A Complete Guide On Creating Cinemagraphs In Photoshop

Cinemagraphs are those looping photos that you see online where part of the image has some motion looping. If you’ve seen the cards or the newspapers on a Harry Potter movie, it’s kind of similar.

Aaron Nace of Phlearn shares a complete guide on how to create a Cinemagraph.

To make a Cinemagraph work you need to use a video where you can create a looping effect, and for this you need a video where you can “loop” between two frames that are similar.

It is crucial that you use a tripod so that the camera will not shift and the start frame matches the end frame.

When you capture the movie make sure that you have a bit of a head start on your video for the post processing stage.

In Photoshop, you load the video on a timeline and start the editing:

1. Trim the head of your footage and duplicate the trimmed movie to a second layer
2. Move the duplicated layer so it starts in the middle of the original, bring back the trimmed footage and trim the end (this will make sure that the second layers ends right where the first layer starts)
3. Using two key frames, increase the opacity of the first layer so at the end of the movie you can only see the duplicated layer
4. create a still image as the top frame and mask out where you want motion
5. export as animated GIF

For the full tutorial, I recommend watching the full movie over at Phlearn.

[How to Create a Cinemagraph in Photoshop | Plearn]