Participant

Question

Adding animated snow to gif

Forum|Forum|7 years ago
December 5, 2018
2 replies
4590 views

Hi! I'm relatively new to Photoshop, I work in PS CC. I just started trying out editing gifs (not creating them, just editing already existing gifs) and I want to add a snowing effect to my gif. I found a tutorial on how to get a snowing effect on a still image by creating a timeline and using just two frames and then tween animations.

But since I already have a timeline because I want to edit a gif, I don't know how to add another timeline with just the snow layer on top of it.

I hope someone here can help me!

- Kenza

This topic has been closed for replies.

QuantumcatAuthor

Participant

Thank you both very much, I'm going to give it a try!

Trevor.Dennis

Community Expert

Quantumcat wrote
Thank you both very much, I'm going to give it a try!

Good on you, and we'd love to see the end result.

I didn't want to confuse things too much back up the thread, but there a few tricks to help keep the right frames sync'd to the right frames.

An obvious tip would be to have layer names tally with frame numbers. Unfortunately, Photoshop does not have a layer batch rename function, but you can streamline the process a bit.

Double click the first layer to highlight its name, and give it a name plus a space.
Select that text, and copy to clipboard (Ctrl c)
Double click again, and paste (Ctrl v) and add the number
With the name still highlighted, use Shift Tab which will move to the next layer and highlight its name.
Paste in from the clipboard again, and add the next number

Make all but the last step into an action, and you can move up through the layers really quickly.

Or, if you don't mind a wee cost, install the Renamy extension (Note: I don't use this extension myself, so I am only guessing that it will increment the layer name.) It does appear to have this feature according to the FAQ

http://www.klaia.com/Renamy/

This is how I sync secondary moving objects.

Frame 1 is selected, and the Ball 1 layer is turned on.

I then select the next layer, (cyan highlight) before returning to the timeline to select the next frame.

Then back to the layers panel, where the appropriate layer is selected, and so on.

If you have 40 frames, it is very easy to get out of sync!

c.pfaffenbichler

Community Expert

How many frames?

If they are not too many you could add the Layers and add their visibility to the frames manually.

QuantumcatAuthor

Participant

It's 38 layers so I was hoping I wouldn't have to do that!

Trevor.Dennis

Community Expert

Falling snow will only need a very few frames, so make it a sub-multiple of of the existing frames. 38 is not going to work well for you, with the best you can do being 19, but it's as long as it's short, and does not make a lot of difference.

The way I would do it is to make a 19 frame snow fall in another document with the same pixel dimensions.

Group the layers, and drag the group to the 38 frame timeline.

***This bit is important***

Select all the frames, and make sure all the snow layers are turned off.

This does not always work first time, so play the animation, and if you see any snow, repeat the above step.

Now you need to select the first frame, and turn on layer 1, and so on to the 19th frame.

Then carry on starting with the first frame again. There's no other way to do this with Photoshop using frame animations.

If you have a full CC subscription, then look at Animate or After Effects.

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