Photoshop - *PLEASE HELP * before I pull out all of my hair!!

[merry slug]

Okay I got Photoshop Elements 7 today so that I could not hassle other people into making my animated gif signatures (and so I could play around :p).

The book that comes with this is pretty much useless. After some digging on the web I've discovered I need to

1) In the editor mode, add each new picture as a new layer
2) Save to Web
3) then I can pick all the details


My problem is with #1 - for the life of me, I can't get the second picture in as a new layer. I can add new layers, but they are always either a pretty background-type thing, or the same picture #1 I had (which I assume they think I want to change slightly to animate).

How, in God's name, do you add different photos as new layers????????????????????????

[Bekka]

OH, COME ONNNN, MERRY! You can figure it out.

:nanabobo:


*kidding*

[merry slug]

:fishbiscuit: Seriously, I think I'm going insane.

But thanks for making me laugh :D

[Dew]

It isn't a new layer. It is a new frame. Think of it like the old Cracker Jack boxes that had those little prizes. Remember the one that was a little book and had several pages of pictures? You would flip the pages and it would look like a cartoon.

That is how animated gif's work. You take various stages of movement of the picture and save them as a group of frames. I am not sure if animated is done in Elements. I have a very old Photoshop 7 and it has a component called Image Ready where you can work with frames. I cannot make an animated gif in the plain Photoshop.

'Tute showed me a nifty program for making animated gifs. It is Beneton Movie GIF (http://www.benetonsoftware.com/Beneton_Movie_GIF.php). It is a free animated GIF editor. I have been using this and Image Ready.

You still need imaging software, ie Photoshop, Paintshop Pro, or Elements, to make all the separate pictures, give them names like file1, file2, file3 and put them all in one folder. You then import this folder into the software, select the time for each frame to show and then save it as 1 gif file.

I am new at this but have found that Beneton is really easy to work with.

Does this help you?

[merry slug]

Bless you Dew! Somehow I did it - but I'm still not sure how :o

Seriously, the handbook to this blows. I will check out your link :Cheers:

[Dew]

Instead of the handbook, I recommend looking for the Dummies book instead. I have Photoshop 7 for Dummies and will be purchasing Paint Shop Pro 9 for Dummies and Digital Photography for Dummies which comes with a CD. I find these are easier to work with. All the pictures and stuff you have seen me do, I learned from a Dummies book. They may not be detailed for advanced stuff but they are great for what you and I do.

I am hoping to learn a lot more from that digital photography set. A picture is a picture imo. If I have a picture or get one from a camera, what I do with it is what is important, not the source of the picture. I may learn otherwise but until then this is my story and I am sticking to it. :D

Most importantly, have FUN! :D

[merry slug]

LOL - I have those books for my statistics - good idea.

[scotpgot]

I've found the Adobe/Photoshop forums online to be extremely helpful for technical stuff like "how to import a new layer" or "how to import an animated gif" (which Photoshop doesn't do, btw, unless you force it a little :mad:).

[Dew]

Does your version of Photoshop have Image Ready component Scot? You can make your animations with that. :)

[yung23]

Photoshop 7 was the second last version of photoshop before it went hog wild in the creative suite.


I now use CS4, and it actually has imageready's "create frames from layers" options

as well as its own timeline...

I have yet to animate in it, but its all done with the layers.

and there are a tonne of photoshop tutorials on youtube...


but upgrading or "finding" cs3/cs4 is recommended...

[Dew]

PS 7 is just peachy. :D