Sometimes, you will find the perfect animated GIF online, but need to change a few things, like flip the frames, or add text, or make it run faster or slower. Here’s how!

Photoshop CS4

  1. Once you find your file online, right-click or control-click to save it somewhere on your computer
  2. From Photoshop, go to File -> Open, find your file, then click on it once so that it’s highlighted, but don’t open it yet. First, underneath where it says Enable: choose “All Documents”. Then, where it says Format: Choose Quicktime Movie.
  3. Now that the file is open, go to Window, and look for Animation. If you don’t see it, choose “Show All Menu Items” at the bottom of the screen and then click Animation once it appears. This will open up a window that has a timeline in it. Make sure also that your Layers window is open: Window->Layers
  4. There should be only one frame there – but to open up all frames, look at the top right corner of the timeline window, the little menu icon, and click on it. Choose “Flatten Frames Into Layers”. This will add new layers to your Layers window, each one representing a different point in the animation.

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