Mini Movie Tutorial
Program(s): KMPlayer, Photoshop 7, ImageReady 7
Involves: Screen-capping and animation
Translatable: I'm not sure but let me know if it is.
Steps: 10 but it also includes a mini screen-capping tutorial
Difficulty: Easy to Medium
We're going to be making the following icon:
1. Firstly, you need to make screencaps of the scene you want to icon. There are a variety of programs you can use for this: KMPlayer, PowerDVD, VirtualDub, Windows Movie Maker. I tend to use KMPlayer as it plays and caps practically all formats, including DVD's.
Here's a short tutorial on how to cap using KMPlayer:
a) Open up your video clip and then drag the slider along to the point you want to screencap from. Hit the Pause button and then right-click to bring up the Menu.
b) From the Menu, select Capture and then Extract. (Note: If you've got an older version of the program, you might not find Extract listed. If so, look for Advanced Capture and select that instead.)
(Click on the thumbnail)
c) A pop-up box will come up and in that you can enter your preferred settings as well as selecting the folder you want your caps to be saved in. In the screenshot below you'll see the settings I use which I actually found in This Tutorial and I find they work fine for what I want to do.
(Click on thumbnail)
d) Press Start on the Capture box and then press Play on the actual player so that the clip starts playing. The program will start capping the scene and as soon as you've arrived at the point you want it to stop capping, hit the Pause button on first the player and then on the pop-up box.
e) You should now find all your screencaps in the folder you selected in Step 3 and now you can import them into ImageReady, ready to start making your mini movie icon.
The more screencaps you make, the larger the finished file size is going to be so try and have as few caps as possible.
Make sure all your screencaps are saved in one folder.
Before we start, here's a general screencap of ImageReady for anyone unfamiliar with it:
(Click on thumbnail)
2. Open up ImageReady and select File - Import - Folder as Frames. Select the folder where you saved your screencaps and then click on OK.
You should find that ImageReady has opened the caps onto the screen and you should be able to see them in the animation window. Pressing the 'play arrow' on the window will then play you the ‘mini movie’ from your screencaps so you can check how it looks and if it's working.
3. Now you need to crop the frames to whatever size you want. I find the smaller you crop, the more frames will fit under LJ's 40kb icon limit and I tend to select either 70x45 or 60x50. It's up to you though what size you want your overall animation to be.
Firstly, in the crop window, enter the size you want to crop to and make sure that 'Fixed Size' is ticked. Next, using the Crop Tool, select the area you want to crop and then go to Image - Crop.
(Click on thumbnail)
Press the play button again to check all the detail you want is still there. If it isn't, go to Edit - Undo Crop and do it again.
4. The next step involves improving the animation's colouring and to do this I use adjustment layers. Click on the Edit in Photoshop button which automatically opens your frames in Photoshop and then on the bottom of your layers palette, click on the little black and white circle. You can now select whichever adjustment layers you want to use to lighten/colour the animation. For this particular icon, I used Levels, Brightness/Contrast and a Curves layer.
This is also the time I sharpen the frames. Rather than go to Filter - Sharpen - Sharpen and then Edit - Fade Sharpen, I select the Sharpen Tool at a strength of around 25-30% and a large round brush - around 200px - and then in the layers palette, I highlight each individual frame and stamp once on the icon. (The Sharpen Tool can be found by right-clicking on the Blur or Smudge Tool if those are the ones already selected.)
5. Click on the Edit in ImageReady button (which is in the same place as the Edit in Photoshop button in IR) and the frames are then transferred with their changes into ImageReady. At this point, I then save the file. Remember, all animated files must be saved as a .gif otherwise they won't work.
When saving, you need to use the Optimize window which is at the top-right of the screen and these are the settings I use for my animations:
For the colours, you'll see I've selected '128' and not '256'. I find using '128' makes it easier to keep everything under 40kb and the quality doesn't seem too affected. If you're using very few frames, you'll probably find you can use '256' and keep it under 40kb.
To save the animation, go to File - Save Optimized As. This will save it as a .gif file.
Once it's saved, close the animation and make sure it's also closed in Photoshop.
Still in ImageReady, open the animation you've just saved and you'll see that the adjustment layers aren't there now. Don't worry, that's how it should be and you'll see that the animation still has the colouring you saved it with.
Click on the Edit in Photoshop button and now we can add a background, border, etc.
6. On the bottom of the layer palette, click on the 'Create a new layer' button (it's next to the black/white adjustment layer button) twice so you've got two new layers above your last frame. Making sure that new layer is highlighted, fill it with white and then, highlighting the layer above that, press Ctrl+A to select all and then go to Edit - Stroke and in the box that pops up, select 1px, black and 'Inside', then click on OK.
Go to Select - Deselect to get rid of the marching ants.
7. Now we need to link all the frames and to do that, go right to the bottom of your layer palette and highlight the very first frame. Click in the middle boxes so that the little chain links appear; do this for every single frame in the palette.
(Click on thumbnail)
8. Go to File - New and create a new 100px x 100px document. Make sure the resolution is 72. I tend to choose 'White' but you can choose 'Transparent' if you prefer not to see the background. Alternatively, after you've created the new document, you can add a new layer and use a texture/pattern as your background.
Making sure you've got the very first frame of your animation highlighted and that you've selected the Move Tool, drag the animation into your new 100x100 document. You can use the cursor keys to shift the frames to exactly where you want them to be but the main thing is they should all move together.
Once you're happy with the positioning, click on the Edit in ImageReady button and you'll see the new document transferred but it'll look like it has only one layer. Click on the little arrow on the right-hand side of the animation window and when the menu pops up, select Make Frames From Layers. Click on the little arrow again but this time choose Select All Frames and if the background layer isn't showing for all your frames, go over to your layer palette and click on the little eye beside the background layer and then click it again. It should now show up for all of the frames in the animation window.
While you've still got everything selected in the animation window, scroll up the layer palette and make sure you click the eye beside the final frame which is the 'border' frame.
Okay, now in the animation window, select the very first frame (the white background one) by clicking on it and then click on the Delete button (the little trash can symbol). Scroll to the end of the animation window and click on the final frame (the border one) and delete that as well.
9. What you need to do now is click on the last but one frame, ie. the last frame of your scene before the white+border frame. (See screenshot below if it's unclear.)
(Click on thumbnail)
Next, click on the Tween button and enter the following settings:
(Click on thumbnail)
You'll see you've now got two new frames in between the final frame of your scene and the white/border frame.
Now you can play around with the timing of your animation. If my last frame hasn't got any text, I usually set it for around 0.6 seconds. (If it does have text, I set it for about 1.0.)
Click on the last frame in your animation window and click on the small arrow beside 0.sec and a menu will pop up. If what you want isn't there, click on Other and type in what you want.
For the 'tweened' frames, I usually set those at 0.06 seconds. Hold down the Shift key and select those frames and select/type in what you want their setting to be.
For the other frames, I've set them at 0.13 seconds. It can vary though depending on your PC so play around with it until you're happy with how it looks.
10. Now all that's left to do is save it. Before you do so, you need to check that it's under 40kb and to do this, click on the Optimize tab. The information at the bottom of the screen will tell you if the size is fine or if it's too big. If it's too big, you'll need to delete one or more frames in order to get it under 40kb.
(Click on thumbnail)
To save it, make sure the settings are the same as before (see Screenshot 3) and then go to File - Save Optimized As.
That's it! I'm sure there are easier, simpler ways of making mini movie icons but this is how I've been making them for a while now and it's what I'm comfortable with.
If anyone has any questions, please feel free to ask and I'll do my best to answer them.
Involves: Screen-capping and animation
Translatable: I'm not sure but let me know if it is.
Steps: 10 but it also includes a mini screen-capping tutorial
Difficulty: Easy to Medium
We're going to be making the following icon:
1. Firstly, you need to make screencaps of the scene you want to icon. There are a variety of programs you can use for this: KMPlayer, PowerDVD, VirtualDub, Windows Movie Maker. I tend to use KMPlayer as it plays and caps practically all formats, including DVD's.
Here's a short tutorial on how to cap using KMPlayer:
a) Open up your video clip and then drag the slider along to the point you want to screencap from. Hit the Pause button and then right-click to bring up the Menu.
b) From the Menu, select Capture and then Extract. (Note: If you've got an older version of the program, you might not find Extract listed. If so, look for Advanced Capture and select that instead.)
(Click on the thumbnail)
c) A pop-up box will come up and in that you can enter your preferred settings as well as selecting the folder you want your caps to be saved in. In the screenshot below you'll see the settings I use which I actually found in This Tutorial and I find they work fine for what I want to do.
(Click on thumbnail)
d) Press Start on the Capture box and then press Play on the actual player so that the clip starts playing. The program will start capping the scene and as soon as you've arrived at the point you want it to stop capping, hit the Pause button on first the player and then on the pop-up box.
e) You should now find all your screencaps in the folder you selected in Step 3 and now you can import them into ImageReady, ready to start making your mini movie icon.
The more screencaps you make, the larger the finished file size is going to be so try and have as few caps as possible.
Make sure all your screencaps are saved in one folder.
Before we start, here's a general screencap of ImageReady for anyone unfamiliar with it:
(Click on thumbnail)
2. Open up ImageReady and select File - Import - Folder as Frames. Select the folder where you saved your screencaps and then click on OK.
You should find that ImageReady has opened the caps onto the screen and you should be able to see them in the animation window. Pressing the 'play arrow' on the window will then play you the ‘mini movie’ from your screencaps so you can check how it looks and if it's working.
3. Now you need to crop the frames to whatever size you want. I find the smaller you crop, the more frames will fit under LJ's 40kb icon limit and I tend to select either 70x45 or 60x50. It's up to you though what size you want your overall animation to be.
Firstly, in the crop window, enter the size you want to crop to and make sure that 'Fixed Size' is ticked. Next, using the Crop Tool, select the area you want to crop and then go to Image - Crop.
(Click on thumbnail)
Press the play button again to check all the detail you want is still there. If it isn't, go to Edit - Undo Crop and do it again.
4. The next step involves improving the animation's colouring and to do this I use adjustment layers. Click on the Edit in Photoshop button which automatically opens your frames in Photoshop and then on the bottom of your layers palette, click on the little black and white circle. You can now select whichever adjustment layers you want to use to lighten/colour the animation. For this particular icon, I used Levels, Brightness/Contrast and a Curves layer.
This is also the time I sharpen the frames. Rather than go to Filter - Sharpen - Sharpen and then Edit - Fade Sharpen, I select the Sharpen Tool at a strength of around 25-30% and a large round brush - around 200px - and then in the layers palette, I highlight each individual frame and stamp once on the icon. (The Sharpen Tool can be found by right-clicking on the Blur or Smudge Tool if those are the ones already selected.)
5. Click on the Edit in ImageReady button (which is in the same place as the Edit in Photoshop button in IR) and the frames are then transferred with their changes into ImageReady. At this point, I then save the file. Remember, all animated files must be saved as a .gif otherwise they won't work.
When saving, you need to use the Optimize window which is at the top-right of the screen and these are the settings I use for my animations:
For the colours, you'll see I've selected '128' and not '256'. I find using '128' makes it easier to keep everything under 40kb and the quality doesn't seem too affected. If you're using very few frames, you'll probably find you can use '256' and keep it under 40kb.
To save the animation, go to File - Save Optimized As. This will save it as a .gif file.
Once it's saved, close the animation and make sure it's also closed in Photoshop.
Still in ImageReady, open the animation you've just saved and you'll see that the adjustment layers aren't there now. Don't worry, that's how it should be and you'll see that the animation still has the colouring you saved it with.
Click on the Edit in Photoshop button and now we can add a background, border, etc.
6. On the bottom of the layer palette, click on the 'Create a new layer' button (it's next to the black/white adjustment layer button) twice so you've got two new layers above your last frame. Making sure that new layer is highlighted, fill it with white and then, highlighting the layer above that, press Ctrl+A to select all and then go to Edit - Stroke and in the box that pops up, select 1px, black and 'Inside', then click on OK.
Go to Select - Deselect to get rid of the marching ants.
7. Now we need to link all the frames and to do that, go right to the bottom of your layer palette and highlight the very first frame. Click in the middle boxes so that the little chain links appear; do this for every single frame in the palette.
(Click on thumbnail)
8. Go to File - New and create a new 100px x 100px document. Make sure the resolution is 72. I tend to choose 'White' but you can choose 'Transparent' if you prefer not to see the background. Alternatively, after you've created the new document, you can add a new layer and use a texture/pattern as your background.
Making sure you've got the very first frame of your animation highlighted and that you've selected the Move Tool, drag the animation into your new 100x100 document. You can use the cursor keys to shift the frames to exactly where you want them to be but the main thing is they should all move together.
Once you're happy with the positioning, click on the Edit in ImageReady button and you'll see the new document transferred but it'll look like it has only one layer. Click on the little arrow on the right-hand side of the animation window and when the menu pops up, select Make Frames From Layers. Click on the little arrow again but this time choose Select All Frames and if the background layer isn't showing for all your frames, go over to your layer palette and click on the little eye beside the background layer and then click it again. It should now show up for all of the frames in the animation window.
While you've still got everything selected in the animation window, scroll up the layer palette and make sure you click the eye beside the final frame which is the 'border' frame.
Okay, now in the animation window, select the very first frame (the white background one) by clicking on it and then click on the Delete button (the little trash can symbol). Scroll to the end of the animation window and click on the final frame (the border one) and delete that as well.
9. What you need to do now is click on the last but one frame, ie. the last frame of your scene before the white+border frame. (See screenshot below if it's unclear.)
(Click on thumbnail)
Next, click on the Tween button and enter the following settings:
(Click on thumbnail)
You'll see you've now got two new frames in between the final frame of your scene and the white/border frame.
Now you can play around with the timing of your animation. If my last frame hasn't got any text, I usually set it for around 0.6 seconds. (If it does have text, I set it for about 1.0.)
Click on the last frame in your animation window and click on the small arrow beside 0.sec and a menu will pop up. If what you want isn't there, click on Other and type in what you want.
For the 'tweened' frames, I usually set those at 0.06 seconds. Hold down the Shift key and select those frames and select/type in what you want their setting to be.
For the other frames, I've set them at 0.13 seconds. It can vary though depending on your PC so play around with it until you're happy with how it looks.
10. Now all that's left to do is save it. Before you do so, you need to check that it's under 40kb and to do this, click on the Optimize tab. The information at the bottom of the screen will tell you if the size is fine or if it's too big. If it's too big, you'll need to delete one or more frames in order to get it under 40kb.
(Click on thumbnail)
To save it, make sure the settings are the same as before (see Screenshot 3) and then go to File - Save Optimized As.
That's it! I'm sure there are easier, simpler ways of making mini movie icons but this is how I've been making them for a while now and it's what I'm comfortable with.
If anyone has any questions, please feel free to ask and I'll do my best to answer them.