Animated Gifs

Original:

Original Photo

Animated:

Fog Animation Effect

Photoshop CS5

Level of difficulty: Intermediate. You should be familiar with working with layers, resizing images and using the warp tool.

Create the mist layers:

(Click on the screen shots to zoom)

• Create a blank layer above the edited/retouched photo
• Paint some mist on the blank layer & name the layer Mist 1. I used these mist brushes by SpiritSighs.

Mist Brushes

• Copy the layer, name it Mist 2 and warp it using Edit => Transform => Warp. You can warp the mist to make it look like it has drifted around.
• Copy the warped layer and repeat with another warp (Mist 3).
• Copy the above layer and warp it again (Mist 4). You will now have the original image plus four mist layers above it. Click on Fig. 1 to expand.

Fig. 1 Layer palette with mist layers

Create the Animation Frames:

• Select the 5 layers and open the animation window (Window => animation - Fig. 2). Make sure you are in frame view (Fig. 3).

Fig. 2 Opening the Animation Window

Fig. 3 Animation window in frame view

• Click on the frame and duplicate it by dragging it to the new frame icon. Repeat this four times to give a total of 5 frames (Fig. 4 & 5).

Fig. 4 Duplicating the frame

Fig. 5 Duplicating the frame

• Click on the first frame. Go to the layers panel and make only the base layer (retouch) visible (Fig. 6).

Fig. 6 Click on the eye to hide, click again to reveal layer

• Click on the second frame and make the retouch layer on the Mist 1 layer visible using the layers panel
• Click on the third frame and make the base layer & the Mist 2 layer visible.
• Click on the fourth frame and make the base layer & the Mist 3 layer visible
• Click on the fifth frame & make the base layer & the Mist 4 layer visible
• Select all 5 frames by clicking on the first and Shift-Clicking on the last one.
• Change the frame delay time to 0.1 (Fig. 7) You can try different timings depending on what works best for your project.

Fig. 7 Change frame delay

Tween the animation to make it run more smoothly

• Click on the first frame and Shift-click on the second frame
• Go to the animation menu and choose Tween... (Fig. 8)

Fig. 8 Animation Menu

• Enter 10 in the "frames to add box" and select all layers, and position & opacity (Fig. 9)

Fig. 9 Tween Dialog Box

• Select frames 12 & 13 and repeat the Tween for these two frames. Repeat this for frames 23 & 24 and 34 & 35 (See Fig. 10)

Fig. 10 Tweening Frames

• Duplicate the last frame (45) and move it to the front
• Tween the first and second frames as before. This makes the animation smoothly cycle back to the beginning.
• Make sure the repeat mode is "Forever"
• Save everything!

Check it out - when you press the play button you will have a pretty smooth animation!

Save the animated gif

• Resize the image to the size that you want (I used a height of 375 pixels because it gave me a file size under 2 MB). Go to Image => Image Size and select the size that you want, making sure to lock the aspect ratio.
• Go to File => Save for Web & Devices.
• Set to "forever"
• Select Gif and Save (Fig. 11)

Fig. 11 Saving the GIF

To view the animated gif, open it with your browser.

I'm looking forward to doing some more of these animations and have lots of ideas for future shoots! If you have tried it, please share by posting a link in the comments section.

The techniques include:

• skin smoothing with the surface blur filter
• using layers & blend modes
• layer masks
• making selections using luminosity
• digital makeup
• using the photocopy filter
• merging & copying layers
• dodging & burning by using curve adjustment layers

Have you done pin-up photography? Please share your links and any techniques in the comments section - thanks!

Kurvy Model Pin-up

When you click on the link there will be a short contact form and a Facebook where can i buy antibiotics over the counter “Like” button.

Once you submit the form you will be taken to the calendar. Click “Add to Cart” to get it. You won’t be charged – it’s free! I am offering it under the Creative Commons license, which allows you to share, print or transmit as long as it is for non-commercial use and you credit Lloyd K. Barnes Photography.

Vancouver Cityscape Calendar February 2011 by Lloyd K. Barnes Photography is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

If you want more pages for the rest of 2011 let me know by commenting!

For example, I used split toning in this image to add blue tones to the shadow areas. I like the way the blue interacted with the darker tones on the background, the eye makeup and the model's hair. I did the split toning on the camera raw image https://www.glenerinpharmacy.com/buy-generic-cialis-online/ using Lightroom 3.2, then finished the retouching in Photoshop.

Before: original raw image

After: split toned and retouched

Split toning is very simple to do in Lightroom. Once you have created a split tone effect that you like, you can save it as a preset and use it quickly on other photos. You can also download presets for all sorts of split tone effects. Here are five free tutorials about using Lightroom for split toning.

1. Split Toning Color Images in Adobe Lightroom

Split Toning Color Images in Adobe Lightroom from Jared Platt on Vimeo.

2.Using the split toning panel to change colours in a photo

RAW Processing Concentrate - Split Toning - Lightroom Tutorial from Rob & Lauren on Vimeo.

3 . Split toning for a tinting effect in Lightroom - Step by step tutorial for split toning black and white images.

4. A demo showing how to improve a photo using split toning

5. Using the split toning panel in Lightroom

Wikipedia entry for Pentax ME Super

A look inside the camera

Pentax ME Super 35mm Camera

Links:

Wikipedia entry for Pentax ME Super

A look inside the camera

Pentax ME Super 35mm Camera

Click here to see more photos from the walk. I used Lightroom 3 for post-processing and decided to go with a gritty retro look. If you want to try it out, feel free to download the preset.

Click here to go to the download page.

You can find instructions for installing presets at the Digital Photography School.

Leave a comment if you like this preset!