Chapter 18: video and animation, Video and animation in photoshop, About video and video layers in photoshop extended – Adobe Photoshop CS4 User Manual
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Last updated 1/10/2010
Chapter 18: Video and animation
In Adobe Photoshop CS4, you can create frame-based animations by modifying image layers to create movement and
change. You can also create images for use in video, using one of many preset pixel aspect ratios. When you’re done
editing, you can save your work as an animated GIF file or as a PSD file that can be edited in many video programs,
such as Adobe Premiere Pro or Adobe After Effects.
In Adobe Photoshop CS4 Extended, you can also import video files and image sequences for editing and retouching,
create timeline-based animations, and export your work as QuickTime, animated GIF, or image sequences.
Video and animation in Photoshop
About video and video layers in Photoshop Extended
Important: To work with video in Photoshop Extended, you must install QuickTime 7.1 (or higher) on your computer.
QuickTime is a free download from the Apple Computer website.
You can use Photoshop Extended to edit individual frames of video and image sequence files. In addition to using any
Photoshop tool to edit and paint on video, you can also apply filters, masks, transformations, layers styles, and
blending modes. After making edits, you can save the document as a PSD file (that can be played back in other Adobe
applications such as Premiere Pro and After Effects or accessed as a static file in other applications), or you can render
it as a QuickTime movie or image sequence.
Note: You can work only with the visual images in a video file, not the audio.
When you open a video file or image sequence in Photoshop Extended, the frames are contained within a video layer.
In the Layers panel, a video layer is identified with a filmstrip icon
. Video layers let you paint and clone on
individual frames using the brush tools and stamp tools. Like working with regular layers, you can create selections or
apply masks to restrict your edits to specific areas of a frame. You navigate through the frames using the timeline mode
in the Animation panel (Window
> Animation).
Note: Video layers do not work in frame mode (Animation panel).
You work with video layers just like regular layers by adjusting the blending mode, opacity, position, and layer style.
You can also group video layers in the Layers panel. Adjustment layers let you apply color and tonal adjustments non-
destructively to the video layers.
If you prefer to make your frame edits on a separate layer, you can create a blank video layer. Blank video layers also
let you create hand-drawn animations.
Note: A video layer references the original file, so that edits to the video layer don’t alter the original video or image
sequence file. To maintain the link to the original file, ensure that it remains in the same location relative to the PSD file.
For more information, see “
Replace footage in a video layer (Photoshop Extended)
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