10th Grade — Intro to Motion: Animated GIFs in Photoshop

⏰ Do Now — Start Here

Flip through a physical flip-book (or picture one in your head). What makes the drawings look like they're moving?

🎯 Today's Big Question

How do we use Photoshop's Timeline panel to build a simple looping animation?

📈 By the End of Today, You Will Be Able To

Explain how a frame-based animation creates the illusion of motion.
Build a simple looping animation (2-4 frames) using Photoshop's Timeline panel.
Export the finished animation as a GIF.

🧰 What You'll Need

Computer with Photoshop
A simple multi-layer file (teacher-provided or built in class) to animate

📋 Your Plan for Today

Day 1: Frames & the Timeline Panel

Do Now (5 min, above).
Mini-lesson (10 min): frame-based animation, and a demo of the Timeline panel turning layer visibility on/off into frames.
Guided practice (15 min): as a class, build a simple 2-frame animation together (e.g. a blinking eye or a bouncing shape).
Independent practice (15 min): build your own 2-4 frame animation from a provided multi-layer file.
Save progress (5 min).

Day 2: Timing, Looping & Export

Do Now (5 min): what would happen if your frames played too fast or too slow? Workshop (30 min): adjust frame timing so the motion reads clearly, set the animation to loop, and finish your 2-4 frame animation.
Export (10 min): export as a GIF and confirm it plays correctly outside Photoshop.

🖥️ Today's Slide Deck

Short, on-the-board pacing slides — project these to follow along. (The full details are in the handout above, not here.)

Day 1

⬇️ Open / download this slide PDF

Day 2

⬇️ Open / download this slide PDF

📚 Key Words

Frame: One single still image in a sequence that, played quickly in order, creates the illusion of motion.
Timeline Panel: The Photoshop panel (Window > Timeline) used to sequence layers into frames and control an animation's timing.
Loop: An animation set to play its full sequence over and over automatically.

✅ What Your Finished Work Should Include

Exported GIF checked for correct looping playback and at least 2 clearly distinct, purposeful frames.

Exit Ticket: What was harder to get right: the individual frames, or the timing between them? Why?

📊 Before You Leave

Quick, anonymous class check-in -- takes less than a minute.

Class Check-In

📤 How You Submit This — For Credit

How you submit today's work depends on what kind of work it was. Physical/paper work (most of this semester so far): photograph it with a classroom camera, upload the photo from its SD card onto a computer, and save it into your portfolio -- that upload is your submission, and the physical piece itself is yours to keep, the same as in Grade 9 (your notebook is the one thing with a home base in the room, and even that's your call to bring home when you want it). Digital work (once you're producing files in Photoshop, second semester on): no camera needed -- instead, EXPORT the file. Export your finished project as a JPG, as a PNG, AND save a copy as a PSD (all three), then upload all three into your portfolio. Either way: the portfolio upload, with a description, is what actually counts as turning the assignment in for credit.

📁 Portfolio Update — Once a Week

Once a week, add your best finished or in-progress piece to your portfolio (the Google Drive folder you started in Grade 9, becoming your Google Sites portfolio in Lesson 10) with a 1-2 sentence caption: what it is, what tool/skill it used, and one thing you learned. Keep it current -- don't save it all for the portfolio-website lesson.

✍️ Example description for your Google Sites portfolio (fill in YOUR blanks -- don't just copy this):

For this piece, I made ______________ (name what you made) for “Intro to Motion: Animated GIFs in Photoshop.” This project asked: “How do we use Photoshop's Timeline panel to build a simple looping animation?” I used Frame by ______________ (explain how you used it in THIS piece). The hardest part was ______________, and I solved it by ______________. I'm proud of ______________ because ______________.

🎓 ACP Exam Prep

This lesson connects to the Photoshop Adobe Certified Professional exam: Domain 3: Organizing Documents

🔗 Want to Learn More?

🚀 The Extra Mile

Cross-Class Connection: The same frame-by-frame, cause-and-effect thinking a Physics class uses to describe motion over time.

Career Connection: This is your literal first step into Animation — the timeline panel is the same core concept every animation software uses.

Go further -- turn this into a portfolio piece:

Animate a simple looping GIF illustrating a science concept in motion (an orbit, a heartbeat, a wave) for real classroom use. Start here: open the Timeline panel in frame animation mode and storyboard just 4-6 key frames on paper first — a loop too complex to sketch in a few frames won't loop cleanly either.
Design an animated logo sting (2-3 seconds) for a real club's video intros or social posts. Start here: start from the club's existing static logo file rather than redrawing it, and animate just one property (position, scale, or opacity) before combining several.
Flip through the free companion book The Motion Path (Ch. 10) and compare Photoshop's Timeline panel to Adobe Animate's — same underlying idea, dedicated program. Start here: open Photoshop's Timeline panel and find the frame animation mode toggle before you start reading, so you have the real panel in front of you to compare against the chapter.