by
Chad Rolfs
Special
to Digital Media Designer
Here
is a fun and little known way to use the Liquify command
to create an animation. Though it is not terribly practical,
you may see some other possible creative openings here.
Using layers as the individual frames for your animation,
you can use the Shift key in conjunction with the Liquify
command to create a Liquified animation.
Before
we start, find an image that you want to animate. It is
best if you already have an idea of how you want to animate
your image. For instance, you may have a picture of your
boss and you want to animate so that his ears get really
big. The point here is to have fun with it. I’ve chosen
a picture sent to me by a friend who went fishing in the
Bahamas. Nice, eh?
STEP
ONE:
Duplicate the layer you want to animate. Upon opening the
image, there may be only one layer, a Background layer.
If so, double-click the Background layer, hit OK and it
will automatically be named Layer 0. While holding down
the Option/Alt key, drag Layer 0 to the new layer icon in
the Layers palette to create a new duplicate layer and name
it (e.g. Layer 1).
STEP
TWO:
Apply Liquify to the duplicated layer. Go to the Image menu
and scroll down to Liquify (in Photoshop Elements, Liquify
is under the Filter menu). This will bring up the Liquify
command window. Play with the tools to apply a distortion
in a small amount. This will be the second frame of your
animation (the first is Layer 0). I distorted the image
so that the coat stretches out to the side, the sides of
the hat turn up and the top of the hat expands. Once you
’re happy with the distortion, hold down the Shift
key and click OK. Holding down the Shift key will temporarily
save the mesh settings for the distortion you just applied.
You can then re-apply that same distortion again and again.
This is how you will create your animation frames (layers).
(Note: On Windows, you must already have or create a temp
directory on your C drive, C: \temp).
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