You can also make your animation loop Once or as many time as you specify under Other: If you want your animation to loop continuously, make sure Forever is showing in the drop-down menu at the bottom left corner of the Animation palette. Your Animation palette will now show all four layers as animation frames: When you are done making changes, click on the Animation palette fly-out menu in the top-right corner (circled in RED) and select Make Frames from Layers: Now, make any changes you want to your individual frame layers.
You should just have your four frames now: You can go ahead an delete that Smart Object layer by clicking on it and dragging it to the trash can icon on the bottom right corner of the Layers palette. Now your Animation palette will show frames instead of a timeline: This takes your animation and breaks it up into 4 separate layers that you can now see in the Layers palette:Ĭlick on the Animation palette fly-out menu in the top-right corner (circled in RED) and select Convert to Frame Animation: Your Animation palette will appear in Timeline display:Ĭlick on the Animation palette fly-out menu in the top-right corner (circled in RED) and select Flatten Frames into Layers: Next open the Animation palette by going to the Window menu and selecting Animation:
In the Layers palette, instead of a "background" layer, you will see a "Smart Object" layer: If it isn't, go up to the Window menu and select Layers. Make sure your Layers palette is also showing. In the Open dialog box that appears, navigate to the animation ( animation.gif), click on it once to highlight it, and then down at the bottom of the dialog box in the Format drop-down menu, select QuickTime Movie. Instead, go to the File menu and select Open As Smart Object: When you Open the animation, in this case animation.gif, don't just double-click on it to open it in Photoshop.
If you want to follow along with this tutorial, you can download the animated ad above ( animation.gif) by clicking on it and dragging it to your desktop (Mac) or by right-clicking it and saving it (Windows). What if I wanted to make the background color different for each frame but lost the original layered file? Fortunately, there is a workaround. This is the animated ad created in the tutorial, Create an Animated Ad or Gif Animation: gif support so that animations can be opened with layers and settings intact.)īut what if you don't have this layered file? What if all you have is the animated ad or gif animation file?
( NOTE: Adobe Photoshop CS5 and later version now have full animated. This is why it is essential that you keep the layered file used to make your animated ad or gif animation so that you can remake the animation later if you want to change it. When you open an animated ad or gif animation in Photoshop CS3 or CS4, you will see just the first frame, no layers and it will not animate. (This tip was written for Photoshop CS3 and CS4 users)