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This page updated:
September 05, 2006

Animated Gifs

Open the application "Adobe Photoshop." From Macintosh #2 in the FITC: Click on the Apple Menu () in the upper left-hand corner of the screen. A menu will appear: Pull the cursor down to select Applications and then select Graphics and then Adobe Photoshop from the list that appears to the right.

Click on File at the top of the screen and select New.

Click on Layer at the top of the screen and select New Layer.

You will need to add as many layers as frames in your animation.

By using the view button (the little eye) you can view each layer individually. Each layer will latter become a frame in the animation. Now we want to create the animation from the layers we have in photoshop. We now move over to Adobe Image Ready. Adobe Image Ready will allow us to export the layers as frames of animation in a animated gif. To do this Select File Jump To Adobe ImageReady

We now must create the frames as we want them to appear in our animation. And make the corresponding layer visible in each frame. Click on the Create new Frame button(view image below)

Create as many Frames as necessary.

Now we must make a layer visible in each corresponding frame, first select the frame and then make only the layer visible that corresponding to that frame in the layers window.

Our animation window should now look something like this.

Now you can set the length you would like each frame to appear on the screen. To do this click bellow the frames in the animation window where it says "0 sec" then select the time you want the frame to remain visible.

You may now preview you animation by pressing the play button if it looks good it is time to export it. Select File Save Optimized As

Save your gif. Under format select Images Only

Your gif is now complete and ready to be included in web pages. To preview your gif in Netscape Open Netscape and select File Open File and select the gif file you saved.

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