20 Things About Photoshop You Have to Know - Animation, Defringe Tool, and Save for Web
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Animation
Unfortunately, Photoshop cannot produce animated gifs; luckily, this is another area in which Imageready steps in and takes over. In Imageready, open a new file and draw a shape. Now select Window -> Animation to open the animation panel. By default this should contain 1 frame, which is your image as it stands now. Click the new frame button and the move the shape to the right slightly. Keep adding new frames and gradually move your shape to the edge of the page. There are some control buttons beneath the frames, click the play button and your shape should move across the screen. That is as simple as animation can be, but not nearly as complex. To save your animation, go into File -> Save optimised as… and save it as a gif.
Defringe Tool
Ever notice how an image with a transparent back can sometimes have a white edge, or fringe, around it? This can be removed by selecting Layer -> Matting -> Defringe and ok’ing the default of 1 pixel. This is not always 100% successful, and any minor discrepancies can usually be overcome by adding an inside stroke to the image, in the same colour as the edge of the image.
Save for Web
The save for web dialogue box, accessed via the File menu can be used to optimize your image for the web as much as possible. Combining the settings at the right of the dialogue box, it is possible to shave precious seconds off of your image download times. Lowering the amount of dither and increasing the amount of web snap both reduce file size, as does reducing the amount of colours and increasing the amount of lossy (when working with GIFs). Be warned however, image size goes hand in hand with image quality, the smaller the image, the lower the quality.
Conclusion
These are some of the tools and features that I find myself using on a regular basis when creating images for the web. Some of them you may embrace and use every time you open the program - others you may not find any use for at all. Rest assured however, Photoshop remains of the industry standard when it comes to graphic and web design.
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