Animated GIFs in CS4

I've tried the Animated GIFs option in the Output Modules but the final product always looks very grainy with a lot of compression artifacts. Is CS4 just bad at GIFs or am I doing something wrong?

Then you'd want to export a png sequence for transparency, then use one of the dozens or more free animated gif tools on the web.
Here's #1 from Google.
#2 From Google
#3 From Google
Just upload your images, set the timing, and your gif is created.
Or you could download the trials of Photoshop or Fireworks, or use a bunch of less expensive comercial products.

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Complaint: Animated GIF, Photoshop CS4

I am a freelance print designer. Needless to say that I have upgraded to the Design Standard Edition of the Creative Suite 4. Still, some customers ask me to do their web banners, too.
Fact 1:
There is an animation palette in Photoshop CS4 Standard.
Fact 2:
You can create animations with that palette.
Fact 3:
You can save the animation as an animated GIF.
Fact 4:
Opening the animated GIF, you only get the first frame, so you cannot edit the animation or content inside the GIF.
Fact 5:
I need to alter a few animated GIFs which I created several years ago using Photoshop CS2. Due to a harddrive crash, I don't have access to the original layered PSD files any more.
Fact 5:
Photoshop CS4, the most advanced image editing tool on the face of the earth, is absolutely useless at this point, and I have to find freeware or shareware to do the job. Finding and purchasing this sort of software is MY time, and that is MY money.
Whatever drove Adobe to cripple Photoshop CS4 Standard, whatever drove them to expel the simple "Open Animated GIF" feature from Photoshop CS4, it was the wrong decision.
This, Adobe, is a customer complaint. Take it serious. There is competition, and I hear a lot about GIMP these days.
Frustrated,
Gero

I know this thread is getting on a bit now, but I do have the answers.
Quite simply, as far as I can tell, this cannot be done without Quicktime installed.
To open an animated gif in CS4 on a PC:
1. Go to File->Import->Video Frames to Layers
2. In the File Name box type “*” ( or you can type the name manually) The window will now show every type of file
3. Select your gif and you are done
To open animated gif in CS4 on a MAC:
1. Go to open, select your GIF, then in the bottom left corner of the open file dialogue box select Quicktime Movie as the format, then open your GIF.
2. You’ll need to open your animations window by going to window -> animation. This will bring up the time line.
3. If you want to have all of the frames broken up into layers, click the options in the animation window, and select “Flatten Frames into Layers”.
This will give you access to all the frames as layers and you can now edit the GIF as though it was a movie.
I hope this helps to ease somebody's frustration.

How to create an animated gif with CS4?

Trying to create an animated gif from 8 images using FW CS4. Can't find "how to" via online FW help. Have done it before with version 8 -- followed the in-house Help db but CS4 doesn't have in-house db. I found a tutorial: http://www.entheosweb.com/website_design/animated_gifs.asp, but talks about opening Frames panel (Windows > Frames) and I can't even find the Frames panel in CS4!
Just trying to create simple animated gif as temporary portfolio. Would also like to click on a different link for each image as it rotates if that's possible but main thing is just to create the gif.
Thanks so much in advance!

For the first part of your question
File > Open, then at the bottom of the dialog Tick the open to Open As Animation.
Then browse/select multiple images, then Open.
This will automatically add each image to a State (Window > State, previously called Frames).
Then adjust the Frame Rate of each State. The default is 7th/100 (a sec). You should see the number 7 to the right of each State. Double click to adjust as desired. 100 = 1 second, 200 = 2 seconds and so on.
Once the animation is configured, go File > Save As > Animated Gif.
h

Editing animated gif

I made an animated gif in CS4. I have to make some changes, I tried editing it in CS3. It woould be easier to start from scratch, but when I deleted the animation and clicked on a layer, all I see is the bottom layer no matter what layer I click on. How do I get my layered photoshop file back?
Thanks

Hi,
What version of Ps do you have and what platform are you using? Are you working with video content for the layer changes, or do you have a still that you're manupulating?
regards,
steve

Animated gifs: How to transition (fade) 1 image over another

Fireworks noob, trying to make an animated gif in CS4, reading/experimenting for hours, searching FW help documentation, Youtube tutes, Google - can't find how to pull off this basic fade.
6 unique but same sz. jpgs in my .png (default FW worksheet doc), each a different "state" in the states palette. Got the basic timing down, all 6 pop up one after another, but I want transitions - #1 fades into #2, 2 into 3 etc. - possibly 3-4 step fade.
How?
Where are the other transitions/effects hidden?
Doesn't FW have some kind of animation timeline feature where you can click through frame by frame?
Ready to go back to Gifbuilder...
TIA!

Gif animations are for poster-like images. They don't work successfully with JPEGs because the file size ends up enormously large. The best program to use for whast you want to do is Flash. That said, Fireworks has an animation wizard that will fade images for you. Select an image and choose Modify > Symbol > Convert to Symbol. A dialog box will pop up enabling you to choose which type of symbol you wish to create. Choose Animation. From there, just follow the wizard. To fade one image over the other, you'll need to convert the images to symbols and animate them on different states (frames). Symbol 1 on state 1. Symbol 2 on state 10. Symbol 3 on state 20, for example.

Is it possible and how to open animated gif files in Photoshop CS4

I made a Google search and I found tips that Photoshop can open frames from animated gif files by using File->Import->Video Frames to Layers. But this menu is missing from Photoshop CS4 on the computer I'm using it. Searching this forum for "Import animated gif" didn't return any result. Any ideas?

Zeno
curt y, sorry for the late reply, I tried that but I doesn't work. I have to choose at least two files in the Load Layers window in order for the OK button to be available and then some action script uses the different files to make layers and merges them but not from the frames of the gif file. I can undo through the script to see what it did but it never accessed the frames of the gif file, just the first frame. Choosing "make frames from layers" in the animation palette only puts the original files into layers - that is only the first frame of the gif file.
I guess I'm out of luck with the 64 bit version of Photoshop as Zeno suggested :-(
What program would you people suggest for opening each frame from gif files?

Flash CS4: My animated gif isn't playing right in flash

Thank you so much for your help.
I made an animated gif in Photoshop CS4 and opened it in Flash CS4, but for some reason the gif won't play without interruption. I opened and played it without a problem several times in Internet Explorer and Safari, but when I open it in Flash or Captivate it won't play so smoothely. It goes blank for a few seconds, then reappears, then goes blank and only shows parts of the graphic - as if it's reloading or something. The timeline in Flash shows black dots whenever it pauses. here is a screen shot:
See those black dots in the timeline? I will insert a picture of what happens on one of those black dots:
It's the same animation, but only shows a little of the graphic. Like I said, it plays fine when I open it with an internet browser, or photoshop, but not in Flash or Captivate.
Thanks so much for helping me with this!
Nat

When you exported from Photoshop did you use LZW compression on the GIF? If so can you try disabling LZW compression and reimporting to see if your issue goes away? What you depict there looks like updated frames only contain the part of the picture that's changing, which is compression. GIF isn't compressed by nature and each frame should be a whole picture, unless compressed. I'm not certain LZW would even perform spatinal compression but it's worth a shot to see if it does.
Aside that have you tried using Import to Library, then dragging the image from the library into the timeline?

CS4 animated gif imported from Flash - how to link

I have a few animated gifs published from Flash CS4 the files have clickTag info in the actionscript but Flash will not export that so I need to make the animated .gifs click to their respective links.
How do I do in Photoshop CS4?
any help??
rdef

Photoshop can produce animated GIF files but I'm confused by your request.
You cannot embed any linking data in a GIF file. This is done in HTML.

Fireworks cs4 - animated gif

ok.
Haven't had to do this since cs3.
I have my images collected for each frame of the animation in Fireworks CS4 on separate layers.
I am under the impressions that "States" has replace "Frames".
I create a new state and make layer one visible.
I duplicate the state and make layer two visible.
When I go back to state one layer two is visible instead of just layer one.
It looks like layer visibility is changing across all states.
What's the trick?
Thanks.

Hi Linda,
I'm wondering if you can explain in a bit more detail how to actually place graphics on states as opposed to layers.
If I select the contents of a layer and copy them, then go to the states panel, select the specific state i want the content on, and paste... it doesn't seem to do anything but create a new layer in my layers panel. If I turn off layers from one state to the next, it turns them off for all states.
I made many layers in Photoshop, expecting to be able to open the file in Fireworks, make states, and just turn on and off layers to create my animation. This worked with earlier versions of Fireworks (back when GIF banners were the standard format for online ads... I know, I'm a dinosaur).
I've been trying to get this to work for hours, and finding this very unintuitive and frustrating.
Thanks for any help you can provide.

Can't figure out how to make a graphic expand in an animated gif (CS4)

I'm trying to make an animated gif where two of my graphics expand to the outer edges of the picture. However all that I can manage to accomplish is to have the opacity fade in or out. Is it possible to make a graphic expand in CS4?
Thanks for any help!

I'm not very familiar with animation using Photoshop. I have a small amount of experience using Illustrator, but not much. I'm not sure what a normal timeline is.
What I'm trying to do should be very simple. I want to emulate a tv screen flickering on, using 2 white bars that expand outwards from the center of a blackish background.

Flash CS4 crashes when publishing .SWF to animated .gifs

I know, I know ... I need to update. Tough crap, it's paid for. Every time I go to publish a .swf file to an animated .gif, I crash. Running CS4 on Windows 7, 64-bit. ANY help would be appreciated! This is a RUSH scenario on a time-sensitive job. Thx!

Hi Cratig84383,
Can you verify if any of your library assets is corrupted?
Thanks,
Preran

Flash CS4 crashes when exporting to animated .GIF!!!!

I am running Snow Leopard and Flash CS4 10.0.2. Everytime I try to export to an animated GIF flash will crash. I can export to .swf, html, and a static .gif just fine. As soon as I check that animated box and hit publish, it crashes. This is annoying and ridiculous. Is this an issue with Flash?
At first I thought it was due to the fact that I was using actionscript for my animation. I figured the .gif didn't support that so I got rid of it, still crashed. Even just made a very simple text animation and it still would crash. This is unacceptable.
Anyone know a good SWF - animated GIF converter in the meantime?

Honestly, I am really astonished that CS4 runs under Windows 8 at all. You should get your hands on a trial version of flash cc and test if you are encountering the same problems:
if yes: then it must be related to your soundsystem (audio drivers/soundcard) or the files you try to import are non-standard/demolished
if no (flas cc imports your files but not CS4) then I would advise moving on to a specialized Windows 8.1 forum

CS4 Export Movie animated gifs

I tried using this feature in CS3 and no matter what setting I tried the animation looked horrible. I have been using CS4 so I can get used to it and I have to say that the new animation techniques really make a big difference. One of the features I thought I would try is the export movie to an animated gif. Without even looking at the settings I did the export and opened the .gif in Firefox and I as amazed to see that it looks so much better in CS4 than CS3 ever did. I guess this must have been a big complaint cause as a designer who does alot of banners I need to do back up animated.gifs in some instances and if you know Macs there is no app to do this so when I needed to I would copy the swfs to a thumb drive and do the conversion from swf to animated gif on my pc.
rderf

I searched the CS5 user guide PDF, and find that animated gif is a support INPUT format, but find NO mention of that being an export format
The tutorial list in message #3 http://forums.adobe.com/message/2276578 has a link to download the current PDF for easy searching, since I don't know if CC adds that for export

Fireworks CS4 animated gif - ghosting - Help Please!

I have creadted a skyscrapper ad using Frieworks with a gradient on the background. When it is played on a PC (I use a Mac), there is ghosting of the text. Does anyone know how to get rid of this? It looks fine on my Mac. When I save as an animated gif, I select dither to make the gradient look smoother. Help! Please!

Hi,
Animated gif backgrounds with gradient would definitely look ghosted or distorted because of the way GIF images are generated. Take a look at the solution suggested in this tutorial http://www.smartwebby.com/free_tutorials/website-design-how-to/GIFs-optimization.asp - I think using the Exact setting might make your Animated GIF with gradients smoother.
- Anita

Open and edit animated .gif while preserving frame timing

CS4 Premium Design Edition, Win XP
I was disappointed with the removal of Image Ready from CS3 because although some of the functionality was placed into Photoshop 10, there was no way to open and edit an existing animated .gif while preserving the timing of each individual frame. I was told on the PS forum at the time that I really needed to use Fireworks. I resented that, because I was very happy with Image Ready and I didn't want to have to learn a new application just to gain functionality that had been included in previous versions of PS/IM.
I've now got CS4 Premium Design Edition which of course includs Fireworks... and here's what Help has to say on the subject of imported .gifs.
"Note: When you import an animated GIF, the state delay setting defaults to 0.07 seconds. If necessary, use the States panel to restore the original timing."
This is no use to me. What if I don't know the individual frame timings? What if there are 200 frames with varying timings?
Simple question: which current Adobe product is capable of importing a .gif while retaining the frame timings? If anyone knows, or if I've misunderstood the nature of the Fireworks Help quote above, I'd really appreciate some input here. Thanks :)
Not so simple question: why was an excellent gif-editing application thrown out to have its functionality partially replaced by a bunch of scripts and half-effective workarounds cooked up by desperate users ("import a gif by using the video import and typing *.* into the filename box..")? It's a fair question I think.
Mark

Hi Bob, that's not glib at all, it's a reasonable question.
I uninstalled it along with everything else when I installed CS3, in the reasonable expectation that whatever replaced IR would be at least equal in functionality.
Perhaps I should just dig out CS2 and install IM from there, but I have some serious reservations about doing so, because I don't know if/how a partial install of CS2 will impact upon my installation of CS4, and I'm not confident of getting support.
I am also curious to know if/why Adobe actually removed basic functionality without replicating or replacing it in their other software. I really want to know: which recent, currently supported Adobe product
should I be using in order to regain this functionality? Or do Adobe no longer produce a geniuinely comprehensive .gif-editing application?
Mark

Animated GIFs in CS4

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