Photoshop tutorial: Simple text animations

[Kisae]

EDIT: ADDED HORIZONTAL AND DIAGONAL NEVER ENDING TEXT LOOPING
ON MAY 1, 2013!

PHOTOSHOP TUTORIAL: SIMPLE TEXT ANIMATIONS

Hello and thank you for reading this simple tutorial i made. This tutorial is about creating simple text animations mostly used in avatars and signatures. Creating GIF files needed ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS3 or above.

To start with, open your photoshop, choose Window->Animation to show the animation/frame window. An Animation window will pop out from the bottom part of the work area.

Otaku-Streamer's Forum Background
Avatar Background Color - 1B1B1B
Content/Signature background Color - 161616

*Thank you for "Sin Of Love" for telling me this when i'm learning Photoshop back then.*

*Thank you for "Enma Ai" for telling me about the on-screen keyboard, because my laptop doesn't have a printscreen button.*

*Thank you for "Ragnarok" because i was inspired to learn Photoshop from him after i joined OS community.*


INTRODUCTION
If you're new to creating GIF files in photoshop, here's a brief information about some important parts of it.

Frames - It's the boxed version of your whole work area, and on the upper left corner of it show the frame number. You could drag any frames to adjust your animation.
*Frame 1 is like the master frame, doing anything on the layers of frame 1 would also affect the rest of the frames. To make it easier, make frame 1 the starting animation of your GIF.*

Delay Rate - It's the number below the frames. 0 sec is the default speed for your frame to frame animation. You will adjust the speed of each frames accordingly to your liking. It determines the number of seconds or mili-seconds before switching onto the other frame when you play the animation.

Looping - Ok, this is the command that let's you choose how many times the animation frames would continue to animate, default is Forever, which means if you start the animation, and it reaches the last frame, the animation would repeat from frame 1, and so on. It's located Below the frame 1 box in the animation window.

Delete Frame - It's the icon of a garbage dump. Like what it name implies, it deletes the selected frame/s.

Duplicate Frame - It's the icon on the left side of Delete Frame. It duplicates the selected frame/s. this command can be abused because it can duplicate any frames, making animation easier.



Now That's done, let's go into our first simple text animation!

NOTE: I'll be using a 180x300 pixels size, which is the current limit to OS avatars.
And a "1b1b1b" background color.


VANISHING TEXT
This one's is on the list of easiest text animations, it only needs 1 Text Layer, and that is it! You just adjust the Opacity of the text on each frames!


1. Let's start from frame one, with 100% opacity on the text layer.
2. Click the duplicate frame icon, and it creates a copy of layer 1.
3. Select frame 2 (The copy of frame 1), go to the Layer panel and change the opacity to 75%. It makes the layer slowly vanishing. The lower the opacity, the harder the effect.
4. Duplicate any frame, but for this, let's duplicate frame 2.
5. Select frame 3 (The copy of frame 2), change it's opacity to 50%.

As you notice, i gradually lowers the opacity by 25% each frame. continue this pattern until 0%. Now try playing the animation by pressing the play button at the animation window! Is it too fast? Adjust the delay rate of each frames, example would be 0.1sec on each frame. If you want a pause before and after the vanishing part, select frame 1 and adjust it's delay rate to 2sec at the 5th frame, set the delay rate at 1sec. You could experiment many outcomes if you're willing :P

We have 5 frames in this vanishing text.
frame 1: 2sec delay
frame 2-4: 0.1sec delay
frame 5: 1sec delay
Looping: Forever


YOU COULD CREATE A BLINKING TEXT FROM VANISHING, EXPERIMENT AND YOU'LL FIND MANY OUTCOMES.

To save your GIF file, Go to File->Save for Web&Devices..

[Kisae]

CAPITAL TO SMALL/SMALL TO CAPITAL TEXT
Realizing something, i think this one's the easiest xD



1. Create a text of small letters. That's layer 1.
2. Create a text of capital letters. That's layer 2.
3. On frame 1, deselect the layer visibility of one of the two layers. It's the eye icon on the left side of the layer. deselecting it means you'll not see it in the current frames or rest of the frames.
4. Duplicate frame 1.
5. On frame 2 (The copy of frame 1) deselect the layer visibility of the other layer which you didn't deselected earlier, and re-select the visibility of the other layer you de-selected earlier.
6. Play the animation, and again, if it's too fast, adjust the delay rate of the two frames.

*SIDE TIP: You could change the font of the other layer for a new style, change the font size, text color, move the other layer in another position, add layer styles such as outer glow, and more! Experiment as you learn :P*

We have 2 frames in this capital-small/small-capital text.
frame 1-2: 0.5sec delay
Looping: Forever



TYPEWRITER TYPE TEXT
Ok, this animation needs multiple layers, depending on the length of the text.
This one, i'll be using my handle name, Kisae.



1. Create a text "K" and set it's font size/style/color to your liking. Make sure then text box is long enough to fit the whole "Kisae" text. We'll be needing it later.
2. Position it to somewhere that a whole "Kisae" text would be seen clearly.
3. Duplicate frame 1.
4. Go on frame 2 and duplicate layer 1 (The "K" text)
5. Edit the other "K" layer, add "i" to it, making it "Ki"
6. Keep doing it until the whole "Kisae" would be made. It's the last frame.
7. Follow this:
a. at frame 1, de-select all layer's visibility.
b. you'll notice the other frames are affected because frame 1 is the master frame.
c. ok at frame 2, re-select the layer "K"
d. frame 3, de-select layer "K" and re-select layer "Ki"
c. do this to the other frames as the name gradually finishes.
d. Adjust each frame's delay rate to either 0.2sec or 0.5sec if you like it be slow.
e. for this, i'll make the last frame's delay rate to be 1sec.

*Why the first layer to be blank? Because to fully grasp the typewriter text, we need to show the first letter to also look like its just been typed. If we don't have a blank frame, you'll notice the letter "K" is not vanishing at some point.

Would be like..
frame 1: no visible layers/blank
frame 2: layer "K" visible
frame 3: layer "Ki" visible
frame 4: layer "Kis" visible
frame 5: layer "Kisa" visible
frame 6: layer "Kisae" visible

Frame 1-5: 0.5sec delay
Frame 6: 1sec delay
Looping: Forever


FEEL FREE TO COMBINE AND EXPERIMENT IN MAKING SIMPLE TEXT ANIMATIONS, AND COME UP WITH AN ADVANCE ONE XD

[Kisae]

NEVER ENDING HORIZONTAL TEXT LOOPING
This is a bit different from the previous animations, because we'll be using the "Move Tool" here often.
Let's do a text looping going to the left. <---



AND BEFORE WE START, BE SURE TO EXAMINE THE IMAGE BELOW. ALIGN YOUR TEXT, AND LET'S GO!


1. Select Frame 1, and be sure to highlight our text layer, and of course, use the "Move Tool".
2. Duplicate frame 1(Now you're on frame 2).
3. Since we're doing it going to the left, press the "Left Arrow Key" 10 times. You can change how many times you want to press it, but in this tutorial, i'll be using 10.
4. Duplicate frame 2(Now you're on frame 3).
5. Press the "Left Arrow Key" 10 times.
6. Duplicate frame 3(Now you're on frame 4).
7. Press the "Left Arrow Key" 10 times.
8. Do this pattern until you notice that the text on frame 1 and the LAST frame is "The Same" Or "Similar".
9. Delete the last frame. Why? Because we don't want a double/similar frame in this animation.
10. Adjust all frame's delay rate. i'll be using a 0.1sec delay for this.


SAME CONCEPT CAN BE APPLIED IF YOU WANT TO MAKE A NEVER ENDING VERTICAL TEXT LOOPING.


NEVER ENDING DIAGONAL TEXT LOOPING
Yes! Another text looping. why? Well looping a diagonal text, is quite, tricky. If you don't know how.

First, Create your text like this. Select Image->Image Rotation->Arbitrary..
And Type in 45 degrees on the Angle, and select if it's Clock-Wise, or Counter Clock-Wise. For this, i'll be going for the Clock-Wise.



Copy the rotated text and put it into desired location. Since it's in Clock-Wise, i'll be looping it diagonally downward. Align your text like this.


1. Select Frame 1, and be sure to highlight our text layer, and of course, use the "Move Tool".
2. Duplicate frame 1(Now you're on frame 2).
3. Since we're doing it going diagonally downward, Press the "Right Arrow Key" 5 times, and "Down Arrow Key" 5 times. See how doing it diagonally differs from horizontal or vertical looping?
4. Duplicate frame 1(Now you're on frame 2).
5. Repeat step 3
6. Duplicate frame 2(Now you're on frame 3).
7. repeat step 3
8. Do this pattern until you notice that the text on frame 1 and the LAST frame is "The Same" Or "Similar".
9. Delete the last frame. Why? Because we don't want a double/similar frame in this animation.
10. Adjust all frame's delay rate. i'll be using a 0.1sec delay for this.


OF COURSE, YOU CAN ADD YOUR OWN SPICES OF EFFECTS TO IT

[Kisae]

Another reserve

[Kisae]

Yet another reserve

[Kisae]

Yet again another reserve

[Kisae]

Final reserve

------------
END

[Reivacks]

Aww, I thought we'd work on it together?

[Kisae]

This is just about text animations, we'll work together on animated images

[kibeth1]

Hmm just out of curiosity why color"1b1b1b" and not "Transparency"? :3

[Sora Kasugano]

I did all 3 in 1 go with an additional Boredom effects, Kisaecchi~!

Hmm just out of curiosity why color"1b1b1b" and not "Transparency"? :3

That's because the Avatar Size limit is 244.1 KB. Using "Transparency" will make the Size Bigger. Also, Transparency doesn't look Clean in .gif Images as it looks on .png Images, so it's really better to use the BG Color which is "1b1b1b" instead of Transparency.

[kibeth1]

I did all 3 in 1 go with an additional Boredom effects, Kisaecchi~!





That's because the Avatar Size limit is 244.1 KB. Using "Transparency" will make the Size Bigger. Also, Transparency doesn't look Clean in .gif Images as it looks on .png Images, so it's really better to use the BG Color which is "1b1b1b" instead of Transparency.

Hmm i see

[erin92]

Where did you learn to photoshop? I would like to learn...

[Oxygen]

Where did you learn to photoshop? I would like to learn...

Tutorials...

[Kisae]

I did all 3 in 1 go with an additional Boredom effects, Kisaecchi~!



That's because the Avatar Size limit is 244.1 KB. Using "Transparency" will make the Size Bigger. Also, Transparency doesn't look Clean in .gif Images as it looks on .png Images, so it's really better to use the BG Color which is "1b1b1b" instead of Transparency.

you used some of my PSD files but it's good make it more ecchi-er.

Where did you learn to photoshop? I would like to learn...

Hmm January i learned removing background here at OS, after that i studied GIF making by experimenting.
if you want to learn fast, well base on my experience, start from texts, then apply it into images, then run wild combining and experimenting stuffs

[Reivacks]

Where did you learn to photoshop? I would like to learn...

Skill comes with age and determination.

[Kisae]

Bump! Added horizontal and diagonal never ending text looping
on may 1, 2013!

[Kathleen Senpai]

I actually learned from this Thanks :)

[RedHawk02]

Well it's time to get photoshop again. I can finally learn to do something on it.

[dexter453]

let's get this going...