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| Simple Scrolling in ImageReady
NOTE: THIS IS A TUTORIAL THREAD. I WILL POST A SEPARATE THREAD FOR ANY WHO ARE INTERESTED TO TRY THEIR HAND AT THIS, OR COMMENTS, OR SHARE THEIR OWN WAYS OF DOING THIS.
This is a simple ImageReady tutorial on how to make an animated .gif “scroll” from one side to the other. This can be accomplished in one of two ways: (1) Having a Foreground object “scroll” or move (same thing) across a stationary background; (2) Having the background “scroll” or move behind a stationary object.
For the sake of simplicity, we’ll use a plane as the object, and a sky with clouds as the background.
METHOD #1: On a new document (Let’s give it the title “Flying”) we have set the image size to: Width = 666; Height = 174.
At the same time, we've set the background to white. (We will be setting the foreground color to this shade of blue: 0099FF.)
Next, we go to Filters>Render>Clouds, and click on that;
next, we go to Image>Adjustments>Levels, and by moving the right-hand slider (as you face the computer) on the top row (called “Input Levels”) to 228, we have brought out the white of the clouds a bit more, and made the blue of the sky a bit richer (*this step is voluntary: if you’re satisfied with the way your sky looks, skip this step).
We are now ready to make our plane “fly” across the sky. To do this, we will have to have a good picture of a plane that we can cut out from the background it is on, choose the document we made (“Flying”) and go to Edit>Paste; the plane we cut out will automatically be pasted into a new layer automatically created by PhotoShop. We need to make sure that we select the document “Flying” when we paste our plane, otherwise it will just paste as another new layer in the current document that we have cut it out from. (For methods of how to select an object for cutting out, see “Everything You Want to Know About Selections – PS by Lucid V” – this great tutorial is included in the link of the tutorials that is at the top of the Avatar/Graphics Forum Home Page) Now, we have two layers: the one that is our background, or sky, and the one that is our plane.
Okay, now we want to use the Move Tool from the Tools Palette (Black Arrow at the top right of the Tools Palette), so we click on that, while having the layer with our plane selected; then, using the side-to-side arrows on the keyboard (this can be done by clicking, holding and dragging, but for better accuracy, using the arrows is best), we move the plane all the way to the right, until it is literally out of the picture, but just to the right of the right border of the picture, and all that shows is the background, or sky.
Alright, now we click on the very bottom of the Tools Palette, so that PhotoShop opens up ImageReady, with the current view of our document showing in both the document window and the first frame of the Animation Palette (you can keep this anywhere you are comfortable with it; for myself, I always keep it at the bottom of the screen while I’m working on an animation).
Our next step is to duplicate the first frame in the Animation Palette by going to the little page icon at the bottom of the Palette (looks like a page with the bottom left-hand corner folded back) and clicking on that.
Next, making sure that the Move Tool is selected in ImageReady’s Tool Palette, and that we are on the Second Frame, we move the airplane (again, using the arrow keys for precision) all the way to the left in the Second Frame until it is off the screen in both the document window and in the Second Frame of the Animation Palette. Notice that this time, the airplane is off-frame to the left, not the right – exactly the opposite of where it was before.
Now, we take advantage of a little thing the Animation Palette does for us called “tweening.” You will find two ways you can initiate this action: one is at the bottom of the Animation Palette showing several dots at an angle (the dots represent frames); the other is at the top right of the Animation Palette, by clicking on the little arrow there, then moving your mouse arrow over the word “Tween.” I will not go into the definition of what tweening is right now (it’s a bit long), but you can go to the SEARCH OPTION in ImageReady’s Help Menu, type in tween, and see all the steps that can be a part of this process, if you like. The important thing that we have to know about tweening right now is that it is going to add frames in between both of our blank frames (the two that only show the sky because the plane is off-screen to the right in Frame #1 and off-screen to the left in Frame #2) so that it appears that the plane is actually “moving” from off of one side of the screen to off of the other side of the screen. This action can be very quick, or very slow, depending on how many extra frames you want to add with the tween. You can also set “frame delay time,” by clicking on the little arrow at the bottom right of each frame, and slow things down that way – there are quite a few options you can use, so experiment, until you have the appearance and effects you want.
A dialog comes up with options after you select your tween:
It is important to emphasize that we have Frame #1 selected before doing our tween – selecting Frame #2 could yield some interesting results, but let’s stick to the basics.
Now, we set how ever many frames we want the tween to add, keeping in mind that the more frames, the larger the file size will end up being (a bit more on file sizes and how to optimize for the best you can later in the tutorial). We can also, at this time, set the frame delays; less frames usually means we will need longer delays between each frame, and more frames usually means we will need less time between each frame.
For my example of this first method of scrolling an object (or words, if you want) from one side to the other side in ImageReady, I have used 12 frames: I had 2, and did a 10 frame tween between the first and second frames.
Bingo – our plane is flying! In this first method, for those who like to play, you can mess with settings, jumping in-between ImageReady and PhotoShop, adding layers, having the plane going “through” some clouds, etc.
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