Make a Simple Rotating Header in Photoshop

In this tutorial, I am going to show you how to make a header like this one:  **it is the same concept as making a Blinky

It is great for Photography blog designs and just if you want to add a little something different, but it is MUCH easier than doing a flash header.  NOTE: You can only save this as a GIF file, so your quality will not be as high as a JPEG or PNG, so if you need something really high quality, this is not the best tutorial for you :)

Let's get started!  First, I have opened 4 different images (you can use as many as you like).  Then I am going to grab my Crop tool.  I am going to crop all of these to 800px by 350px (do what ever you like, but make sure to crop all of them the exact same).

After I have Cropped all of my images, I made a new document the same size as my cropped images.

Now drag all of your images on to the new document that you have made, and arrange your layers in the order that you would like them to go in the Header (top to bottom)

Once you have done that, you are going to go to your Window > Animation

Now you should have a window appear that looks something like this:

Now, click on the New Frame button (shown below)

Then you are going to Hide your top layer like shown below (click on the eye to hide).

Now it should look something like this (both slides should show a different image).  Then Click on the New Frame button again.

... and hide the next layer down.

.... and repeat the last 2 steps until you are finished with all your layers (don't hide your last image though).

Now if you push the Play button, you will notice that your slideshow will go REALLY fast, so to make it the speed you want it, click on the Sec. below each slide, and select a time.  I selected 5.0 secs, but you can do whatever suits you :)

Last thing, make sure that the slideshow is set to Forever.

Now, we are going to do a File > Save for Web & Devices...

 Then you are going to select GIF (it won't work with any other file type).

 Then you can adjust your quality settings, these are the options I chose:

Now you need to upload your file to your Free Photobucket account.   (before you upload, make sure that you click on Customize your upload options (shown at the bottom of the image below).

 Make sure that you select Best possible quality(while staying 1mb or less)  **my account says 2mb because I have a pro account.  (If you skip this, Photobucket might edit the dimensions of your image)

Once you have uploaded your GIF file, copy your Direct Link code

When you go to edit your Header, make sure that you select the From the web option, YOU CANNOT UPLOAD it from your computer.... it will not work.

Click Save, and there you have your new rotating header, it is not quite as slick as a flash header, but it is way easier, and faster!