Silent Film Tutorial
Making this: 
in PS7.
I'm not going to go over the animation aspects of the tut, as there are plenty of mini-movie tutorials already, and I'm sure the authors of those tutorials did a better job than I could. ;) You need to know how to screencap, how to use the animation program of your choice, and how to use layers in PS.
Making a Silent Film Icon
Step 1 - Screencap
Start by screencapping the scene you want. Since silent films had a slightly jerky look to them, cap every 5 frames or so. Plan for your animation to have at the most about 14 frames, including titles and intertitles. Now go to PS.
Side note: you probably want black and white or sepia tones for your icon, I chose black and white. To get a sepia tone throughout, desaturate your image, then go to Image > Adjustments > Variations. Set your Midtones to More Red and More Yellow, set your Highlights to More Yellow, and hit Less Saturation once or twice.
Step 2 - Titles and Intertitles
First, you're going to need a title and some intertitle frames. (Intertitles are the text card inserts.) Many silent films didn't use ornate borders like I did, but if you want a quaint rather than authentic look, you can use this border:
which I made from an istockimage.com pic, or make your own. Try a google search for ornate border, see what you find. If anyone would like to know specifically how I made the border, ask in the comments. Otherwise, let's move on.
Create a white (#ffffff) text layer on top of the border and make your title. A good font to use is Nickelodeon, which was based on silent films. Otherwise any legible, serif font will work. I used Sylfaen 8.5 pt on the intertitle frames and 2 different Star Wars fonts for the title. Set the text on Sharp or Strong, whichever looks best to you. To sum up, my settings look like this:
and I got this:
Title:
Intertitle:
Step 3 - Dust and Scratches
If you like, add this texture by Shattered Elegance (thanks for the info, guys). It gives it an old look.
Paste it on top of your border and text layers, set it to Screen at 70% opacity.
I got this:
Save your title and intertitle frames for web (alt + shift + ctrl + s) as jpegs at medium or high quality.
Step 4 - The Screecap Frames
Old movies always had black or white fuzzy edging. Open a new 100x100 transparent image. Make your foreground color black (#000000),
take the soft 27 px brush,
and paint around the edges, rounding the corners. Like so:
Open your first screencap. Filter > Sharpen once, and desaturate once (ctrl + shift + u). Don't forget to go to View > Print Size so you see how large the image really is, then resize the image (Image > Image Size, select Constrain Proportions) so the part you want to look at will fit into a 100x100 image.
Click on the Rectangular Marquee tool
and set it on Fixed Size width 100 px, height 100px.
Click anywhere on your image and move the selection box to the area you want capped.
Copy the selected area (ctrl c) and paste it (ctrl v) onto your fuzzy border. Move the layer down so it's beneath the border you painted. Do not close the original screencap.
Now the complicated part. The fuzzy border + screencap image you just made will be your base, hang onto it.
Step 5 - The Complicated Part
If you're not planning on using a lot of frames for your animation, you might want to make the images look a little grainy, to get an old movie feel. (If you're using more than 6 or so frames, you'll get graininess anyway when you optimize it down to 40 kb, so don't bother.) There are several ways to do this. You can go to Filter > Noise > Dust and Scratches, or Filter > Artistic > Film Grain, or you can try adding your own custom lines (like in this wonderful tutorial). To get the same nifty looking scratches we had before, you can just use the same texture we used before, which is what I did. Copy and paste it on the base, make it the top layer, set it to Screen 70% again.
I have this:
Old films frequently had a washed out, too bright look. We're going to copy that look to a certain extent. Create a fill layer of white on top of your image but below the scratch texture layer and the fuzzy border layer, set it to Softlight 100% opacity. Create a second fill layer of white on top of that, set it to Softlight 10% opacity. Create a third fill layer of white on top of that, also set this one to Softlight 10% opacity.
If your image looks too washed out you can play with the opacity of the first white layer until it looks good, but keep in mind we won't be using the second and third white layers for every frame. Now your first frame is done, save it for web (alt + shift + ctrl + s) as a jpeg at medium or high quality, in the same folder where you saved the title and intertitle frames. Don't close the image, though, and don't flatten the layers.
Step 6 - Rinse, Repeat
Now open your second screencap. Resize it to the same size as your first screencap, sharpen, desaturate. Select the whole thing (ctrl + a), copy it, and paste it on top of the first screencap. Hit ctrl + shift + d (or go to Select > Reselect), this should reselect the 100x100 area you had selected before. Like so:
Copy the selected part, paste it into your base above the first image but below the white, fuzzy border, and scratch texture layers.
The point of the second and third white layers is old movies also had a sort of flashing effect to the lighting in them. For your second frame, hide one of the 10% opacity layers. For sequential frames, use a different combination of the three white layers and you'll have a flashing light effect in your animation.
Now save this one for web. Once you have all your frames saved this way, you're ready to import to your animation program. I set the title and intertitle frame rates at around 3 secs and the image frames at .25 sec. When you use your program's version of an optimization wizard to get it down to 40 kb, leave the dithering set pretty high, it makes a big difference in black and white images. If you can keep at least 17 colors in your image, you'll have a nicy grainy effect without too much deterioration in quality.
The End :D
in PS7.
I'm not going to go over the animation aspects of the tut, as there are plenty of mini-movie tutorials already, and I'm sure the authors of those tutorials did a better job than I could. ;) You need to know how to screencap, how to use the animation program of your choice, and how to use layers in PS.
Making a Silent Film Icon
Step 1 - Screencap
Start by screencapping the scene you want. Since silent films had a slightly jerky look to them, cap every 5 frames or so. Plan for your animation to have at the most about 14 frames, including titles and intertitles. Now go to PS.
Side note: you probably want black and white or sepia tones for your icon, I chose black and white. To get a sepia tone throughout, desaturate your image, then go to Image > Adjustments > Variations. Set your Midtones to More Red and More Yellow, set your Highlights to More Yellow, and hit Less Saturation once or twice.
Step 2 - Titles and Intertitles
First, you're going to need a title and some intertitle frames. (Intertitles are the text card inserts.) Many silent films didn't use ornate borders like I did, but if you want a quaint rather than authentic look, you can use this border:
which I made from an istockimage.com pic, or make your own. Try a google search for ornate border, see what you find. If anyone would like to know specifically how I made the border, ask in the comments. Otherwise, let's move on.
Create a white (#ffffff) text layer on top of the border and make your title. A good font to use is Nickelodeon, which was based on silent films. Otherwise any legible, serif font will work. I used Sylfaen 8.5 pt on the intertitle frames and 2 different Star Wars fonts for the title. Set the text on Sharp or Strong, whichever looks best to you. To sum up, my settings look like this:
and I got this:
Title:
Intertitle:
Step 3 - Dust and Scratches
If you like, add this texture by Shattered Elegance (thanks for the info, guys). It gives it an old look.
Paste it on top of your border and text layers, set it to Screen at 70% opacity.
I got this:
Save your title and intertitle frames for web (alt + shift + ctrl + s) as jpegs at medium or high quality.
Step 4 - The Screecap Frames
Old movies always had black or white fuzzy edging. Open a new 100x100 transparent image. Make your foreground color black (#000000),
take the soft 27 px brush,
and paint around the edges, rounding the corners. Like so:
Open your first screencap. Filter > Sharpen once, and desaturate once (ctrl + shift + u). Don't forget to go to View > Print Size so you see how large the image really is, then resize the image (Image > Image Size, select Constrain Proportions) so the part you want to look at will fit into a 100x100 image.
Click on the Rectangular Marquee tool
and set it on Fixed Size width 100 px, height 100px.
Click anywhere on your image and move the selection box to the area you want capped.
Copy the selected area (ctrl c) and paste it (ctrl v) onto your fuzzy border. Move the layer down so it's beneath the border you painted. Do not close the original screencap.
Now the complicated part. The fuzzy border + screencap image you just made will be your base, hang onto it.
Step 5 - The Complicated Part
If you're not planning on using a lot of frames for your animation, you might want to make the images look a little grainy, to get an old movie feel. (If you're using more than 6 or so frames, you'll get graininess anyway when you optimize it down to 40 kb, so don't bother.) There are several ways to do this. You can go to Filter > Noise > Dust and Scratches, or Filter > Artistic > Film Grain, or you can try adding your own custom lines (like in this wonderful tutorial). To get the same nifty looking scratches we had before, you can just use the same texture we used before, which is what I did. Copy and paste it on the base, make it the top layer, set it to Screen 70% again.
I have this:
Old films frequently had a washed out, too bright look. We're going to copy that look to a certain extent. Create a fill layer of white on top of your image but below the scratch texture layer and the fuzzy border layer, set it to Softlight 100% opacity. Create a second fill layer of white on top of that, set it to Softlight 10% opacity. Create a third fill layer of white on top of that, also set this one to Softlight 10% opacity.
If your image looks too washed out you can play with the opacity of the first white layer until it looks good, but keep in mind we won't be using the second and third white layers for every frame. Now your first frame is done, save it for web (alt + shift + ctrl + s) as a jpeg at medium or high quality, in the same folder where you saved the title and intertitle frames. Don't close the image, though, and don't flatten the layers.
Step 6 - Rinse, Repeat
Now open your second screencap. Resize it to the same size as your first screencap, sharpen, desaturate. Select the whole thing (ctrl + a), copy it, and paste it on top of the first screencap. Hit ctrl + shift + d (or go to Select > Reselect), this should reselect the 100x100 area you had selected before. Like so:
Copy the selected part, paste it into your base above the first image but below the white, fuzzy border, and scratch texture layers.
The point of the second and third white layers is old movies also had a sort of flashing effect to the lighting in them. For your second frame, hide one of the 10% opacity layers. For sequential frames, use a different combination of the three white layers and you'll have a flashing light effect in your animation.
Now save this one for web. Once you have all your frames saved this way, you're ready to import to your animation program. I set the title and intertitle frame rates at around 3 secs and the image frames at .25 sec. When you use your program's version of an optimization wizard to get it down to 40 kb, leave the dithering set pretty high, it makes a big difference in black and white images. If you can keep at least 17 colors in your image, you'll have a nicy grainy effect without too much deterioration in quality.
The End :D