Hi. This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV.
I'm going to show you how to animate a still photo similar to a "Plotagraph".
Notice there are five separate elements of the photo that are moving: the top and main
areas of the waterfall, the mist below and to the right of the waterfall and the stream at the bottom.
Each part is moving at a different speed and a different direction.
For your convenience, I provide this photo by Ruslan Valeev from Unsplash,so you can follow along.
Its link is in my video's description or project files.
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In this particular example, since there are 5 independent areas that we'll be animating,
it may seem to be too daunting.
However, keep in mind - the steps for each are exactly the same.
The first step is to protect the stationery areas of your photo that will overlap the
parts that we'll animate later.
To do this, we'll brush in quick masks over those stationery areas.
First, make a copy of the photo by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + J.
Check your foreground and background colors.
If they're not black and white respectively, press "D" on your keyboard.
Black should be your foreground color.
Open your Brush Tool and Brush Picker.
Choose a basic, round brush.
We'll adjust the size in a moment.
It's Hardness should be 0% and it's Opacity and Flow are 100%.
To adjust the size of the brush, make sure your CapsLock key is off and press the right
or left bracket key on your keyboard.
Brush over the sky and just inside the top of the mountain ridge on both sides of the waterfall.
At the bottom, brush over the people and the land they're standing on,
as well as the rock formation at the lower left.
Since there's mist over that formation, we want to gradually brush out the left of it.
To do this, reduce the brushes opacity and brush over it fading out the quick mask.
Press "Q" to convert the quick mask into a selection and then invert the selection by
pressing Ctrl or Cmd + Shift I.
Click the layer mask icon to make a layer mask of the selection next to the active layer.
Temporarily hide the top layer and make the bottom layer active.
We'll start to brush over areas of the photo that we want to animate and then we'll save
them as separate layers.
First, increase your brush's opacity back to 100% and press "Q" so we can paint in a quick mask.
Brush over the stream.
Press "Q" to make into a selection and then, invert the selection.
Press Ctrl or Cmd + J to cut and copy it from the background.
Name it "Stream".
Since we're going to ultimately warp the shape of it on the timeline, we need to convert
it first into a Smart Object.
To do this, click the icon at the upper, right of the Layers panel and click "Convert to Smart Object".
Make the background active.
Press "Q" again and make sure black is your foreground color.
This time, brush a quick mask over the waterfall and make sure you include a little of the cliff on the left.
Convert it into a selection and then invert the selection.
Cut and copy it onto its own layer, name it "Waterfall" and convert it into a Smart Object.
Remember to always make the background active before brushing over a new area.
Next, brush a quick mask over the top of the waterfall and, as before, make it into a selection
and then invert the selection.
Cut and copy it onto its own layer and name it "Top of waterfall".
Then, convert it into a Smart Object".
I'll do the next area very quickly, since we'll be repeating all the steps.
As always, make the background active.
Brush a quick mask over the bottom mist.
Make the Quick Mask into a selection...
invert the selection...
cut and copy it to its own layer...
name it "Bottom Mist"...
change it into a Smart Object and make the background active.
Make the mist on the right of the waterfall by following all the previous steps.
Now that we have all of the areas that we want to animate, we'll place them onto a timeline.
First, make the top layer visible, so it'll be included in the timeline.
Go to Window and Timeline.
At the bottom, choose "Create Video Timeline" and click it.
Drag the timeline panel up, until you can see all of the layers.
Press Ctrl or Cmd + 0 to see your entire photo.
Next, we'll group all of the layers that we'll be animating into a folder.
To do this, click the Stream layer, scroll down and Shift-click "Right Mist" to make
active all of the individual areas of the photo that we copied.
Then, press Ctrl or Cmd + G to group them into a folder.
We'll make our animation 2 seconds in length, which we'll loop.
To do this, drag "Layer 1" to the two-second mark on the timeline.
Open the folder and repeat this with each of the layers.
To loop the animation, click the gear icon and make sure "Loop Playback" is checked.
I'll leave the resolution at 100%, but you may want to lower the amount to 50% if you
want your computer to preview the animation faster.
Don’t worry - it won’t render the finished animation at the lower resolution;
it’ll just preview it that way.
Let's rearrange the layers according to how we want the areas of the photo to overlap each other.
For example, we want the mist to be in front of the waterfall, so first, drag down the
Layers panel to see all of the layers in the folder
and drag the right mist layer to the top within the folder.
Notice it automatically rearranges itself in the timeline.
Drag the bottom mist below the right mist.
Drag the top of the waterfall below the bottom mist and the waterfall below that.
The stream will remain at the bottom.
Next, we'll create key frames along the timeline for each layer.
Open the Waterfall properties.
If you can't see all of its properties, just scroll down the timeline panel.
Click the stopwatch icon to create the first key frame.
This is the point where the waterfall will start to animate.
Drag the time indicator to the end of the 2-second timeline
and click the diamond-shaped icon to create a new key frame.
This key frame will be the end of the waterfall's animation.
Press Ctrl of Cmd + T to open your Transform Tool.
We'll use this tool to manipulate the shape of each area we're going to animate.
Drag the bottom of the Transform's bounding box down a bit past the bottom of the document.
Then, press Enter or Return.
Press the Play button to process each frame on the timeline.
Once it does, you'll see it animating much smoother.
Don't be concerned with it it jumping.
We'll take care of that later.
To stop the animation, press the Play button again or press Enter or Return.
Collapse the waterfall properties and open the "Top of the waterfall" properties.
Drag the time indicator to the first frame and click the stopwatch to create a key frame.
Drag the time indicator to the last frame and click the diamond-shape icon to create
a key frame at the end of the timeline.
Open your Transform Tool, drag the bottom down and drag the top up until the upper,
right corner is positioned to the top of the waterfall behind it.
Notice that the upper, left corner of the cutout doesn't match the position of the waterfall behind it.
No problem.
Go to the top, left corner of the bounding box and press and hold Ctrl or Cmd as you
drag that corner up so it matches the position.
Then, press Enter or Return.
Press the Play button to process each frame.
To stop the animation, click the Play button or press Enter or Return.
Collapse the "Top of waterfall" properties and open the "Bottom Mist" properties.
Drag the time indicator to the first frame and click the stopwatch icon to create the first key frame.
Drag the time indicator to the last frame and click the diamond-shaped icon to create
the last key frame.
Open your Transform Tool.
Drag the left side of the bounding box to the left and the right side to the right just a little.
Then, press Enter or Return.
Click the Play button to preview the animation.
Repeat these steps to create key frames for the "Right Mist".
With the time indicator on the last key frame, open your Transform Tool and drag the right side out a bit.
Go to the top, right corner and press and hold Alt + Ctrl + Shift on Windows or Option
+ Cmd + Shift on a Mac as you drag the corner straight up.
This drags both the upper and lower right corners at the same time.
Then, press the Play button to preview the animation.
Repeat the steps to create key frames for the "Stream" layer.
With the time indicator on the last frame, open your Transform Tool and drag the bottom down a bit.
Go to the bottom, left corner and press and hold Ctrl or Cmd + Shift as you drag the corner
out approximately this much.
As before, to see a preview, press the Play button.
Next, we'll create an infinite loop of the animation.
Stop the animation, collapse the properties and close the folder.
Make two copies of the folder by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + J twice.
Open the "Group 1 copy" folder and click this icon to open the "Fade" presets.
Drag "Fade" down over the left side of the "Right Mist" to fade it in and continue to
drag "Fade" to the left side of other layers.
If you can't see the "Stream" layer, just scroll down the timeline panel.
Open the Fade presets again and drag down "Fade" to the left side of the "Stream" layer.
Close the "Group 1 copy" folder and open the "Group 1 copy 2" folder.
Click the "Right Mist" layer, open the fade presets and drag down "Fade" to the right side of the layer.
Repeat this with the remaining layers.
Close the folder and drag the time indicator to the 1-second mark.
Go to the "Group 1 copy" layer and drag it, so the left side of it is flush with the time indicator.
Go to the "Group 1 copy 2" layer and drag it to the left until its right side is flush
with the time indicator.
Drag the Play head to the 2-second mark to trim the animation.
Click the Play button to preview the animation.
To render the finished animation, stop the preview and click the "Render" icon.
Name it and click "Select Folder".
I'll save it to my desktop.
Then, click “Select Folder” to confirm it.
The Format is "H.264" and the Preset is "High Quality".
I'll keep the document size 1920 x 1080, but if you want to reduce its file size, feel
free to make it a lower amount.
Then, click "Render".
This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV.
Thanks for watching!