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Posted on 11/10/09 2:21:21 PM |
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BigVern
Q Quipper Posts: 674 Reply  |
Exporting .psd animation successfully?
The following is my post in this week's Friday Challenge: Follow the link for my animation which I had exported as an .avi video render. I had real trouble creating a gif file ( I guess it was too big). I note that in uploading it however it seems to have been turned into an flv file and squashed. Ho hum - I do need to understand video export more. Cheers Vern http://s143.photobucket.com/albums/r160/BigVernphoto/?action=view¤t=planefly02.flv I had successfully created a short animation using a few layers (the background, shadow and propeller are on 3D postcard layers) in a .psd file of dimensions 500 x 313 pixels, RGB colour. In memory the .psd file is 3.15 MB but saved on disk it is 10.1 MB. When running the animation in photoshop it looks good and runs really smoothly and of course retains its dimensions. I first tried creating an animated GIF from this animation through save for web and devices but on switching from jpg to gif in the dialogue photoshop takes forever to re-render the file and if I cancel the process then photoshop crashes. I next tried exporting the animation as Quicktime movie using the high quality setting and whilst it produces a good output the file size balloons to 27.7 MB, not good for sharing with others. I reduced quality settngs to get it down to 13 MB but it is still too large to share on the internet and the quality is not good anyway. Next I tried exporting to FLC which got the file size down to 6.71 MB but the quality suffered so that it looked awful. Finally I exported to AVI and with a few setting tweaks got the file size to 6.18 MB and a good quality. I proceeded to upload this to photobucket and linked to it from the forum. However when the link is followed I see that photobucket has turned the AVI file into an FLV file of 591 KB squashed to image horizontally and reduced quality in the process. Can someone please help me with advice on exporting photoshop animations to various formats whilst retaining a good level of quality butting keeping file size down; preferably around 1MB. Also, if the above is not enough - how do I add sound to animations in photoshop and to exported video. Many thanks Vern |
Posted on 11/10/09 2:39:38 PM |
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maiden
Golden Gif Gagster Posts: 471 Reply  |
Re: Exporting .psd animation successfully?
Keeping file size down to 1mb is a tall order especially with gif - I can understand the problem with Save to Web and Devices but you can help the process by firstly reducing the number of frames and resizing before you go to Save to Web and Devices. Depending on the number of frames the filesize is pruely down to the quality - getting rid of Dithering helps a lot but also leaves clumpy blocks of colour which you could break up somewhat by dialling in some Lossy - although too much and it looks awful - also reduce the number of colours displayed. It's a hard task and often you have to sacrifice more than you want to ensure you come within budget on the filesize. Of course the biggest saver is to reduce the Image Size. Here's an example of a HD video clip I converted to gif for the web (0% dither and only 32 colours) - 
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Posted on 11/10/09 7:48:29 PM |
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BigVern
Q Quipper Posts: 674 Reply |
Re: Exporting .psd animation successfully?
Thanks Maiden. I will give your advice a try. Vern |
Posted on 12/10/09 02:33:53 AM |
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tooquilos
Wizard of Oz Posts: 2918 Reply  |
Re: Exporting .psd animation successfully?
Hi Vern I don’t know if this is the correct or accepted way, but it seems to work well for me. Firstly, I create the storyline in my head, basically from beginning to end I establish and create each move. Then go ahead and create the artwork in photoshop, carefully labeling and grouping each layer and numbering them in the sequence that they will appear in. I then create the .gifs. What I found works successfully and have never had a crash since Ive been doing it this way….is create and export the .gif in parts. Some of my animations may have 5-8 parts to it, depending on the length. By doing it this way, I don’t have to reduce the quality of the gif The way I do this is create the first 10 frames…export…then go back to my animation frames and delete frame 1 – 9. Keeping only frame number 10. That then becomes frame 1 in .gif 2..Repeat the process until the animation is finished. Once Ive completed it, I bring in the gif files either to After Effects or Premiere. Premiere seems to work a bit better for me, particularly if its longer animation. You can add sounds and music in AE or Premiere. I add a 2 second black frame beginning and end and fade in and out. I have a library of sound effects..either mp3 or wav files, both work well. If I need a specific voice, I will either record it myself or find an unwilling victim and put a script in front of them and ask them to read! lol. I have a sound recorder which I use for that. The voices are generally distorted using Soundbooth but you can achieve a certain level of manipulation using AE and Premiere also. I then export the .avi using the export settings…generally medium quality. I end up with an avi around 6-10mb. My original account with photobucket was quite limiting as it would only allow upto 1mb which would drastically reduce and kill the quality. Since upgrading the account – from memory they allow videos up to 100MB. Im sure there are other ways, probably less involved/complex in doing it but Ive just found this way works well for me. The entire process generally takes me around 2 hours, after I have found all the suitable images etc. I hope this helps Vern. Anna  _________________ Dorothy: Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore |
Posted on 12/10/09 8:11:24 PM |
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BigVern
Q Quipper Posts: 674 Reply |
Re: Exporting .psd animation successfully?
Wow ... thanks also Anna for the detailed explanation. I can see there is a lot more to successfully producing short animations than I had thought. Planning is not something I usually do when it comes to Photoshop. I generally have an idea and work on it till its finished and then worry about how i am going to export it after. I can see a different approach is needed. Thanks again to you both, Vern |
Posted on 13/10/09 07:24:53 AM |
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tooquilos
Wizard of Oz Posts: 2918 Reply |
Re: Exporting .psd animation successfully?
You are welcome Vern. Good Luck with it. Becky - the little mushroom creature is awfully cute  _________________ Wicked Witch of the West:I'll get you, my pretty! And your little dog, too! |