Flash to Photoshop – Importing Flash Animations Into Photoshop

I have made a really basic no frills guide to getting animation work from Adobe Flash into Photoshop.

Why?

Here’s why…

Both programs have their strengths and weaknesses: Flash is easy to use, quick to animate in and it’s simple to change the timings or order of images around. It only has two ‘brushes’ the pencil tool and the brush, giving only a few options in terms of the lines you can get if you include the four or so style options the pencil tool has. In Photoshop you can use brushes and create your own if you want, there are unlimited possibilities. However animating in photoshop is a clunky and doesn’t flow well.

Here is a way of combining the best of both worlds.

One can use Flash for the basic animation; whether this is just simple shapes or really rough drawings, like in the 1st or 2nd stages of the character development in image below.

When one is satisfied with the animation exporting a png sequence and importing it into Photoshop is simple. Once in photoshop there are any number of options from brushes, colour or textures…and more! (I can stress that enough) For instance a just going over the rough work with a brush tool (taking the character to the 3rd stage as seen in the image above) makes a hell of a difference, just experiment.

The guide I have made HERE simply shows you one way of transferring work from Flash to Photoshop.

Josh