This morning I should be studying and reading cases about strategic management… instead I decided to play with my camera and take some self portraits!  Please ignore my goofy faces, lack of makeup, and crazy hair… the point of this post is to share a new trick I learned in Photoshop!

I found a really cool blog last week that focuses on photography and mostly self portraiture.  Since my husband is tired of being a subject and I don’t have any children, I decided I might try out some of my ideas on myself.  I hope this doesn’t come across as vanity… I’m not all about “me”… I just want to try out ideas and ultimately be able to capture pictures of my life as it happens.  It’s nice to think I might actually be in a few more pictures (rather than just behind the camera all the time…) if I can figure this out!

So, on to the cool trick!  Animated GIF’s!  Check this out:

Cool, huh??  So, here is what you need to do if you want to create one:

1) Have all your photos edited, ordered, and in a common folder

2) In Photoshop go to FILE –> Scripts –> Load Files into a Stack

3) Select the photos & make sure “Automatically align” is NOT clicked

4) Go to Windows –> Animation

5) In the top right corner of the animation tool bar you’ll see a little menu button, click on it, select “Make frames from Layers”

6) Select all the layers and pick an interval, usually 0.5 sec is about right, but adjust accordingly

7) Hit the Play button to preview

8) Go to File –> Save for Web & Devices, use the 2Up preview screen.  Make sure to save it as a GIF, and then select Perceptual, Noise

9) Save!  You can only preview in an internet browser.

Check out Elena’s full post about this over on her blog… she’s the real expert