Animated tutorial!
How to go from
Here:
to here:
Programs Used:Photoshop CS5
Notes: This is a fairly complex tutorial. But if you’re good at following directions, even a beginner should be able to do this. I suggested following along with the same base I used, and then once you understand it, apply it to a base of your own choosing. This sort of animation is useful if you want to make anything glow….stars, lights, candles…ect.
Step 1:
First off, we want to make sure we are properly set up to do stuff. So if don’t already have the layers tool open, go up to “window” and check mark “layers”
Now that we have our layers open, hit “shift+ctrl+n” (all at the same time…or just go up to “layer” at the top, then “new” and then ”layer”) and hit OK to open a new layer.
Now that we have a new layer click on the new layer to select it, hit the little half-filled circle thing, and select “solid color”
Now a color thing should pop up. Ignore whatever color pops up and at the bottom next to the ‘#’ symbol, input “000000” to get black and hit OK.
Step 2:
Now your icon should look entirely black. Hit the little eyeball to make it invisible.
Now comes the fun part where we get to draw a little!
Select the tool that looks like an eye dropper. Make sure you have the background layer selected, and then with the eye dropper, click directly in the middle of the big lantern’s glow. This will make that particular shade of yellow, your default color now.
Step 3:
Now that we have to right color, let’s go back to the black layer. Select the layer, and click the square with the eyeball to make it visible again. And once again, you icon, will be entirely black.
Now we’re going to need to see what we’re doing, so turn the “opacity” down to 60%-ish. (The exact number doesn’t matter. As long as you can somewhat see the lantern base)
Click your brush tool to the side and up at the top, click the little arrow I have circled, and find the fuzzy circle with an 18, and select it.
Now, go back to our icon. Make sure you have your now simi-visible black layer selected, click once somewhere (anywhere) on the icon and you will get a warning saying “The fill for the layer must be rasterized before filling……ect” Ignore that and select Ok.
Now click once directly in the middle of the glow of the big lantern. A yellow spot should appear right there.
Step 4:
Now we want to make our simi-visible black layer, completely visible again. So make sure its selected and go up to “Opacity” and turn it back up to 100% again. It should now be completely black again except for the yellow dot we just drew.
Now go up to “edit” at the top and select “Define Pattern”
A thing will pop up asking for a name. Give your pattern a name. And hit OK.
Step 5:
Now that we just worked so hard to draw a black square with a yellow dot, we’re going to delete it, because we don’t need it anymore. So on the layers tool, select the black layer, and hit the little trash can and select yes.
Now we’re going to repeat ALL the steps and do the exact same thing…except this time for the littler lantern in the background.
Im somewhat lazy, so Im not going to write out the steps all over again in a detailed manner. But go back up to the beginning and do exactly the same thing as I have detailed up above. Create a new black filled layer, and draw a yellow dot (on the little lantern this time….I suggest using the fuzzy circle brush size 12 to draw the dot). Define the pattern, give it a (different) name and then delete the layer.
Step 6:
If all has gone well for you…We now have our two yellow dot patterns defined and we’re back to just out our lantern base only. This is where things get complicated…so pay attention and go slowly and carefully.
Once again, we’re going to create a new layer. So hit “shift+ctrl+n”
Select the new layer, hit the half-filled circle and select solid color.
Now we’re going to fill it with a gray color. The exactness of the gray doesn’t matter…just as long as its gray. Im going to use color #a4a499 here. And hit OK.
Step 7:
Make sure the gray layer is selected, and on the layers tool, select the fx symbol and then go to “pattern overlay”
Now a thing should pop up and there is a square with “pattern” written next to it. Next to the square is a little arrow. Hit the arrow, and select the pattern you just made for the big lantern (with the yellow dot to the right)
And then under “blend mode” set it to “screen”.
Now to the left, click where it says “Blending Options: Custom” and bring the “fill opacity” down to 0%. And Hit Ok.
Step 8:
Once again, Im lazy and Im not going to write out the detailed steps again, but basically we’re going to completely repeat steps 6 and 7, except this time when selecting the pattern, select the pattern you made for the littler lantern (on the left) instead. All the other steps are exactly the same.
Step 9:
Now go up to “window” and select “animation”
Now, you might see this. If you do, click the button in the bottom right corner.
Now, you should see something like this:
Now, its important to keep track of what is what here. If you followed my steps exactly, the layer titled “color fill 2” is the layer with the glow for the little lantern (on the left) and the layer titled “color fill 1” is for the big lantern on the right.
We’re going to “animate” the big lantern first. (color fill 1)
So select the layer titled “color fill 2” and turn the “opacity” down to 0%.
Step 10:
Make sure you now have the “color fill 1” layer selected and that the “opacity” is still at 100%
Now on the animation tool on the bottom, click the little arrow by “color fill 1” and then hit the little stop watch symbol by “opacity” a little yellow diamond should appear should appear next to it.
Now, on the animation tool, there is a little blue diamond at the top. I want you to click and drag that blue diamond until your reach “06f” or until the thing on the left reads 0:00:00:06
Now up on layers tool, you should still have “color fill 1” selected…now turn the opacity on that layer down to 0%.
A little gray diamond should appear down on the animations tool.
On the animations tool, click and drag the blue diamond to 12f. (or 0:00:00:12)
Now go back up to the layers tool, and turn the opacity for “color fill 1” back up to 100%.
Once again, a gray diamond should appear on the animation tool marking the spot.
Step 11:
Now on the animations tool, Click the arrow next to “color fill 2” and the drag the blue diamond back to the beginning. (0)
Hit the little stop watch symbol next to “opacity” and a yellow diamond should appear at the beginning.
Now drag the blue diamond to 06f (0:00:00:06) and go up to the layers tool, and turn the opacity on color fill 2 up to 100%. (If everything goes gray, turn fill down to 0%)
Once again, a gray diamond should appear marking the spot.
Now Drag the blue diamond up to 12f(0:00:00:12), go up to the layers tool and turn the opacity on color fill 2 back down to 0%.
Another gray diamond should appear marking the spot.
Once that happens, click the button in the bottom right corner of the animations tool.
A thing will pop up saying “This will convert the timeline to a frame animation….blah blah blah”
Hit continue.
Step 12:
Now our animation should be broken up into frames. Make sure the frames are all set to same delay ,probably 0.03, (click the little arrow next to it to adjust) and that it is set to loop forever(bottom left corner)
(Sometimes photoshop likes to make the delay on the final frame go a realty long time. If that happens just set it to .03 like everything else. )
Now, its time to find out if we animated everything right! (Cross your fingers!)
Go go ahead and hit the play button at the bottom. And take a look at your animation.
(Don’t worry if the animation looks a bit fast. We’ll get to fixing that)
Step 13:
Now, the animation is essentially done. But as you may know, Livejournal have a 40 kb size limit on icons. So we’re now going to trim the icon down to size per say.
Before we start trimming, I always like to see what size we’re currently at. So go up to “file” and then “save for web and devices”
Now a thing should pop up. In the top right corner set the “colors” to a maximum of “256” and then take a look at the size of the icon which will be displayed in the bottom left corner.
Now, I was actually a bit surprised at this point. Usually 13 frames send you way over the 40kb limit. But as you can see here it’s at 19.1 kb. I guess, doing an animation in this style isn’t as space consuming and produces low file sizes. I don’t know!
BUT if it were over 40kb, you would go back and trim the number of frames down until you got under the magic 40kb number. (Try deleting every other frame, or every third frame)
Step: 14
Now, that we know our animation is under 40 kb, we need to fix the speed on it. Because as it is right now looks rather fast to me.
(always adjust the speed AFTER you trim away excess frames)
Now go ahead and hit “cancel” to exit out of the “save for web and devices” thing.
Now while holding the ctrl button, click all the frames to select all of them. Next to one of the “0.03 sec” click the little arrow and select “other”
Input .15 and hit Ok.
(Note: you can play with different speeds here if you want. But I like .15 secs)
Now hit the play button once again, to preview your animation. If everything is to your liking, go up to “file” and “save for web and devices”
Just like in step 13, make sure its under 40kb and that your colors are at a max. If it is, go ahead and hit “save”, give your icon a name, and wa-la! You’re done!
Feel free to ask questions if your confused about anything. I know this is a fairly complex animation with a lot of steps!
But its worth it! Using this method you can pretty much add glows to anything….candles, lights, stars, ect! And of course, I made this extra complicated by adding two glows that oscillate at different times, but you can always just do one glow! (or two or more glows that wax and wane together on the same layer)
Have fun animating!
~Roxanne
Here:
to here:
Programs Used:Photoshop CS5
Notes: This is a fairly complex tutorial. But if you’re good at following directions, even a beginner should be able to do this. I suggested following along with the same base I used, and then once you understand it, apply it to a base of your own choosing. This sort of animation is useful if you want to make anything glow….stars, lights, candles…ect.
Step 1:
First off, we want to make sure we are properly set up to do stuff. So if don’t already have the layers tool open, go up to “window” and check mark “layers”
Now that we have our layers open, hit “shift+ctrl+n” (all at the same time…or just go up to “layer” at the top, then “new” and then ”layer”) and hit OK to open a new layer.
Now that we have a new layer click on the new layer to select it, hit the little half-filled circle thing, and select “solid color”
Now a color thing should pop up. Ignore whatever color pops up and at the bottom next to the ‘#’ symbol, input “000000” to get black and hit OK.
Step 2:
Now your icon should look entirely black. Hit the little eyeball to make it invisible.
Now comes the fun part where we get to draw a little!
Select the tool that looks like an eye dropper. Make sure you have the background layer selected, and then with the eye dropper, click directly in the middle of the big lantern’s glow. This will make that particular shade of yellow, your default color now.
Step 3:
Now that we have to right color, let’s go back to the black layer. Select the layer, and click the square with the eyeball to make it visible again. And once again, you icon, will be entirely black.
Now we’re going to need to see what we’re doing, so turn the “opacity” down to 60%-ish. (The exact number doesn’t matter. As long as you can somewhat see the lantern base)
Click your brush tool to the side and up at the top, click the little arrow I have circled, and find the fuzzy circle with an 18, and select it.
Now, go back to our icon. Make sure you have your now simi-visible black layer selected, click once somewhere (anywhere) on the icon and you will get a warning saying “The fill for the layer must be rasterized before filling……ect” Ignore that and select Ok.
Now click once directly in the middle of the glow of the big lantern. A yellow spot should appear right there.
Step 4:
Now we want to make our simi-visible black layer, completely visible again. So make sure its selected and go up to “Opacity” and turn it back up to 100% again. It should now be completely black again except for the yellow dot we just drew.
Now go up to “edit” at the top and select “Define Pattern”
A thing will pop up asking for a name. Give your pattern a name. And hit OK.
Step 5:
Now that we just worked so hard to draw a black square with a yellow dot, we’re going to delete it, because we don’t need it anymore. So on the layers tool, select the black layer, and hit the little trash can and select yes.
Now we’re going to repeat ALL the steps and do the exact same thing…except this time for the littler lantern in the background.
Im somewhat lazy, so Im not going to write out the steps all over again in a detailed manner. But go back up to the beginning and do exactly the same thing as I have detailed up above. Create a new black filled layer, and draw a yellow dot (on the little lantern this time….I suggest using the fuzzy circle brush size 12 to draw the dot). Define the pattern, give it a (different) name and then delete the layer.
Step 6:
If all has gone well for you…We now have our two yellow dot patterns defined and we’re back to just out our lantern base only. This is where things get complicated…so pay attention and go slowly and carefully.
Once again, we’re going to create a new layer. So hit “shift+ctrl+n”
Select the new layer, hit the half-filled circle and select solid color.
Now we’re going to fill it with a gray color. The exactness of the gray doesn’t matter…just as long as its gray. Im going to use color #a4a499 here. And hit OK.
Step 7:
Make sure the gray layer is selected, and on the layers tool, select the fx symbol and then go to “pattern overlay”
Now a thing should pop up and there is a square with “pattern” written next to it. Next to the square is a little arrow. Hit the arrow, and select the pattern you just made for the big lantern (with the yellow dot to the right)
And then under “blend mode” set it to “screen”.
Now to the left, click where it says “Blending Options: Custom” and bring the “fill opacity” down to 0%. And Hit Ok.
Step 8:
Once again, Im lazy and Im not going to write out the detailed steps again, but basically we’re going to completely repeat steps 6 and 7, except this time when selecting the pattern, select the pattern you made for the littler lantern (on the left) instead. All the other steps are exactly the same.
Step 9:
Now go up to “window” and select “animation”
Now, you might see this. If you do, click the button in the bottom right corner.
Now, you should see something like this:
Now, its important to keep track of what is what here. If you followed my steps exactly, the layer titled “color fill 2” is the layer with the glow for the little lantern (on the left) and the layer titled “color fill 1” is for the big lantern on the right.
We’re going to “animate” the big lantern first. (color fill 1)
So select the layer titled “color fill 2” and turn the “opacity” down to 0%.
Step 10:
Make sure you now have the “color fill 1” layer selected and that the “opacity” is still at 100%
Now on the animation tool on the bottom, click the little arrow by “color fill 1” and then hit the little stop watch symbol by “opacity” a little yellow diamond should appear should appear next to it.
Now, on the animation tool, there is a little blue diamond at the top. I want you to click and drag that blue diamond until your reach “06f” or until the thing on the left reads 0:00:00:06
Now up on layers tool, you should still have “color fill 1” selected…now turn the opacity on that layer down to 0%.
A little gray diamond should appear down on the animations tool.
On the animations tool, click and drag the blue diamond to 12f. (or 0:00:00:12)
Now go back up to the layers tool, and turn the opacity for “color fill 1” back up to 100%.
Once again, a gray diamond should appear on the animation tool marking the spot.
Step 11:
Now on the animations tool, Click the arrow next to “color fill 2” and the drag the blue diamond back to the beginning. (0)
Hit the little stop watch symbol next to “opacity” and a yellow diamond should appear at the beginning.
Now drag the blue diamond to 06f (0:00:00:06) and go up to the layers tool, and turn the opacity on color fill 2 up to 100%. (If everything goes gray, turn fill down to 0%)
Once again, a gray diamond should appear marking the spot.
Now Drag the blue diamond up to 12f(0:00:00:12), go up to the layers tool and turn the opacity on color fill 2 back down to 0%.
Another gray diamond should appear marking the spot.
Once that happens, click the button in the bottom right corner of the animations tool.
A thing will pop up saying “This will convert the timeline to a frame animation….blah blah blah”
Hit continue.
Step 12:
Now our animation should be broken up into frames. Make sure the frames are all set to same delay ,probably 0.03, (click the little arrow next to it to adjust) and that it is set to loop forever(bottom left corner)
(Sometimes photoshop likes to make the delay on the final frame go a realty long time. If that happens just set it to .03 like everything else. )
Now, its time to find out if we animated everything right! (Cross your fingers!)
Go go ahead and hit the play button at the bottom. And take a look at your animation.
(Don’t worry if the animation looks a bit fast. We’ll get to fixing that)
Step 13:
Now, the animation is essentially done. But as you may know, Livejournal have a 40 kb size limit on icons. So we’re now going to trim the icon down to size per say.
Before we start trimming, I always like to see what size we’re currently at. So go up to “file” and then “save for web and devices”
Now a thing should pop up. In the top right corner set the “colors” to a maximum of “256” and then take a look at the size of the icon which will be displayed in the bottom left corner.
Now, I was actually a bit surprised at this point. Usually 13 frames send you way over the 40kb limit. But as you can see here it’s at 19.1 kb. I guess, doing an animation in this style isn’t as space consuming and produces low file sizes. I don’t know!
BUT if it were over 40kb, you would go back and trim the number of frames down until you got under the magic 40kb number. (Try deleting every other frame, or every third frame)
Step: 14
Now, that we know our animation is under 40 kb, we need to fix the speed on it. Because as it is right now looks rather fast to me.
(always adjust the speed AFTER you trim away excess frames)
Now go ahead and hit “cancel” to exit out of the “save for web and devices” thing.
Now while holding the ctrl button, click all the frames to select all of them. Next to one of the “0.03 sec” click the little arrow and select “other”
Input .15 and hit Ok.
(Note: you can play with different speeds here if you want. But I like .15 secs)
Now hit the play button once again, to preview your animation. If everything is to your liking, go up to “file” and “save for web and devices”
Just like in step 13, make sure its under 40kb and that your colors are at a max. If it is, go ahead and hit “save”, give your icon a name, and wa-la! You’re done!
Feel free to ask questions if your confused about anything. I know this is a fairly complex animation with a lot of steps!
But its worth it! Using this method you can pretty much add glows to anything….candles, lights, stars, ect! And of course, I made this extra complicated by adding two glows that oscillate at different times, but you can always just do one glow! (or two or more glows that wax and wane together on the same layer)
Have fun animating!
~Roxanne