Simple Blinking Animation
December 31, 2009
1. Open a new blank document of 200x200 pixels with 72dpi and make your own necessary elements for your banner, e.g. background, images, text. Here are layers of my elements which we will use for this tutorial. I aligned these elements according to my desired position.
2. So we have five layers to work with. To start the animation, open first the Animation window. Go to menu Window>Animation. And by default, this window will display:
3. What we do next is to set layers in accordance with the desired blinking process. Click the duplicates selected frames icon and this is referred to as the frame #2.
4. Click on the first frame to select it. We set all the layers visible. This means that on the first display, the banner shows up with complete elements.
5. Now, select the second frame. On the Layers palette, turn off the visibility eye for the two text layers. Meaning they are hidden and will not show up in the second frame.
6. Duplicate the second frame by clicking again the duplicates selected frames icon. Turn on the visibility eye for the lower hidden text layer while the other remains turn off. This means that on the third display, this text layer will show up.
7. From the third frame, make a duplicate for the forth frame. This time turn on the visibility eye for the hidden layer. You can see now that all layers are now visible.
8. Duplicate the forth frame for the fifth and last frame. This time turn off all the three text layers showing only the background and the image.
9. So, we are done setting up all the frames needed. This time we set for the time delay for each frame. The frame delay time can be set by clicking the small arrow down as being shown below. From the options, click Other. You can select from the time options but if you prefer other time not listed in the options, choose Other. On the window display, type 1.5; it means the time delay for the first frame is 1.5 second. Set the frame delay for 1.5 second for rest of the frames.
9. So, we are done setting up all the frames needed. This time we set for the time delay for each frame. The frame delay time can be set by clicking the small arrow down as being shown below. From the options, click Other. You can select from the time options but if you prefer other time not listed in the options, choose Other. On the window display, type 1.5; it means the time delay for the first frame is 1.5 second. Set the frame delay for 1.5 second for rest of the frames.
10. Ok, now let us try to play the animation. Click the Plays Animation button.
....and look what we have now! This could be a good start. You can now make your own, too for your blogs and websites.
11. We're not done yet. We have to save our work, of course. Go to File>Save for Web & Devices. On the window, make sure that the GIF is selected. Click Save. Then save now in your filename.
DONE! This simple animation tutorial in Photoshop only shows the basic. With the same basic steps, here are some of my finished rotating banners and blinkies:
