Emoticon tips + tricks Tutorial

Now to the actual reason why I wanted to write this Tutorial. xD
These things really help me to create my Emoticons, so if you have photoshop you should check if it is possible with your version. (I use photoshop cs4)


Normally you have to zoom-in and out if you are working on your Emoticon, but this way don't have to do that anymore.
You can open 2 windows of the same image, work on the zoomed-in window and immediately see how it looks like at 100%.  

Just go to Window ->  Arrange ->  New window for "name.psd"

Then you can arrange the windows:







Actions can be used to speed up your creation process if you know how you use it. You have steps in your creation process that you have to do over and over again?  Why not create an Action for it?  Then you just have to click a button to do it.

You can find the actions window under Window ->   Actions
First let me show you the "actions"-window:, there you can see the important buttons for the action window:



The hardest part is to recognize when it would be easier to create actions.  c:

Because I was too lazy to check if you could add keyboard shortcuts for these commands, I created actions for them.  xD
I have actions for Duplicate animation Frame,  Activate next Frame,  Activate previous Frame , Create New Layer, Create New group


This only works with manually added shading, not with gradients.
You finished your animated Emoticon, but for whatever reason you start to dislike the colour, but it would be too much work to manually change the colour.  
Actions can be useful for this:

You have this emote: and want to change it to this:


First of all you have to create a new frame (it should be the last one), you hide everything except the first layer.





Add a new layer with the colour ramps of your old and new base.  It should be in a place where it doesn't hide any of the other parts of the Emote.





Then you click Create new Action in the Actions window(Before you click on it make sure that you have selected the first Layer.) .There you can change the name and also set a function key, it automatically starts to record if you click on Record.  





Select the Paint Bucket Tool and make sure the "All Layers" checkbox is checked (this is important).

We select the first colour from the colour ramp and use the paint bucket and click on the colour next to it (on the colour ramp)
It changes the colour of the Emote, it also adds a new colour on the place where the colour ramp is, but we don't have to worry about it.  (you can see that if you pay attention to the first Layer in the Layers window.
Repeat the "select colour and fill colour on ramp" until the colour of the Emote is changed completely.





Now you have to select the colour ramp and delete it then you deselect it.  Then you can click on stop recording/playing.





Now you can select the next layer (don't forget to hide the previous layer).  And then you can either use the keyboard shortcut that you have selected for the action (shift + F11 in this case) or you select the name of the action and click on Play selection. You can see how it changes the colour of the Emote.  Do this for all Layers, then you can delete the frame and the colour ramp layer.  You can save the "new" Emote. c:
I have to say that it will only work for this particular document, you will have re-do these steps if your next document has a different canvas size or when the colour ramp is in a different place.