Quick Tip: Create Sparkling, Animated Text in Photoshop

Quick Tip: Create Sparkling, Animated Text in Photoshop

on Jun 1st 2010 with 68 comments
Tutorial Details
  • Program: Adobe Photoshop CS3+
  • Difficulty: Beginner
  • Estimated Completion Time: 10 - 15 Minutes
Download Source Files

Final Product What You'll Be Creating

In today’s quick tip tutorial we will demonstrate how to create a sparkling text animation in Photoshop with just a few easy steps. Let’s get started!

Step 1

Open a new document. Select the Gradient Tool and fill the backgroundwith #911169 to #5b1569.

Step 2

Choose a font and type out a word or a phrase. I chose the word star and used the Bauhaus 93 font. Fill it with #e76dbf.

Cmd + J the layer two times. You should now have three identical layers.

Next select the star’s layer and go to Filter > Noise > Add Noise and add a different amount of noise to each layer. I chose 20, 21, and 22.

Step 3

Download these star brushes. Create a new layer on top of each of the text layers. Select the brush tool and place some stars on top of your text. Be sure to create a different pattern for each text layer.

Step 4

Go to Window > Animation and create three frames.

The first word layer and the first sparkle layer should be active on the first frame. See the image below to see which layer should be selected on which frame. Frame delay time should be 0.2 sec. Now press play.

Step 5

The last step is to save our animation so go to File > Save for Web and Devices and save it as a gif file.

Final Image

That’s it! We’re finished! You can see some additional examples below.

Additional Examples

Tags: Tips
 
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My name is Loredana Papp . I am a Romanian freelance artist with a passion for art. I love both traditional art and digital art as well.  

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  • http://www.brennancreative.com Kevin Brennan

    Finally! I’ve been waiting for a tutorial like this so I can update my geocities site. ;)

    It’s a fine tutorial and all, I just worry that people are actually going to start using animated gifs like these on their sites again.

  • Josh

    Nice begginer Tutorial, especially for those new to filters and animation. But since the tutorial is primarily for the sake of understanding Photoshop’s core text tools/effects, you might of put a sub-section on how to tween the frames together for a more realistic effect? It would introduce tweening, as well as giving begginers a broader approach to designing as a whole.

  • http://www.scottcorgan.com Scott Corgan

    Reminds me of a MySpace profile that takes too long to load, ha. Looks good though!

  • jake

    sparkles…i like it , nice and simple

  • Chris

    Making tutorials for 13 year old girls now?

    • http://www.quizzpot.com Crysfel

      do not be so rude

      • Michael Owens

        He is right though ; this is an early 90′s type of animation.

        Anyone with bare knowledge of Photoshop knows how to animate along those lines.

        Gargabe tutorial.

        It should have a ‘total n00b tut’ sticker on it.

      • http://www.vivix.ca Martin

        The people who complain about tutorials should submit a better one if they aren’t happy.

      • http://desaindigital.com/en Jeprie

        This tutorial does explain the core concept of gif animation in Photoshop very well. However, the end result is very poor.
        I know that gif animation is still needed, some company still use it for ad and of course without this sparkle effect.
        There are many example of good gif animation without geocities style to inspire the author.

  • http://giuntacartoons.wordpress.com Joe

    Good tutorial. Simply written and easy to understand with good use of visuals. I enjoyed it.

  • http://miralize.com Sean O’Grady

    Ah ffs. Quality has really dropped.

  • http://peewee1002.co.uk Peter Sawyer

    I thought GIFtuts+ was an april fools joke?

    • http://peewee1002.co.uk Peter Sawyer

      Techniques are all there for someone who has never done animation. So cannot fault the tutorial. :D

    • Diana

      For god´s sake s is just a “quick tip” :)

  • Teo

    You have GOT to be kidding me. April’s fools was a whole two months ago!

  • Mike Viking

    This site is crapnow. And everyone who defends most of the rubbish on here are idiots.

    • http://www.sotwguild.com Jason

      Thank you for your sweeping generalisations. Please feel free to submit your own tutorials, as what you’ve got to offer must be so much better if the current standard is ‘rubbish’.

      I look forward to your non-action on this issue.

  • http://ryandc.co.uk RyanDC

    Maybe it’s a test to see if people comment the same useless drivel, i.e. “great tutorial, thanks for posting” or “Excellent! Thanks for sharing :)”

    Either that, or selling out the quality and integrity of the blog to get some cheap traffic from Myspace, Facebook, Bebo people searching for garbage like this.

  • http://www.jacoblee.co.uk Jacob Lee

    People who keep complaining about tutorials on here because a) They don’t like the final outcome, or b) they already know the techniques, are idiots.

    Tutorials are meant to teach people of all levels so if you already know how to do it “DON”T READ IT” but not everyone does.

    And if you don’t like the final image then here’s a thought for you, nor do i BUT this tutorial does teach a valuable technique to any prospective Graphic Designers. Although i wouldn’t dream of using an animated .gif in any personal work (unless ironically) i have been asked to make them for banner ads for clients such as NIKE, Reebok and Nasdaq.

    So from a PROFESSIONAL Graphic Designer, well done for putting up these Tuts as they teach new and valuable techniques to people still learning.

    • rellik

      The problem is that this kind of tutorial would’ve been useful five, maybe ten years ago.

      You’re right, someone sure learned something with this tutorial, but I don’t think that encouraging this kind of animation is a good thing. This is something form the dark ages of design, something anyone that considers himself a designer should avoid.

      As stated above, I thought GIFtuts+ was an april’s fool joke…

      • http://www.jacoblee.co.uk Jacob Lee

        Professional work isn’t always about designing what you like. If a client comes to you and says we’ve bought some advertising space on ebay but they don’t allow any Flash or Javascript and you’ve only got 15kb to work with but we want an animated look on our logo, what do you do?

        Answer: Animated .gif

    • http://icupcake.org Jordan

      Animated GIF != sparkle gifs.

    • Simon Hoang

      It’s just because this kinds of tutorial are all over the Internet for about 10 years, it’s not a great, unique and different one to be posted on the premium site like this. I agree it’s just a quick tip, basix. BUT it has been existed long time ago, google it for millions result. We are not professional, but we expect something new and unique. Especially when people gets paid for it, they should not copy from the internet and make a new one under their own name.

    • Alex clavelle

      Thank you. You finally said what I’ve been trying to spread through this site since I started reading. A “newb” tutorial is obviously meant for “newbs” so let everyone learn. Until your making a full living off of adobe, get off your high horse. These people are here to help, not to be criticized. Keep your mean and negative comments off this whole stream of sites everyone who posts. That is all:).

    • Rob

      Precisely! For those that don’t like it, well, fix it up the way you want! This isn’t a final project, it’s the thought process/steps to course of action!

  • Robert

    Mike Viking

    Why are you here then?You make me sick with that reply!!Go buy a DVD instead of crying but i guess your to cheap for that!

    • Mike Viking

      You don’t even know me robert so keep your half baked orders to buy dvds or whatever. you’re entitled to your opinion as am i.

      i make you sick?….good!

      • Robert

        Lol you still have`nt explained why you are here?

        Do you exist for real?Guess some children get more than other and can’t learn how to appreciate the smaller things in life.

        Maybe a tutorial

        How to be a nice guy would be in place here,Would fit some in here!

        Guess your mom is very proud of you guys! :)

  • http://www.lakeside.com.np Lakeside Techies

    Yes, I too do agree that this tutorial is not as much professional as other are.

    No offense though.

  • Jake

    I’m a biginner and this is a BEGINNER tutorial so it works for me. Thanks
    Btw experts don’ t need tutorials .They know everything …

  • firelizard

    Only gripe I’ve got is that there is a lot more of this sort of tutorial than advanced tutorials, compared to the past. It’d be nice to see a balance restored.

  • http://www.xdee.net Michael

    Actually a tutorial is meant to deliver informations or techniques to anyone who doesn’t already know it.So the only question is: how many users do know how to create animated gifs? And I think it’s impossible for the writer to guess how much of the designers out there know how to do it. Besides if you separate the two things: Sparkling and gif, there’s nothing to complain about.One one side, it’s useful to create those sparkles – maybe if you have to design something “shiny” or I don’t know something for kids – and on the other side it’s nice to know more about animations. If there’s no support for flash for ex. on mobile devices or on the iPhone, what is there to display animated ads? Yes, animated gifs… BTW before complaining, do you know any other side that delivers that much tutorials? There are over 1000 posts here on PSDTuts and if only every second one is a tutorial, there are more than 500 good tutorials about graphic design on here, can you tell where else you can get this?

    I’m sorry but for everyone who’s writing stuff like “Oh quality’s dropping” just click on that “Create Tutorial, Get Paid” link and show the community how good the quality of your tutorials are!

    So long,

    Michael

    • Bram

      Missing a LIKE button here! I’m a pro myself and do know how to animate with GIFs. As a matter of fact, I probably do 2 or 3 every week. But sometimes I Google the most tiny stupid little problem or issue I have just because a quick tip like this is faster then finding a solution myself.

  • http://www.freeishare.info michael yoeh

    Nice work,just wana say what a fantastic you’ve got here!

  • http://childesign.deviantart.com/ Childesign

    Very nice. I will use it :)

  • Stefan Frank

    :-D this is so much fun.
    So many people are upset cause of a simple tutorial.
    Yeah, i don`t like the outcome also but come on..it`s just a tutorial.
    This site got very good tutorials and this is the only reason people
    complain about this tutorials with basic 10 year old techniques.
    Sitting there on their desk and waiting for the daily new tutorial and
    are disapointed that it is just a standard tutorial they cant use.
    “Grrr…i`ve have to wait another day for a good tutorial”
    It´s hilarious…
    In my opinion there isnt much room left for good new Photoshop
    tutorials.
    I have worked with PS since the lovely old version 6 daily and
    there are only a few new details i can learn…follow the past 100 tutorials
    and you dont need to wait for the daily new tutorial…it is just an add-on
    for your techniques.
    And if you do so – there is no reason to be upset :)

  • brmveen

    Has somebody seen the point? I think it is the easiest way to show how basic animation works in photoshop. And yes, they might have taken a more 21st century example.

  • http://twitterunique.com/ TwitterUniQue

    Nice Animation but u need more effect..

  • http://www.onyxsolution.com hawaii web design

    this just reminded me of myspace..

  • MASTER

    do u wanna animation?
    use HTML5

  • http://onebrightlight.com Christopher Kennedy

    General lack of understanding of realistic reflections, shimmer, etc. More over, this is a terrible usability practice. Users will be distracted by this, and lose focus on the content that should be their primary focus. This feels like something from the late 90s.

    To those people who are rushing to argue “well you submit something instead”: I don’t need to. I pay for a service here, and I’m allowed to say I’m disappointed in the quality of a post/tutorial.

  • http://www.theschoolforheroes.com Lori

    This is a fun introduction to basic gif animation. However, for a Beginner’s Tutorial, this is missing a few key instructions that will be very confusing to the novice.

    Step Two does not make it clear that a new layer with a rasterized version of the text is needed before the noise can be applied.

    Step Four will be confusing if the beginner is using CS3 or better for animations. The default animation style is timeline, not frame style.

    I’ve followed a lot of tutorials over the years, and little details like these make the difference between a great learning experience and disappointing frustration.

    • Carlos E. Quevedo

      Hi Lori. I had noticed as well that you need to rasterize the text in order to add the noise. I have the following question, how do I add the frames or time lime as you called it. You seems to know PS better than I do, I’m a beginner.

      Would you please, help me?

      Thanks a lot!

  • JR

    All that think animated gifs have had their day, think again. They are coming back with HTML 5 and with some stunning results.

  • http://smkarthick.blogspot.com karthick

    How to select the layers for different frames ? its not working ? help me..!!

    • http://smkarthick.blogspot.com karthick

      i learnt how to select the layers.But its not glittering ?? what might be the reson ??

      • http://downloadfreepsd.blogspot.com Johnny

        did you arrange the layers well, edit using image ready.

  • ICELEY

    Please I dothank you for the tutorals, its reall nice but I dont know hoe the animation works.
    could you please hlp me

    • http://smkarthick.blogspot.com S.M.Karthick

      Same here!! some one Help Us out ? ?

  • http://www.SeyriFilm.com Watch Movies

    There was such a thing I need to thank..

  • Jonny V

    This is the BEST TUTORIAL ON THE WHOLE HISTORY OF TUTORIALS ON THE NET!!!

    smh

  • pramit

    thanks a lot !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • pramit

    THIS IS A GREAT TUTORIAL I’VE SEEN SO FAR !!!!!!!!!!!

  • UNDERhill

    you guys are rude! dont you see what has stated above?? It says :

    Tutorial Details
    * Quick tip
    * Difficulty: Beginner
    * Estimated Completion Time: 10 – 15 Minutes

    So whats the point of being UPSET??? tsk tsk,.

    THINK FIRST BEFORE YOU COMPLAIN

  • Lily

    I think the point of tutorials are teaching something to anybody who doesn’t know, and in this tutorial it is stated that is for beginners, so why the complaints? Have you ever taken the time to think “hey, yes this is boring for me but the beginners out there can learn something”. I am a beginner and I’ve learnt something new :) so yey! for the creator and thank you very much.

  • http://facebook Wilk

    Am a beginner so am happy to read all the comments and arguments and fights about design and i learned that this is an old design technique. So am gonna learn it first then i’ll tell somebody its an april fool’s day joke. Have fun guys……In Africa its exciting to look at this type of graphic anywhere….

  • 12345

    umm i tried this but it doesn’t work as animated.

  • V.Rajesh

    Superb tutorial!

  • hoda

    guys i read bunch of your comments ,most of the people were not happy by the result of this tutorial . but i must say , i really didint know how to create this! Maybe im idiot but that was nice for me !

  • Anne

    Hi. I made all steps, and everything was fine. But when I save the gif is not animated…..What am i doing wrong ?

  • Repo

    Actually i dont like such animated effects in photoshop.

  • tejnoor

    The rude comments on this page totally pissed me off.

  • http://www.creativemotives.weebly.com tiffany m nieto

    Simple yet fun tutorial! Learned how to make animated gifs! thanks for posting this tutorial! very helpful!

  • Noob

    I like all of the tutorials on this site! To the folks that are not happy about the tutorials think of it this way. You could be paying for the tutorials. This site does not have to offer them free. Free education sounds good to me and surely for anyone with a degree in graphic design. I bet the graduates would have liked a free education! Sheesh, most grads are probably still paying off loans.
    Note: Depending on a graphic designers job it may or may not be useful to know photoshop at all. For instance I am a print broker and I make a good living using only indesign, Ai and corel draw. You dont need photoshop at all for political signs, flyers, layout etc. I am just learning how to use photoshop but have been making a living for years using only the three programs mentioned above. Keep up the great work on the tutorials. Thank you!

  • Tanbir

    Thanks , it’s a Superb tutorial!

  • DS

    To the know it alls,

    I just purchased the full Adobe Suite of software. I have never used Photoshop. I purchased it because if I don’t have the software I will never learn how to use it.

    I wanted some sparkle effect and found another website with a tutorial with steps so complicated for me I closed the page. Because my knowledge level is low, I am willing to deal with a ‘lesser’ sparkle effect.

    This was good for those on the entry level. I don’t know why people complain about something that is not written for them. And what if my market is 13 year old girls? This could be just the sparkly I need!

    Keep up the good work!

  • DS

    Star brush question –

    The link now takes me to a page with several star brush sets.

    Can you tell me which one I should download?

    I am completely new to this.

    Thanks in advance.

  • Sasmita

    I tried it and saved for web and device but not getting any animation. please guide how to get animated image