The same effect could be achieved using Flash, but for ease of creation, size, and compatibility I prefer the animated GIF. There are lots of programs available to turn your photos into GIFs. The general idea is the same, but I'll be demonstrating the specifics in Adobe Photoshop CS3.

Why animated GIFs? Why animated anything?

Time-lapse is a good example of when an animated GIF is a good option. The technology allows anyone with a Web browser to view your time-lapse. Beyond time-lapse, probably the two most popular uses of animated GIFs today are ads and icons.

Animated GIFs can attract attention and allow you to show more information in a limited space. Many people create animated icons to demonstrate their love for a television show, a band, or for comedic effect. If you've ever visited a blogger site like LiveJournal, you know exactly what I mean. Rather than using pictures of themselves, bloggers use pictures of their interests to represent them. They even have contests for who can come up with the best icons for certain themes.

For this example, my friends in the Muckrakers said I could use images off their MySpace page. They're a great band, but be aware that some of their songs might not be appropriate for sensitive readers.

Animating with Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop CS3 makes creating animated GIFs easy. If there is a drawback to creating animated GIFs in Photoshop, it's the options. There are a dozen ways to do just about anything in Photoshop and animation is no different.

For this beginner's example, let's make a really simple banner by just turning the various layers invisible at particular timings to make the animation.

To get started, open Photoshop. If you don't see the animation palette, select Animation from the Window menu. The animation palette will appear at the bottom of your screen. Your screen should look similar to Figure A.

FIGURE A

Your screen with the animation palette opened should look like this. Click picture for a larger image.

Now what dimensions do you want your GIF to have? You can start with a blank canvas or with a particular photo. For this example, let's start with a blank canvas. Select New from the File menu and create a new image. I usually work in pixels or inches, but you can use any of the units of measure available. Let's make a rectangle like you might see as a banner on a Web site. Something like 7" x 1.5" is a good size for our example. If you were to make a banner for Connected Photographer, you'd create an image that was either 468x60 or 728x90 pixels.