to the end and then tween it with your final image. All the pieces will fly back to where they were originally. You can also create a whole new “exit animation” where things go in a whole new direction. In this case you won’t duplicate the first frame, you’ll duplicate the last one and begin the process in reverse manually.
I hope this makes some sense. As with most things, the only way to really get a grasp is to practice. I recommend not starting with a complex composition. Try opening a blank canvas and dropping a few random shapes, and maybe some text into it and play around with moving them around in different ways. You can make all sorts of neat little animations with this and really add to the story you’re trying to tell with your image...
...or just do something fun to add interest to an image that might otherwise be kind of boring...
Hope this was helpful and if there are any steps that need clarification, or something I missed, just message me and I’ll try to explain