Comments | icon_tutorial: Cropping animation layers

syd15 in icon_tutorial

Cropping animation layers

Mar 15, 2011 20:39

Hi, I'm traying to make something with an static image and a gif over it.

My problem is that I need the gif to have cirle-like shape but I just don't know how to crop it so it takes that shape. ¿Is there any way to give all the animation layers the same shape and cut it at the same time?

PS: I use photoshop CS3.

basics: cropping, program: photoshop, graphic effects: borders, animation: animated gifs

Comments 6

microxcuts March 15 2011, 20:12:44 UTC

I think you should crop every single layer of the gif in the form you want.

syd15 March 15 2011, 20:25:57 UTC

A question...

With which tool do I cut them? Because the cropping tool only let you crop square shapes...

If what I wanted was to make an icon to which I added another little circle-shaped image I would just use the elliptical marquee tool, copy the selection and paste it above the other image.

The problem is that in an animation there are a lot of layer and it would take a lot of time...

Besides if I did that using the elliptical marquee tool, how do I make sure that when I paste them on the other canvass they all get moved to the same spot so when I press play the animation looks good and it doesn't make werd things because of the position of the image on the canvas...

(The comment has been removed)

syd15 March 15 2011, 22:45:38 UTC

Yeah, this could have worked too.

Damn, I didn't even think about doing it this way... Stupid me!

Anyway, I got what I wanted, I'll keep this in time for the next time, though...

___greenribbon March 15 2011, 22:37:07 UTC

You can try putting all the layers in a folder, then use the marquee tool to trace the shape you want, then while having the folder selected, apply a mask. It should mask everything in the folder to be the shape you like. You can then unlink the mask if you want to move any of the layers around independently from the mask.

syd15 March 15 2011, 22:44:33 UTC

Thank you!

I'm not really god with mask, I've never really understood how they worked, but I've already got what I wanted (probably took me a whole lot more of work than if I had used mask but at least I got what I wanted...)

I'll have to look at some mask tutorials...

___greenribbon March 15 2011, 22:50:03 UTC

Yeah, masks can be pretty helpful when you want to crop several things at once and don't want it to be permanent!