I recently gave the following advice for making file limits for Animated GIFs. I any one has better technique or suggestions I sure would like to hear them.

Advise:
Do all the work required and save as PSD file

Make copies of grouped layers. Open the new grouped layer, turn off all other layers and combine visual for each frame you need.

Once you have (no more than 5 frames) for animation re-save file as a different name.

Delete all layers except the animation frames.

Open window - animation-Timeline. Make timeline frames of layers.

Arrange in the order you need. Set time on each frame sequence. Set to Forever.

Save for Web Devices.

Required size: 450 tall x 550 wide, 125k

Settings that will make files smaller in the save for web window:

Change image type to gif.
Change to selective.
Colors, The more colors the larger the file size, reduce to required size.
Change to diffusion - Dither, Just reducing this by 2-3% usually makes file much smaller.
Transparency on
Diffusion transparency dither- Amount 100%
Interlaced off
Web snap o%

Looping options below Color chart - forever

As you make changes to the options above you may be able ti increase for optimization or need to decrease to make file size requirements. There is a file size indicator in the lower left hand corner to see how the changes effect file size.

Save Images Only, Back round Image.

Sometimes, depending on the image, you will still see some dithering problems, People here kinda understand the file size restrictions and don't beat you up too badly.

If this still is too large after all that... Go to original PSD, change image size to something that is still large enough to get a good view of your animation. Then Change canvass size to 550 wide by 450 tall. Add white fill layer under all layers before combining for sequence frames. This white fill will not make you file size any larger and will not show in the contest page even though your "Sequence" images are smaller than required.


Tim

very nice! thx for sharing!

Open window - animation-Timeline. Make timeline frames of layers.

Open window - "animation", then toggle to "animation frames", then "make frames from layers"

Wow, it looks to be a lot easier to do it in PS than in PS Elements! (But I still can't afford it)

Doug

Hi Tim...cool thread.This is just to relate my humble experiences with animation and PS.I've done a few gif entries here and some haven't turned out to bad.Here I have to say there are some people at PSC which are trully gif masters and have done some amazing animation on this site.I haven't had a gif 101 course or even seen any tutorials on gifs (which now that I think of it I really should).When I started here I didn't even know a gif file exsisted.I saw a few animations here in the comps and I tried to give it a shot,so I basically started fiddling with Image Ready and improvised a lot.I remembered the old animation technique we did at school when we were kids,of putting a sequence of drawings on the bottom corner of a book,then flipping through them with your thumb to give the illusion of animation.By extrapolating that concept to PS,each psd layer is a page which is translated to each frame in the animation box in the specific sequence or order required to create the timeline.Once the timeline is set I experiment with different speeds for each frame (from no delay to any time you like to set)to get the adequate fluidity of motion that your animation requires.Then I open the optimization palette and play with the various parameters until your gif aquires the proper quality/weight ratio you are lookimg for.Now within this basic framework there are lots of little tricks and tweeks one discovers by improvising creatively and just basically experimenting.With the type of gifs that you run infinitelly (most of them) the idea is to get them to repeat cyclically so as they have a smooth a transition as possible in the loop and the beginning and the end are fused as seamlessly as possible.You can create gifs that do have a beginning and an end,then start all over again as well though.It all depends on what you are trying to express in your animation.Anyway I've rambled enough.Here are some of the different types of gifs I've done...

Cyclical:







Time Lapse:







This last one believe it or not is 550 x 413 px. 425 Kb. and 114 frames at top optimization ... downloaded it,open it up in image ready and check it out for yourselves!

Thanks for sharing Luxwiz!

I'm Like you, didn't know you could animate in PS , I use flash for commercial stuff, banners, headers to websites.

Your gifs are very well done.

Tim

I just looooooooove sweet giffy magic!

Now that's what I'm talking about!That's giffin' for ya!Thanks for sharing Brad...you rock! .Hope the weather's clearing up.Heard it's been pretty bad down there.Just chill out in the meantime.

Me too!

This thread's got me all excited. Might have to chop something!

If all these gifs I see are 125k, there are some secrets that need to be shared, methinks.

Nicely done. Very impressed and inspired by all of these.

Tim

Advantage gifs are up to 512 K

Man I love Gifs! might have to make one tomorrow if I get the time!

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I have Advantage and still can't load more than 125, must be doing something wrong.

Loooove propellers

I might have to make some time to create a .gif or two. Below are some of my better ones. I had fun making them.



















I haven't chopped in a while. Might as well resume with a .gif.




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