How to Make a Floating Head Halloween Animation in Adobe After Effects

Using Adobe Photoshop is a fun way to create edited images that will amaze family and friends, but once you bring those photos into Adobe After Effects, you can make the photos come alive. When Halloween approaches, you can create cool effects, including making somebody’s head float around the screen.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Adobe Photoshop
• Adobe After Effects

Adobe Photoshop

1. Load a photo in Adobe Photoshop. The ideal picture for this project should be a straight forward picture with good lighting and nothing blocking the way of the head.

2. 
    

   Use the pen tool to draw around the whole head, just stopping right above the neck. When you have completed the highlighting, right click in the middle of the head and press the “Make Selection” button. Press "OK" on the “Make Selection” pop-up screen.

3. Press "Ctrl" and "X" to cut the head out of the picture. Create a new layer by going to "Layer," "New Layer" and Pressing "OK." Highlight the new layer and press "Ctrl" and "V" to paste the head in this layer.

4. 
    

   Adjust the head so it is back in its original position. Click on the background layer once again and use the pen tool to highlight the complete body. Right-click the mouse, select the “Make Selection” button and press "OK." Click on the selection tool and then right-click anywhere in the picture and select the option that says “Select Inverse”. Press the delete key to clear everything surrounding the body.

5. Save the picture as a Photoshop file and load up Adobe After Effects.

Adobe After Effects

6. Load the picture into the program by dragging the file from a folder or finding it by using the "File" and "Import" option.

7. Find a picture of a haunted house or other Halloween theme to use as a background. You can also use just a plain black background. Drag this background down into the "timeline" window.

8. Drag the person’s Photoshop file into the project as well. You will see that each layer from Photoshop has a separate spot on the timeline.

9. 
    

   Make sure that the background picture is below the person picture so the person is always on top.

10. 
     

    Hold control and click on both layers of the Photoshop file. Adjust the size of the person in preview window to an appropriate size that is viewable.

11. Drag the timeline arrow two seconds into the video. Press the arrow to the left of the head layer in the Photoshop file. Press the "Clock" button on the position arrow to start the Key Frames. Key Frames are the points that the animations begin and end.

12. 
     

    Move the timeline arrow over a couple of seconds and then click and drag the head to a position. Repeat this process until there are several head movements. End the video around the 20-second mark and end in the original position or somewhere else on the screen.

13. Test the video by going to the "Time Control" window and pressing the "RAM Preview" option. Go to "File" and "Export" and choose a file format for exporting your video.

Tips & Warnings

• Play around with the Rotation Key Frames to add a little more to your video.