Grab a digital brush and your favorite font to create a unique holiday greeting. Learn how to build a two-frame looping animation in Adobe Photoshop.
I provided a fun photo from Adobe Stock that you can open in Photoshop to try these steps. If you’d like to use the same image, colors, character style, and brush strokes as I do, add the Creative Cloud Library and access it from the Libraries panel (Window > Libraries).
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Hi there, I’m Kathleen Martin, an illustrator and designer. As an intrepid creative explorer, I traverse the digital landscape with an evolving toolkit of handy workflows. You can also find me as a host of Adobe Live on Behance.
Get a sneak peek at the holiday card you will design in this activity.
Step 1: Send a message.
Make your message the focal point of your design. You can either draw words by freehand with the Brush tool or else use the Type tool. I liked Grueber from Adobe Fonts and added it to my library — just click the cloud icon next to the character style to activate it for yourself. Make it fun by choosing Type > Warp Text and picking a Style. Embellish it further by choosing Edit > Transform > Rotate and tilting it slightly to the left.
Step 2: Add some decoration.
Accentuate your design with shapes and patterns using the Brush tool. The Pastel Palooza brush is a fun one for snowy scenes. Add a new layer for your artwork and name it Frame 1 Art. I drew on a tablet, but you can increase the Smoothing if you want to draw smooth lines with a mouse. Set the brush color and add some flourish.
You can also drag elements to your design from the provided library. If you do, make sure to merge them into one layer before moving onto animation: Shift-click each layer, right-click, and choose Merge Layers.
Step 3: Say it again.
Drag the text layer to the new layer button to create a duplicate and use the Move tool to rotate it a little to the right.
To create a wiggly animation, add a new layer and name it Frame 2 Art. Lower the Opacity of Frame 1 Art to provide a visual guide. On the new Frame 2 Art layer, use the Brush tool to redraw the artwork from your original brushstrokes, but with a new slant. When you’re finished, set the Opacity of the first frame back to 100%.
Step 4: Set it in motion.
Open the Timeline panel (Window > Timeline) to build your two-frame animation. Turn off visibility for every layer except the background, original type, and Frame 1 Art layers. Make sure Create Frame Animation appears in the center drop-down menu in the Timeline panel. Click Create Frame Animation to create the first frame.
Click the + icon in the Timeline to add a new frame. With the new frame selected, turn off the visibility of the first text and art layers and turn on the visibility of the second two. Set the timing for each frame — I set mine to 0.5 seconds each. Click the Play button to preview the two-frame animation effect.
Step 5: Mail your greeting.
When you’re ready to share your greeting, choose File > Export > Save for Web (Legacy), select GIF, and set the image size. I saved mine at 1080x1080 to share it on social media. To preview the animation, click the play button. Finally, save it and share it for others to see.
