Exercise #6: Animated GIF

For this sixth and final exercise, use the animation palette in Photoshop to create a seamlessly looping animated GIF.

The goal of this project is to think about loops, particularly as you move forward in designing your DVD menu. This GIF should have no clear beginning or end – the viewer should be able to start watching it at any point. So, how can you create a very short animation with no beginning and no end?

The notion of the loop challenges conventional notions of cinema as linear and time-based, so your challenge is to re-think this convention in a miniature way. Your GIF should be meaningful and purposeful in its content – what images are appropriate and demanding of presentation in loop form? Can you create a short narrative? A joke? An otherwise unnatural action? What kind of animation lends itself well to a loop?

Your GIF may be drawn/generated or composed of pre-existing images, such as collage or stills from a movie or one of your own video projects.

• The final image must be 320 pixels wide or smaller (smaller loads faster)
• Must include at least 5 frames
• Must loop seamlessly, that is, with no obvious beginning or end
• Turned in as a GIF in a post on your blog

More tutorial help here:

http://creativetechs.com/tipsblog/build-animated-gifs-in-photoshop/

http://www.adobe.com/designcenter/video_workshop/?id=vid0023

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