Animation: Text Glow
Alright, first off we're gonna need an image you want to animate. I'll be using the first icon of the
two just just saw. Open up Photoshop with your image and make sure both your
layers table and
animation table are open. In case they aren't, simply go to your main toolbar and open them through this order:
To open layers table:
Window > Layers
To open animation table:
Window > Animation
Now we need some text to animate right? Simply select the text tool from your toolbar and write whatever you want:
Next, we're going to need the text to GLOW. So let's duplicate the first text layer by right-clicking it and selecting "Duplicate Layer."
This will give us three layers total. Our Background and our two text layers:
Now, right click the
second text layer you just made, and select "Blending Options." This will open up a new
window full of different text customizations. Let's skip on to the "Outer Glow" option. Play around with the settings
there until you're happy with the way the glow looks. These are the settings I chose:
(click to enlarge)
Next up, we're going to animate these two together so the text with
actually glow, instead of
having a glow.
Go to the small bar on the bottom of your animation table. Look for this icon and select it:
It will open up a new layer, thus giving you two animation layers:
Go back and select the first of the two animation layers. Once you've selected it, go to your layers table and
make the second text
invisible. You can do this by selecting the small eye icon to the left of it.
After you've done that, select the
second of the two animation layers and once again look to your layers table. This
time we're going to make the
first layer invisible. Again, just select the eye icon to the left of the layer to make it invisible.
Let me explain: You've now created two animation layers. One with the first text layer (without glow) showing, the other with the
second text layer (with glow) showing.
By doing this we can animate the icon so that it will alternate between the two layers and give us that glowing effect.
Once you've done this, we can now "tween" the two images together. Go back to the small bar on the bottom of your animation
table and select the icon with four small circles in it:
It will open up a window asking you how many frames to add. You can choose how ever many you want for different effects,
but for this tutorial I'm just going to add "10."
Click ok, and you will now see your animation table flooded with new layers. Don't worry about editing these, because Photoshop
has already done it for you =D
You're now done with animating! Let's preview how the image will look shall we? Just go to your main toolbar and select:
File > Save for Web
This will open up a preview window with all sorts of settings you can play around with. I wont go into those right now,
but to preview your animation simply look to the bottom right corner to buttons that say "play," "stop," etc. Just press the
play button to play your animation:
Done! If you're pleased with the final result, just save the animation, name it whatever you want, and you're ready to go.
(click to enlarge)
