Apr
As you know, the webdesign/GIF-animation-tool “ImageReady” which was always a part of Photoshop, has been discontinued. All the features of ImageReady have been included in Photoshop CS3 and so you just have to use one application in order to do special works like slicing or creating GIF-animations.
But actually not everything works like it should. There’s a problem with opening animated GIF-files. If you create an animated GIF in Flash you have a problem if you want to open the GIF-file with Photoshop CS3. An error will occur because Photoshop says that the GIF may contain frames and so the animation will be reduced to the first frame.
The official technote of Adobe can be read here:
http://www.adobe.com/go/kb400887
So, Adobe specifies the use of Fireworks as solution for this problem. I’ve tried that and opened an animated GIF-file (created in Flash) in Fireworks. The original file had a filesize of 1,6 KB. I saved the animated GIF again with Fireworks and after this the filesize was
65,3 KB. I checked the output-settings of Fireworks but everything was right so Fireworks doesn’t seem to be a workaround for re-opening animated GIF-files. When I opened the original GIF-file in ImageReady I saved the animation again – the new GIF-file had a filesize of 1,7 KB.
Another missing ImageReady-feature in Photoshop CS3 is the webcontent-window and all the advanced slicing-options (like creating slice-sets). That’s why ImageReady still has power and shouldn’t be forgotten. Maybe the missing features will be included in Photoshop CS4.
