#animated text tutorial

Okay, i’m just going to cover the base text for this, i’m going to be making this example in a blank canvas but you can make this directly on your gif 

once you have your canvas ready, click on the text tool and make some text, any font you want. I used Boldstrom in my example.

the first thing i did was warp it (this is optional, if you want it to be normal when the gif begins skip this step) i used TWIST in this case. so you go type -> warp text and do the effect. this is what i did on mine

now, since i have a new canvas i have to click on the timeline option that says “create video timeline” (you don’t do this if you’re working directly on a gif)

once i have that set, i open the drop down menu on the text layer in the timeline option and look for the option that says TEXT WARP. to begin the process click on the stopwatch icon next to text warp and you’ll see a yellow dot appears in the beginning of the timeline

now the fun parts, move the red line to any point in the timeline, have in mind that the closer you move it from the start point the faster the text will transform, i moved mine to this point

now we go once again to type -> warp text and we modify the settings to something else, this is what i did on mine

click on OK and you’ll see now a grey dot in the timeline, that means the timeline recorded the new warp settings you did for that point and will transform the text from the form it was at the beginning to that one in the timeframe you picked to set it. you repeat this step however many times you want the text to move.

i did it only 2 times just to make this, and my timeline looks like this now

*to make it look smoother i recommend making the last text effect the same as the very first setting*

that’s it! you’re done making the animation! if you did it on a separate canvas and want to add it to a gif convert it to smart object and then drop it on your gif canvas. this is my finished product :D

if you have any doubts or anything wasn’t clear enought please message me and i’ll do my best to help out! thank you for reading <3

Step 1. Start off with a text layer on top of a white background, I would recommend a handwritten font, but it’s not necessary. You can also take the brush tool and write out the text as well.

Step 2. Now right click the text and choose Rasterize Type.

Step 3. Now we are going to duplicate the layer twice. Right click the layer and choose Duplicate Layer. Do this twice to get a total of 3 layers with your text.

Step 4. Now select the top layer and go to Filter>>Distort>>Ripple.

Step 5. Set the Amount to 20% and the Size to Large. Click OK.

Step 6. Now click the second layer from the top and once again go to Filter>>Distort>>Ripple. This time change the amount to -20%. Click OK.

Step 7. Next, click the Background Layer to make sure that it is selected. Then go to Window>>Animation.

Step 8. The Animation Window will pop up, if yours looks like this, click the 3 little white squares at the bottom to change to Frame Animation.

Step 9. With the Background still selected go to the drop down menu in the top right of the animation window and select Make Frames From Layers.

Step 10. This will make frames of all of the layers you have. We need to add the white background to the layers so go to Layers Window (make sure Background is selected) and click the little eye next to Unify. Click Match. This will apply your background to all of the frames.

Step 11. Delete the first blank white frame by clicking the trashcan, you should now just have 3 frames. Change the looping option to Forever and change each frame duration to 0.1 seconds.

To save go to File>>Save for Web & Devices. Make sure you are saving as a GIF and click Save.

first we make a new canvas (it can be the gif you’re working on as well), whatever size you want  and then with the help of the shape tool we make a circle (to make it a proper circle click on the canvas and hold the shift key while you’re dragging your mouse to do the circle) make sure it’s on a noticeable color so you don’t mistake it with the background

now we click on the text tool and click on the border of the circle shape, this will make the text wrap around it perfectly (the pointer should look like it has this ~ shape, thats how you know it’ll work only on the border)

these were the settings i used, you can play around it and find how you like it best 

now on to the fun part of the tutorial, making the text rotate!

click on where it says create video timeline and once all the layers in the animation show, open the drop down menu on the text layer

now click on the stopwatch icon next to Transform, you’ll notice a little yellow dot shows up at the beggining of the timeline

now drag the red line of the animation to the end, like this

now hit Ctrl + T (or Edit -> Free Transform) make sure you have visible the transform controls on your layer, then click on one of the corners where the rotation option will show up

and then you rotate the layer a certain amount of degrees, the more you rotate it from it’s original position the faster it’ll go in the animation. I’ve rotated my example 45°. you’ll now notice that in the timeline shows up a grey dot at the end of the animation

that tells us the animation is done and will do on loop what we transformed our text layer.

to finish off, delete the layer of the circle shape (it won’t delete the text layer nor modify it) and you’re done! if you made this in a different document and want to add it to an existing gif just convert the text layer into an smart object and then drag it to the document where you have your gif :)

this is the result

this also works for anything thats in a circle shape and you want to make it rotate, the steps are the same (if its an image layer instead of transform it’ll say ‘position’ in the timeline options but the process it’s the same as the text one)!

Step 1. First start with your background, this can be blank or an image. Then duplicate the image 1-2 times. I chose to duplicate 2 times for this tutorial, giving me 3 layers in total.

Step 2. Now take the brush tool and choose your color. I chose the round brush with a hardness of 100. I set the size to 9.00. I also checked Smooth Stroke. This basically just slows down your stroke when you are drawing. I set the weight to 50 but you can choose anything from 20-50. 

Draw your text on the top layer.

Step 3. Now set that layer Opacity to 50% so we can see through it.

Step 4. Now click on the 2nd layer and start to draw on this layer, trying to match your first layer but not exactly. It should look something like this.

Step 5. Set the 2nd layer opacity to 50% and then finally draw on the bottom layer. You should have 3 layers with writing now. Go back and set all of the layers back to 100% opacity.

Step 6. Now go to Animation>>Optimize (for gif). This will create a new image for you with optimized layers. They will look a little weird, but that’s okay!

Step 7. Finally go to File>>Export As. Make sure you select .gif as your file type and double check to make sure your file has the .gif extension so for example, it should say something similar to: filename.gif. 

Click Export and then change your settings to match mine.