How to Create Simple Animated Gif

**fuss** · 05 April 2013, 10:12 PM

I think this is a clue:

When I opened a new animation document, it automatically had a small white background that I am noticing now appear to be the same dimensions at 480x320px.

I didn't think anything of it because there's always a white background whenever I open up any new document. But when I save/export things, they never pick up that white background. I've always thought that was just the working desktop.

But it would seem that the export is actually including that white desktop background.

Does that seems right? How do I get rid of it?

**handrawn** · 05 April 2013, 10:36 PM

you should be able to change the page size in the animation document in the same way as you change a page size in a normal document [in options] - make it the same size as your background photo - you may need to reposition after and if you need to do this across frames you will need to make all frames visible and all frames editable in the frame gallery so you can select everything at once [just like you would in the layer gallery in a normal document]

**gwpriester** · 06 April 2013, 12:39 AM

fuss - When you have a moment, can you update your profile so we know what product(s) you are using? This will help us when we answer your questions.

**fuss** · 06 April 2013, 01:23 AM

Thanks you so much, handrawn! I was going batty trying to figure that out. Funny how it doesn't pickup that background desktop on any of my other documents when I save/export. Is it just because it's an animated file?

**fuss** · 06 April 2013, 01:24 AM

Oh, sorry about that Gary! I didn't even realize all that was there. All done now.

**Egg Bramhill** · 06 April 2013, 03:25 AM

It's not necessary to change the page size, you can select either to export the Page or just the Page Content in the export options dialogue box.

**Egg Bramhill** · 06 April 2013, 03:45 AM

It's also not necessary to copy the photograph to every page. Paste the photo in the first layer, set it as the background by ticking the left check box, in the properties un-check show frame tick box (It will still be visible, it just won't have a display frame of it's own in the animation)

The big problem with gif's are their limitation to 256 colours so perhaps you'd be better off exporting as a swf which uses millions of colours. (If you do this you'll need to check the show frame box on the background layer and give it a 0.01 sec display time).