Okay so I have been making sigs/logos/banners for along time now, coming up about 6 years now using Paint Shop Pro 7, Adobe Photoshop 7 and ImageReady.
I do this kind of for a living, well for the extra cash. I wouldn't say I am a professional but I have been making graphics and designs for along time.
I have only just started making userbars for my forum I have created.
Here are some animation tutorials for you to have ago at if you want.
Tutorial 1 - Animated GIF file into your userbar (I have only tested this for a sig/banner - but should work on a userbar if you make them small enough)
Create a sig in Photoshop and leave a gap for where ever you want the GIF animated image to go, save the image as a PSD (if you want to edit your sig at anytime) and then save it as a JPG.
That is the sig I made and saved a .JPG image and a .PSD image (if I want to edit anything)
Open up ImageReady or jump to, whatevers easiest then open your JPG file of your sig up. Then when that is up, also, open up your GIF animated image you want on your sig up.
With your GIF image file selected on ImageReady, it is best to resize the GIF so that it can/will fit into where ever it is you want it on your sig, so go to Image - Image Size and resize the GIF to whatever you want and whatever you see fits best (in pixels).
Right, to the difficult part, on your animation palette for the GIF image, if you click on one of the frames that you don't want and hold down Ctrl on your keyboard, then click on all the frames that you don't want while holding down Ctrl, when you have all the selected frames you don't want in your GIF animation, click on that little right arrow on the animation palette (just under the cross/exit sign), a scroll should come up and 'Delete Frames' should be there, delete the frames and then you should have your animation how you want it (with the frames you don't want deleted). Mind you, you don't have to delete any frames, it's just if it is a large GIF animated image, it is good to delete some frames and just have the animation you want, especially if it large, it will be saved as a very big file and might be hard to upload the sig.
Right, now you got your GIF image how you want it, click that little right arrow again on the animation palette (like stated above) and the scroll will appear again, click - 'Select All Frames', then click the little right arrow again and click - 'Copy Frames'. Now you have all your GIF frames selected and ready to be pasted, click your JPG sig (in ImageReady obviously), and then in that empty animation palette, click the little right arrow again and click - 'Paste Frames', a box should pop up saying the following: -
Paste Method
- Replace Frames
- Paste Over Selection
- Paste Before Selection
- Paste After Selection
. Link Added Layers
What I done is clicked 'Paste Over Selection', Also please make sure you have Link Added Layers turned on. Now you should have your animation palette covered with the GIF image frames. Now on your layers palette (on the right from the animation palette), click on the first frame you want and move it to where you want, this will move every frame you have just pasted to the area you want it. All you have to do in the animation palette is click each frame, then in the layers palette, make the background, text and other images viewable for each frame.
You should get the hang of it. When all is finished, you can play it in the animation palette and watch your GIF image animate in your sig. Then all you have to do is Save Optimized As, then save it as a .GIF image, and you're done.
If the .GIF doesn't appear when you're saving it, click cancel and on the right above your layers palette should be telling you what it is currently under, change that to .GIF and then Save Optimized As and then upload your GIF sig to ImageShack or an upload website you know of.
This is what I got:
You can add borders and other effects around your animations as well if you'd like, this is just an example sig.
Another animation tutorial coming tomorrow.
Text Shine, Lightning Effects, Car Lights Shining, Text Blazing different colors and more.
Hope this helped.
Author