Having fun in Photoshop

Here’s a fun animated GIF I created of my son this morning on my computer.

The steps are easier than I expected:

1. In Photoshop CS4 Extended, change your Workspace to Video (from the Window menu) OR simply show the animation window.
2. Add the additional image(s) to a new layer by opening them in Photoshop as separate windows, and then using the Move tool to SHIFT+DRAG them on to the primary window where you want to create the video. It works best if you do a Window | Arrange | Tile so you can see the windows side by side.
3. In the animation palette click on the New Frame button (looks the same as new layer) and set your settings, and play the video.
4. To Save, just do File | Save for Web & Devices and choose GIF with the default settings (although you may want to boost colors to 256). It also is better to have small image files.

Fun stuff! There’s videos on YouTube too if this isn’t clear enough. Search for Animated GIF.