Can I create a countdown timer in Photoshop?

[its_johnny_time]

Hi there Creative Fam!

I am wanting to create a timer for an event coming up, but I wasn't sure if I can do this in Photoshop or if I need to buy/download Premier Pro or After Effects?

I greatly appreciate any help I can get on this subject!

Thanks a ton. 😃

Johnny

P.S. Something that I can use over and over again would be a plus, too

[josephr19774008]

I'm not sure if photoshop can do this. I know you can create a design for it and then use those assets in a flash/jquery counter. If you google jquery countdown or counter you'll find a bunch of free ones. You can edit them how ever you want them to look. I hope this helps.

[mglush]

Hi!

You can create a "simulation" of a countdown as a animated gif or a .mp4 file by creating the artwork and animating on the timeline. It would only look like a countdown, but if you timed it correctly, it might work for what you need.

As for creating a real countdown--I have nothing in my experience that says it's possible in just Photoshop.

Hope that helps,

Michelle

[JJMack]

its_johnny_time  wrote

Hi there Creative Fam!

I am wanting to create a timer for an event coming up, but I wasn't sure if I can do this in Photoshop

I really do not understand why you would even want to try to do that.  Everyone with a cell phone like an iPhone has a stopwatch in their pocket that will be much better than whatever you will be able to come up with using Photoshop.  You do not even know if Photoshop can create a stop watch.   It is surly not anything Photoshop was designed to do.  Its an image editor with tons of features.

[angie_taylor]

I don't mean to be rude but surely there are loads of reasons why you may want to create a countdown with software? Photoshop now offers an animation workflow so those who are making animation for the web, broadcast, kiosks etc may quite rightly expect that they can use Photoshop for these purposes? Why not?

Obviously After Effects is much better for advanced motion graphics but Adobe are clearly trying to market Photoshop as an application capable of producing animations so we have to expect that people will want to start pushing it as far as they can.

An iPhone countdown would not appear on a screen as part of an interactive motion graphic animation so would not be useful for this purpose.

[JJMack]

You are not being rude you just seem to have missed the monitor part of what they want to do. "I am wanting to create a timer for an event coming up"  A Photoshop script surly could monitor the date and time and display a countdown but that would require dedicating Photoshop to motoring the countdown."    There are countdown timers and stop watch application you download from the web  and anyone with a smart phone has some apps to remind them of events or have a countdown for the event in their pocket.

[angie_taylor]

I see what you mean, thanks for the explanation. 🙂

[davescm]

We really do need some clarity from the OP.

I read  "I am wanting to create a timer for an event coming up" as I want to make a timer to use at a forthcoming event.

Dave

[angie_taylor]

Me too 🙂

[davescm]

If It's a stopwatch - then as others have said - you would be better downloading a timer app.

However if it is just a countdown to zero then :

1. Make a layer for each number (I've used 10 down to 1) - plus a layer for the background.

2. Open the timeline and click "create frame animation"

3. In the drop down menu at the top right of the timeline choose  "make frames from layers"

4. Step through each frame and turn on the visibility of the background and the appropriate number

5. Highlight all the frames (click on first then shift click on last) and set the time for each frame - I have used 1 second. I then set the last frame to 5 seconds

You could now export that as a gif - however the timing of gifs can be a bit hit or miss so I would now carry on and make a video from the frame animation. So :

6. Click at the bottom left to turn this into a video

7. In the timeline click on Render Video

8. In the dialogue choose H264 for the format - then click Render

That is it. If you want to add sound , do that after step 6 in the video timeline

Dave

[angie_taylor]

This can be done very easily in After Effects using the Numbers effect. You can keyframe the values or you can add an expression that will control the numbers displayed over time automatically. Let me know you need help doing this in AE. We can move the post over to the After Effects forum if so 🙂

Using Text effects in After Effects

[Test Screen Name]

I can think of two different things you might mean. People are answering depending on which one they guess you mean.

1. A short, continuous countdown timer. Like, 30 seconds counting down to zero. This can be done as an animated GIF in Photoshop quite easily (though you will have to type and position each number in the timeline). This could be used on a web site or in a presentation.

2. A long term timer. Perhaps when someone visits a web site they are told that the event is now in 3 days, 2 hours, 5 minutes. This cannot be done in Photoshop or any kind of movie app: it's a job for a web programmer.

[angie_taylor]

If you want a live countdown for an event then here's how;

Design the Web: Creating an Event Countdown

[its_johnny_time]

Thank you for your help everyone

To clarify, I saw a countdown "video" that a church used to show that the event would be starting in "5 minutes" it was really cool, but I didn't know if Photoshop would have that capability

[davescm]

Yes.

Use the technique I showed to make a video in post 4.

Make separate layers for minutes, tens of seconds and seconds or hours etc. That way, by switching layer visibility for each change, you maximise the number frames with minimum layers.

Dave

[JJMack]

Agree Photoshop should be able to make a countdown video. 

A video is not a timer it is not tracking anything its just counting backwards at some rate. It could even be looped.  Still Photoshop has a 8,000 layer limit so 7,999 to 0 should be do able or multiple count downs like one for hours and one for minuets one for seconds. I do not know what Photoshop frame animation frame limit is do you.  For all I know it could be less than 8,000.

The point is Photoshop has limits if you do not know what they are you may run into one.   I ran into one when I was scripting my Photoshop Photo Collage Toolkit.  For ease of Template creation and population I used Alpha to map Image location size and shape.  I did not know what Photoshop's Alpha Channel limit was.  Photoshop supports 8,000 layers and every layer can have a layer mask and layer mask are like Alpha channels that only show  in the channels palette when a layer with one is Photoshop current target. So of course Photoshop supports a large number of Alpha channels.  That number turned out to be 53. I had to limit My Photo Collage Templates to a max of 53 images.

[davescm]

Hi John - no, unfortunately I don't know what the maximum frame limit is on a frame animation - I've never hit it, but I only use Photoshop for short pieces - going to Premiere /After effects for longer.

The layers limit shouldn't be an issue , as you could use :

10 layers for second units

6 layers for tens of seconds

10 layers for unit Minutes

6 layers for tens of minutes

Plus a background layer

That would require 33 layers to count down from 59 minutes and 59 seconds to zero.

It would take 3600 frames though. If that was an issue you could build the first minute in frame animation then convert and build the rest in the video timeline - repeating the "seconds" animation and changing only the minutes.

Dave

[davescm]

As an aside - a quick search on you tube shows many ready made countdown videos. Nothing like the challenge of doing it yourself though

Dave

[Trevor.Dennis]

I am not entirely sure here if we are talking about a 10, 9, 8... timer or this sort of thing?