Animated GIF on Mars

Quick reference

• 00:04 Hey everyone.
• 00:05 Howard Pinsky here with a very fun Photoshop tutorial where
• 00:08 we're gonna be creating an animated GIF from this photo that was
• 00:11 released recently by NASA that's making it's way around the internet.
• 00:15 Mainly because if you take a look right up here at the top middle,
• 00:18 there's this object that no one really knows what it is.
• 00:21 It looks like some metallic object, and
• 00:24 some say it fell off the Rover as it was descending,
• 00:26 some say it's a natural piece of metal like iron that's in the Mars surface.
• 00:30 Or some people say, well, it's an alien articraft.
• 00:33 So we're gonna be creating an enhancement GIF, kind of like you see in CSI and
• 00:37 all those other TV shows.
• 00:38 Obviously, this technology doesn't really exist, but we're gonna pretend.
• 00:42 Cuz, that's what Photoshop is for.
• 00:43 So let's go ahead and begin.
• 00:45 So to start off this project, we wanna go ahead and
• 00:48 reveal our timeline, as that's where we're gonna be doing our animation.
• 00:52 And you can do this in one of two ways.
• 00:53 You can either double-click on the Timeline tab at the bottom of
• 00:56 your workspace.
• 00:57 Or you can activate it under the Window menu at the top of your screen.
• 01:01 And once the timeline is visible, you wanna go ahead and
• 01:03 press the Create Video Timeline button.
• 01:05 Now you may see, Create Frame Animation.
• 01:08 If you do, press the arrow to the right.
• 01:10 And press on the Create Video Timeline option.
• 01:12 Now I will note, cuz I do see this issue come up a lot, if your computer isn't
• 01:17 strong enough, if your graphics card doesn't have enough memory, or if
• 01:20 your drivers are out of date, you may not have this option available to you at all.
• 01:24 So go ahead and try and update Photoshop, update your drivers and
• 01:27 then try again, otherwise your computer may just not be strong enough to
• 01:30 handle the features that are available in Photoshop CS6.
• 01:33 So let me go ahead and press Create Video Timeline, and
• 01:36 here is the timeline where we're gonna be doing our animation.
• 01:39 All of our layers will appear here, and we can go ahead and
• 01:41 expand it to see exactly what they contain.
• 01:44 I'm gonna go ahead and collapse this just for now.
• 01:46 And what we wanna do first is create the first layer that we're gonna be
• 01:49 working with.
• 01:50 And that layer is going to be the magnification of that shiny object that's
• 01:54 appearing at the top.
• 01:56 So to do that, I'm gonna start with my Rectangular Marquee tool.
• 01:59 Which I can find in my Tools bar to the left.
• 02:01 And I'm gonna make a simple square selection by holding down my
• 02:04 Shift key around this object.
• 02:06 Right about here, and
• 02:07 I can hold down my Spacebar at any time to move that selection around.
• 02:11 So I'm gonna leave that selection right about there.
• 02:14 And when the selection has been made, I wanna turn this into a layer.
• 02:18 And I can very quickly do that by holding down my Cmd key on the Mac.
• 02:21 Ctrl key on Windows, and then pressing the J key on my keyboard,
• 02:25 and you can see in the Layers panel we now have Layer 1.
• 02:28 And if I go ahead and
• 02:29 move it you can see that it only contains what was inside that selection.
• 02:33 That's exactly what we want in order to animate this layer, and
• 02:36 before I animate anything I always like to convert those layers into a smart object.
• 02:40 This just ensures that the original pixels are saved just in case we have to
• 02:44 go back to them and make changes later on.
• 02:46 And I can do that by right-clicking on the layer in the Layers panel and
• 02:49 choosing the Convert to Smart Object option.
• 02:52 And you can see, there's the smart object icon right on the layer, so
• 02:56 now it's perfectly ready to start animating.
• 02:58 This first animation will be composed of two layers.
• 03:01 One of the simple magnification.
• 03:03 And one that's gonna add a little bit of pixelation to give it a little bit more of
• 03:06 a realistic feel.
• 03:08 So let's start with the simple magnification.
• 03:10 Over here in our timeline we wanna go ahead and
• 03:12 expand this layer, which is Layer 1.
• 03:14 And we wanna look for Transform.
• 03:16 That's what we're gonna be animating first.
• 03:18 And to start that animation, you wanna click on the stopwatch icon to the left.
• 03:22 That'll add a first key frame.
• 03:24 And now you can scrub to the location where you want the animation to stop.
• 03:28 I'm gonna leave it right about there.
• 03:29 And now we can go ahead and make the first transformation.
• 03:32 So I'm gonna hold down Cmd or Ctrl and
• 03:34 press the letter T on my keyboard to enter Free Transform mode.
• 03:38 And with my alter option and Shift key held down, I'm gonna enlarge this layer,
• 03:41 nice and large, right about there, and press Return or
• 03:44 Enter on my keyboard to accept the changes.
• 03:46 I'm also gonna move it somewhere around the top left corner of this image.
• 03:50 So that's the first animation.
• 03:51 If I go back and scrub through it,
• 03:53 you can see it starts there and it enlarges to there.
• 03:57 So that's a good start, but I wanna add something a little bit extra to give it
• 04:00 a little bit more of a realistic feel.
• 04:02 We're gonna add a mosaic filter.
• 04:04 We're gonna first add it to this layer with a cell size of zero.
• 04:07 And then when we duplicate this layer, we're gonna increase it later on.
• 04:11 It's a little bit tricky, but it'll probably make sense in a few minutes.
• 04:13 So we're gonna go up to the Filter menu, down to Pixelate, and then choose Mosaic.
• 04:18 Now again, for this one, we're gonna set the cell size as low as possible.
• 04:22 Two is the lowest number we can go right now,
• 04:24 which is basically a cell size of zero.
• 04:25 You can't see much pixelation.
• 04:27 We're gonna press OK.
• 04:28 And now we wanna go ahead and duplicate the layer.
• 04:31 Usually when you wanna duplicate a layer, just Cmd or Ctrl+J.
• 04:35 But the problem there, is if I go ahead and
• 04:37 expand this layer you'll notice that my transformation has disappeared.
• 04:41 So we don't wanna duplicate it that way.
• 04:42 That's basically a layer via copy.
• 04:45 You wanna duplicate it by going up to the Layer menu and
• 04:47 then choosing Duplicate Layer.
• 04:49 And when I press OK, if we go ahead and
• 04:51 expand this, you'll notice I now have my transformations.
• 04:54 Which is gonna save us a lot of time.
• 04:56 Now in this layer, I'm gonna go ahead and double-click on the Mosaic filter.
• 04:59 This is another reason why you should use smart filters cuz you can always go
• 05:02 back and change those filters later on.
• 05:04 And I'm gonna increase my cell size, let's say to around 20.
• 05:07 I'm gonna press OK.
• 05:09 And now If I scrub back, you're gonna see a little bit of a problem.
• 05:12 We don't want the pixelation to start right from the get go.
• 05:15 We want it to kinda fade in over time.
• 05:17 So we want to now animate the opacity.
• 05:19 I'm gonna scrub over a little bit, right around there.
• 05:22 We'll have the opacity start animating there.
• 05:24 And we wanna press the stopwatch right beside Opacity.
• 05:27 And when we do that,
• 05:28 a new key frame is added and here the opacity should be set to 0%.
• 05:33 In Photoshop CS6 you can very quickly do that by pressing zero twice on
• 05:37 your keyboard and then we wanna scrub to the end point, right about there.
• 05:41 And now we wanna set the opacity back up to 100%,
• 05:43 which can be very simply done by pressing zero once on your keyboard.
• 05:47 And now it's at 100% and we now see the pixelation.
• 05:50 So if we scrub back to the beginning you'll see it starts out normally and
• 05:53 then right about there the pixelation starts to fade in really nicely.
• 05:57 So far so good, now at this point we wanna start the enhancement,
• 06:00 which is gonna be done on another layer, but it's not gonna be a duplicated layer,
• 06:04 it's gonna be a layer via copy.
• 06:06 Cuz this time we don't wanna bring over the animations that we've already set.
• 06:09 So, now we can simply do Cmd or Ctrl+J on the keyboard.
• 06:13 And that'll create a copied layer right above with no animations which is
• 06:16 exactly what we want.
• 06:18 Now it does contain the mosaic filter,
• 06:20 again because we're using smart filters we can always edit this.
• 06:23 I'm gonna simply drag this filter right down into the trash.
• 06:26 And now we can start editing this layer.
• 06:28 I'm gonna start off by moving it over to the right just a little bit.
• 06:31 That'll give it a little bit of a pause right after the magnification completes.
• 06:34 Now in this layer, we're gonna be adding a sharpening filter.
• 06:37 And to do that we're gonna go up to Filter.
• 06:39 Down to Sharpen.
• 06:40 And then Unsharp Mask.
• 06:42 And we're gonna over enhance it just a little bit.
• 06:44 I'm gonna set the amount somewhere around, let's say,
• 06:47 forty five percent, the radius around twenty pixels, the threshold at zero.
• 06:51 I'm gonna press OK.
• 06:53 Now obviously it shouldn't just appear sharpened.
• 06:55 It has to fade in gradually.
• 06:57 So we're gonna be animating the opacity on this layer.
• 06:59 So I'm gonna go ahead and expand this new layer.
• 07:01 I'm gonna press on the stopwatch beside Opacity to add a first key frame.
• 07:05 I'm gonna set the opacity at zero by pressing 0 on the keyboard twice.
• 07:08 I'm gonna scrub a little bit to the right, and
• 07:11 I'm gonna press 0 to set the opacity back at 100%.
• 07:13 So now, let's take a look at the animation.
• 07:16 Again it starts off normally, pixelation comes in,
• 07:19 there's a little bit of a pause, and then the sharpness starts to appear.
• 07:23 But you will notice a little bit of the mosaic is still peaking out from behind.
• 07:27 So on that layer, if we scroll down just a little bit in our timeline,
• 07:30 I'm gonna scrub back to where the sharpening starts, right about there,
• 07:33 I'm gonna make sure this layer is selected, the layer with the mosaic on it.
• 07:36 I'm gonna add a key frame, I'm gonna scrub to the end,
• 07:39 and I'm gonna set the opacity to zero.
• 07:42 So now the mosaic will fade out as the sharpening is coming in, so one more time,
• 07:46 it starts out normally.
• 07:47 Pixelation comes in, pause and then sharpen.
• 07:51 And if I scrub back and
• 07:52 press the spacebar it'll all happen at once which is looking really nice.
• 07:56 But, we're gonna add one more fun little effect.
• 07:58 Let me go back up to the top of my timeline and
• 08:00 we're gonna add a little bit of an artifact.
• 08:02 We wanna figure out what this metallic object is.
• 08:05 So over at shutterstock.com I found this image of an alien's skull.
• 08:08 Obviously, not a real alien's skull.
• 08:10 Which I've already extracted from the background and I'm gonna go ahead and
• 08:13 move it over to this document, place it right about there.
• 08:16 Now, that's obviously way too big, I'm gonna go ahead and
• 08:18 convert it into a smart object so I can preserve those pixels.
• 08:21 And I'm gonna transform it down quite a bit Cmd or Ctrl+T.
• 08:25 Cmd+0 to make sure I can see everything.
• 08:27 And then transform downwards.
• 08:29 Let me zoom in so I can see what I'm working with.
• 08:31 I'm gonna place it somewhere right around there.
• 08:33 I don't want it too big.
• 08:36 That looks pretty good, right there.
• 08:38 And I can also go ahead and adjust the perspective.
• 08:40 Cmd or Ctrl+T one more time.
• 08:41 I'm gonna hold down Cmd or Ctrl.
• 08:44 And simply adjust the perspective as necessary.
• 08:47 Just like this.
• 08:50 Now obviously this metal object is probably not an alien skull but
• 08:53 we can always pretend, so I'm gonna leave it, let's say, right about there.
• 08:57 I'm actually gonna wanna transform it down just a little bit more, right there.
• 09:02 And now we can add some animation to it.
• 09:04 And we want the animation to happen as the image is sharpening.
• 09:07 So I'm gonna make sure in the timeline to line it up with the previous
• 09:10 layer, right there.
• 09:11 I'm gonna go ahead and expand this layer and we want again to animate the opacity.
• 09:15 I'm gonna turn on opacity there, set the opacity at 0% again, double press on 0.
• 09:21 Scrub to the end point which you can see down here in the timeline and
• 09:25 press 0 again.
• 09:26 So now, starts normal, pixelation, pause and sharpen with the skull.
• 09:32 Now as you can tell it doesn't look very realistic so
• 09:35 we're gonna make a few changes.
• 09:36 We're first gonna add a layer mask to blend it in a little bit with
• 09:39 the bottom here.
• 09:40 We can add a layer mask at the bottom in your Layers panel right down there.
• 09:43 There's our little layer mask.
• 09:44 I'm gonna press the B key on my keyboard to enter my Brush tool and
• 09:47 paint in black which will hide some of the areas of that skull to make it
• 09:51 look like it's kind of embedded in the sand.
• 09:54 Good, once that's done let's add a few adjustment layers to blend it in
• 09:57 a little bit more with the background.
• 09:58 I'm gonna go ahead and
• 09:59 add an adjustment layer, let's add a brightness and contrast,
• 10:03 I'm gonna decrease the brightness a little bit, and increase the contrast.
• 10:06 Now you're noticing, it's applying it to everything.
• 10:08 We don't want that.
• 10:09 So we wanna click on this icon right here,
• 10:11 which is gonna clip it with the previous layer.
• 10:13 So now only the skull is being affected.
• 10:16 That's perfect.
• 10:17 Right about there.
• 10:17 I'm gonna add one more adjustment layer.
• 10:20 I'm going to add a hue and saturation.
• 10:22 Again, make sure to clip it.
• 10:24 I'm gonna decrease the saturation.
• 10:26 Maybe increase the hue a little bit.
• 10:29 Somewhere right around there.
• 10:30 To make sure the colors match up a little bit better than they were before.
• 10:34 And the last thing I'm gonna do,
• 10:35 because the image is still a little bit blurry, it shouldn't be too sharp.
• 10:38 I do wanna go back to this layer,
• 10:40 the containing the skull, and add a little bit of a Gaussian blur filter.
• 10:44 So, Filter > Blur and then Gaussian Blur.
• 10:48 Now two is probably a little bit too much, so I'm gonna decrease it,
• 10:51 let's say to around 1.3, maybe 1.2, maybe 1.
• 10:57 Okay. One looks pretty good.
• 10:58 I'm gonna press OK,
• 11:00 and let's go back to the beginning to see how things are progressing.
• 11:03 So, it starts off normally.
• 11:06 The enhancement starts.
• 11:07 Pixelation starts.
• 11:08 There's a little bit of a pause.
• 11:10 Enhance.
• 11:11 And we now see what that object on Mars really is.
• 11:15 Again it's probably not an alien skull and
• 11:17 if we do hide the skull layer it looks nothing like a skull, it's probably
• 11:20 a strangely formed rock or something that fell off the Rover as it was descending.
• 11:24 But we can always have a little bit of fun with some CSI type enhancements,
• 11:28 now to finish off the animation, because the animation ends right about here.
• 11:31 We're gonna scrub a little bit further, and I am going to set my end point,
• 11:34 this is the end point right here, I am going to drag it back to the beginning.
• 11:37 And now if I scrub back to the beginning, press the Spacebar,
• 11:39 we can see the animation in all its glory, and it will loop if you
• 11:43 do have that option enabled under the time line's menu right over here,
• 11:46 you can turn on Loop Playback.
• 11:48 Now in order to save it, what you wanna do, you wanna go up to the File menu.
• 11:51 Save for Web, and you wanna make sure that GIF is selected.
• 11:55 Now it will take a little bit of time to prepare as it
• 11:57 is a pretty complex animation and Photoshop has to put everything together.
• 12:01 But once it's finished, right at the bottom here, you have looping options.
• 12:03 You can choose to loop it once or forever.
• 12:06 And when you press Save, you can save it to your computer and
• 12:09 then you can upload just to web for everyone to enjoy.
• 12:11 And that just about does it.
• 12:13 We've gone ahead and uncovered what that mystery object was on Mars.
• 12:16 And of course, you can use this technique to enhance pretty much anything,
• 12:19 like you see in CSI and all those fun TV shows.

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