Make Gifs in Photoshop & Optimise your Instagram!

Whether you’re in the music industry, the arts or you’re thinking of starting a brand, it’s super important to have an engaging social media presence! If Instagram is your platform then you’re aware it’s all about the Stories now! As well as having a consistent feed that compliments your branding or style, you might want to start paying more attention to your Stories! They’re so engaging because they’re mostly temporary (Highlights not included) so there’s less stress and more freedom to play around!

One super easy way to jazz up your daily content is by adding moving stills or graphics! How?! By making super fun and easy video gifs in Photoshop of course! We know, Photoshop can be scary if you’re not a graphic design expert, but if you’re new, we’ve got the steps laid out for you in both video and written instructions! So, you absolutely can’t go wrong!

Moving gifs are such a great way to help promote merch, a new product or a content drop because a moving element is so engaging! Videos are back on trend with Instagram’s growth, the inclusion of Reels and the rise of Tik Tok and as media tips and tricks become more commonly used and accessible, you don’t want you or your brand to fall behind! Whether you’re into fun quote posts or you just started your Depop journey: this method is super simple and versatile and will help you join the in-crowd.

Check our the Local Love Youtube video tutorial.

If you’re more of a step by step kind of person, here are the written steps to easily refer back to:

• Load your images into Photoshop by clicking:
  File —> Scripts —> Load Files into Stack and then select your wanted graphics or photos

• Make any changes (colour correcting or graphic editing) you want to your images

• Resize your canvas to be the correct size for your Insta Story by clicking:
  Image —> Canvas Size and change the pixels to 1080 x1920

• View timeline by opening:
  Window —> Timeline

• Hit Create Frame Animation

• Make sure the eye icon (layer visibility) is off on all your layers BUT your background and the first layer that you want on the gif

• Select the [+] (near your timeline) and this will create another frame

• Turn the eye icon off the first layer and then turn it on the next layer that you want visible

• Repeat this for however many layers you have!

• Press the shift key and select all your frames to adjust the time from 0 seconds to however long you’d like your stills in the gif to go for (I generally go about 0.7 seconds, depending on what I’m making.) Be mindful that when you export, it may seem faster than in Photoshop itself, so it’s good to check and then go back and edit if need be!

• Now, duplicate your frames to reach about 15sec so it is long enough for your Story! To do this: press the shift key and select all of the frames. While these are selected press the [+] to duplicate all the layers. Then press play and vio la! You now have a moving gif!

• To export and save, click:
  File —> Export —> Render Video and keep it at the highest settings for optimum quality!

Yay, now you’re done and your gif is ready to share on your Story! Feel free to add text in Photoshop, but we like to add the text and any fun colour highlights within the app itself, so the post seems more authentic! This is such an easy trick that will make your followers say wooooooow and most importantly- engage!

Remember: this is a super versatile trick, so get creative and make it work for your style, brand, products or personality!