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Open Image

Open the image you want to add glitter to. Some images will, obviously, work better than others - do please, please make sure that the images you use are free to use. There's nothing more disheartening than finding images which have been stolen off of the Internet and modified. Seriously - not only are you committing a copyright violation, which is illegal, but you're also messing with the artist's rights. If they don't find the work you've done (hey, it's possible), by leaving it out there modified they are relinquishing all their artistic rights as owner and creator of the image. Not cool, so don't do it. Please.

The image I'm using here has been downloaded from CoolArchive.com and is free for use. You can grab the same image here, or start working on one of your own.

Color

Create a new layer and use your color dropper tool to pick up a color from the area you want to add glitter to. I want to add a glitter effect to the red part of the fairy's wings, so I grabbed a red shade from that area.

Now, you have two options. You can either use the magic wand to select full areas, or you can use a paintbrush to "highlight" selections of the image for glitter. Either way you go, you will want to have your foreground color on the new layer. I've shown both options below:

Noise Filter

First, duplicate the colored layer three times.

Now, click on your first colored layer and go to "Filters" in the toolbar. Choose "Noise" and click "Add Noise". Apply the settings below:

Repeat

Now that you know how to make the basic glitter, go on to your next 3 colored layers and perform step 4 again. Each time that you perform the noise filter, though, add 1 percent to the "Amount" of noise. So on the second colored layer, you will add 26% and so on.

Depending on which color method you're using, you'll have something like one of these:

Save!

If you haven't saved your work yet, definitely do so now. It will save you a lot of frustration.

Export to ImageReady

Click "File" and choose "Edit in ImageReady". Photoshop will open ImageReady for you, and begin moving the file over with all its layers and layer styles intact so that you can animate them.

The Animation Window

The Animation Window

The first thing you need to get acquainted with in ImageReady is the Animation Window.

Loop Settings: This setting lets you make the animation loop on and on without stopping, or to play the animation once and quit running.

Play Buttons: You can preview the animation using these buttons, just like a media player.

Tween: This is a more advanced button, which basically lets you make transitions from one image to the next smoothly.

Duplicate: An important button - you'll use this one often to make more "Frames". Each "frame" is a step in the animation.

Delete: When you make too many frames, you can select the frame you don't need and click the delete button to completely get rid of it.

Duplicate Frame

We have four layers of text that will "play" in our animation, so we need four frames to put those layers on. To get four frames, click the "Duplicate" button three times and your animation window should look like this:

Match Frame to Layer

The way that frames work is tied directly to layers. Whatever layer you have "visible" with the little eye icon is the layer that will show up on a frame.

So ... click on Frame 1 and make only Layer 1 Visible. Then, click on Frame 2 and make only Layer 2 visible. Move on like this, removing the background from every frame.

Play & Save

You can hit the play button now, to see if you've matched up the layers to the frames. You should see an animation that looks like one of these, depending on what color method you used.

If your glitter doesn't look right, go back through each frame and make sure that it is showing the right layer.

Once you have it set, click "File" and choose "Save Optimized As". You're done!