Stage one.

The above clip shows the photo we are going to work on in Photo Shop. To get this to display we went to file open and selected it in the usual manner.

What we want to do is to make an animation of the motor bike and its passengers, moving across the frame. To do this we must outline the part of the photo we want, and separate it from the whole picture.

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Stage two.

The above clip shows the dotted line around the object we want to isolate, this was done using the left hand tool box, and the tool shown highlighted is called the Polygonal Lasso.

Next we click on inverse, which allows the part surrounding the marked area to be selected, rather than the inside, now  cut and the surrounding area disappears, which should show in our next clip.

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Stage three.

The above clip now shows our isolated subject, this is what we want to see moving from one edge of the frame to the other, ie from right to left.

We need a copy of this subject in our clipboard, so copy it now.

Note in the left tool bar that the Move tool is highlighted, this means that we can point to the subject with the cursor left click and drag to the  right of the frame until it is just showing a small part of the wheel appearing in the frame, therefore you must make sure you have held it by the front part of that wheel in the first place, with your cursor.

When you let go it will stay in that position.

Now note the right hand side of the clip above you should see the various tools available there, the history at the top, the colour and swatch panels, and the brushes in the centre right. At the bottom right look at the display of layers at the moment there should be one showing your subject before you moved it, but of course once you had completed the above it would show in real time the layer of the wheel just entering the layer. As you continue it will show all the layers, with the various positions of the subject as you paste and move it to the required position giving the effect of movement until it dissappears out of the left edge of the layer.

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Stage four.

The above clip shows how we have pasted and positioned the subject in all layers now, and because they are transparent you can see one through another.

This is now ready to "save as" a named file which is saved as a psd file.

So we have saved it now and we have it with all the layers but to  run this as an animation we have to save it as a gif file in some sort of animation software. The one we are going to use is called  Ulead Animator 4.

Don't  worry you have done all the hardest  part already,  so on to the next stage.

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Stage five.

Using the Animation software

The clip above shows the opened application Ulead Animator 4. We have to point our cursor at the V which says open an existing video file. When you click on this it will go to normal file opening window and you will select your subjects.psd file that you have just made. It will then load  onto this software and you will see what appears in the  next clip.

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Stage six.

The clip above shows our psd file loaded into the animator, on the left you see all the frames numbered. In the centre you see the working or viewing area , here you have the edit facility, the preview facility. So click on preview and see how it runs as regards size and speed, but mainly speed of frames. Note above the central working area you can set each frames delay time so in this case you want all frames to display at an equal rate so you decide on a figure and click on the  coloured wand above that, and make the settings global that means that all the frames will be set the same. When you are satisfied you have the correct timing, then just save as a whatever you want to call it, gif file. Then you have your animation. See the animation displayed below.

The one shown here has been put through the watercolour filter in adobe photo shop and smoke has been added to each layers subject. The text is an extra addition.It has also been made smaller to make it run smoother. The main idea is as above.

(This tutorial has been written and created by Pete of Computer Interested Types, and is not for copying for publication or reward , but is for the use of members of this community.)