Falling Snow

I wrote this tutorial on my own.  Any similarity to another tutorial is purely coincidental.  I claim the copyright to my tutorial. You are free to do whatever you please with what you make, but please do not take my tutorial.  Do not send the tutorial through email.  Only share my link.

This tutorial is intended for a beginner to learn about making animation.  If you have any questions, please feel free to email me.

To do this tutorial you will also need Photoshop CS or CS2.  You may download a free trial at Adobe.

Remember to save as a .psd file often!

Download VDL Adrenaline Snowflake Plugin.

1.  Open the image that you wish to use.  Image > Duplicate.  Close the original.

2.  Resize the image as necessary:  Image > Resize.

3.  Layer > new > Layer from background

4.  We need some extra room above the picture to make the snow fall.  Image > Canvas Size.  At the top you see the Current Size of your image.  Add 400 pixels to the HEIGHT, leaving the width the same amount.  So I changed my height from 400 pixels to 800 pixels.

5.  Layer > New > Layer

6.  Filters > VDL Adrenaline > Snowflakes.  Apply these settings:  Amount = 20, Size begin = 0, size end = 12, hardness = 100, transparency = 0, snow color = basic snow, random seed = 0.

7.  Right-click on this snow layer (top) and choose Duplicate.

8.  Filters > Other > Offset.  Horizontal = 0, Vertical = 50, Set to Transparency

9.  Repeat Steps 7 & 8 until you have 7 or 8 copies of the snow layer.

10.  Save this as a PSD image.  File > Save As.

11.  Open this image in Image Ready.

12.  In the Animation Window, click on the menu arrow and choose "Make Frames From Layers"

13.  In the Animation Window, click on the menu arrow again and be sure that there is a CHECK by "Create Layer for Each New Frame" and "New Layers Visible in All States/Frames"

14.  In the Animation Window, click on FRAME 1, and in the Layer Palette, right-click on the bottom Layer and choose Duplicate Layer.

You should see your picture appear in every frame.

15.  Drag FRAME 1 to the trash can at the bottom of the Animation Window.  Frame 1 did not have any snow on it, so we have deleted it.

16.  Now you must set how fast your animation will play.  At the bottom of each Frame you should see the words 0 sec with a little down black arrow.  click on that down arrow (circled in pic below) and choose 0.2 seconds.  If you want to make the snow fall slower, click on the word Other and type in 0.3 or a bigger number. 

17.  Repeat STEP 16 for each frame!

18.  Now you can check your animation out:  At the bottom of the Animation Window are play buttons.  Click on the Play arrow, and watch the big image at the top.  Click on the stop button when done.

19.  Choose the rectangle selection box.  Draw a rectangle around the image part of your graphic.

20.  Image > Crop.

21.  Now save this as a GIF:  File > Save Optimized AS

 Please do not remove this tutorial from my site.  Share my url.