Holiday Lights — Make a GIF

A lot of holiday light displays are using lights that simulate motion.  I visited the Magical Winter Lights display in LaMarque Texas with my friend Patti Edens.  We found lots of fun lights to photograph but also a lot of light that could make GIFs.

If you shoot RAW, then make JPGs from the images you want to use in your GIF.

Here’s how to do it:

1.  Open Photoshop and click on Files>Scripts>Load Files Into Stack….
2. Select Browse and select the photos for your GIF.  Then click OK. Photoshop will open the images in a series of layers.
3. Click on Window>Timeline.  The Timeline window opens along the bottom of your screen.
4. In the Timeline window, select Create Frame Animation.  One photo appears on the left side of the Timeline window.
5. Click Select>All Layers
6. Click the little, tiny dropdown menu at the top right of the Timeline window.  (It’s really tiny.  Look for it in the corner.) Select Create New Layer For Each New Frame.
7. Click the same menu again and select Make Frames From Layers
8. Under each frame select how long you want that frame to be visible.
9. At the bottom of the toolbar, you can select how many times you want to the GIF to loop.  The options are once, three times, or forever.
10. Push the play button to preview the GIF.  The play button is a sideways triangle.
11. When ready, click File>Export>Save for Web (Legecy)
12. Your save options include dithered GIF.  That prevents banding in solid colors.
13. Then upload your GIF to the web or use in a Powerpoint presentation.

#Houstonismagical

Author: kathyadamsclark

Professional photographer leading workshops and tours. View all posts by kathyadamsclark