How to Make an Animated Icon
These steps teach you how to make an animated icon. There are plenty of premade icons out there, but making your very own is a surefire way to wow your friends and let your own personality shine through. GIFs are the only image format that allow you to use animation. JPEGs, another popular image format, do not. These steps use Adobe Photoshop and its companion program ImageReady.
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Instructions
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Import your images into an image editor such as Photoshop.
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Place each of the images that will make up your animation on separate layers.
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Label each of your layers. Name your layers with descriptive names so that it will be easier to navigate your images when composing your animation. This is especially important if you have a large number of images in your animation.
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Import your images into ImageReady. Click the "Jump to ImageReady" button at the bottom of the Photoshop tool palette.
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Click "Make Frames From Layers" in the animations palette. This will take the layers you created in Photoshop and turn them into frames that will make up your animation.
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Set the timing for each of your animation frames. Below each frame is a number representing how many seconds each frame of animation will display. For example, you might want your first image to stay on screen for 5 seconds and then have your remaining frames zip by the viewer at fractions of a second after one another. The choice is yours. Experiment with your animation to find the best flow. Simply click on the number, and a drop-down window will appear allowing you to edit the timing of your frame.
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Save your file. Click "File--Save Optimized As" from the main menu. Name your file and click "OK." That's it! You know have an original animated icon of your own.
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Tips & Warnings
Be aware of file sizes. The more images you have in your animation, the bigger the file size and the longer it will take to load. While many people have broadband Internet connections today, there are still many who do not, and they probably won't appreciate waiting several minutes for your animation to appear. Try to find a good balance between quality and file size.
