Flashing Text

Did you know that you can do animations in Photoshop? Instead of download Animation Shop, just use Photoshop. I was trying to make a link button once with I came across it. It took me a while to learn but I got the hang of it and it’s pretty easy.

I’m going to teach you three different animation techniques. Flashing, Chasing and Running. In this Part I’m going to teach you Flashing Text.

So open a new document. File » New » pick whatever size you want; Background Contents: White

Select the Type tool in the toolbox or by pressing the letter ‘T’ on your keyboard. Set your colours to default black and white (if they aren’t already) by clicking the small overlapping squares in the toolbox.

Choose a font from the menu at the top and type your name or any word onto your document.

In your task bar at the top of the screen go to Layer » Duplicate Layer.
Click the eye icon next to the original layer beneath to turn its visibility off. Highlight the text in the top duplicated layer and change the colour to anything other than black.

Deselect the text again. Now open your Animation panel (Window > Animation). Click the paper icon at the bottom to create a second frame.

While the second frame is selected, go back to your Layers panel and click the eye next to the duplicated layer to turn it off and then turn the original black text layer on again.

Back to the Animation panel, select both frames by holding down the SHIFT key while clicking, then click where it says ‘0 sec’ and change the frame time to 0.5 sec. Make sure the repetition is set to ‘Forever’ and press the play button to test it out.

Go to File > Save for Web & Devices and save it as a .gif file. Don’t worry about changing any of the other fields for now.

This is my finished Result.

View Chasing Animation