Animations

I do not have any free programs to recommend but there are websites that allow you to do basic animation online. Here is one:

http://www.gifworks.com/

Yeah the gifworks site is useful for simple animated text.

As for programs I use one called Ulead GIF Animator 5. It's excellent -- not free though. If the gif animation I have in mind isn't using a preset effect I'll create the frames in a graphics program like Photoshop then use GIF Animator to put it together & drastically optimize file size. I think both Adobe & Macromedia have more powerful programs that can be put to use for gif animation, but I don't use em.

Yeah, I use Macromedia's Fireworks MX. But the suite costs several hundred dollars so I did not recommend it.

Photoshop doesn't handle animation Monger?

No Photoshop doesn't & if you try to open an animated gif in it you'll only be able to work on the first frame. But photoshop has tight integration with adobe ImageReady which is great for animation but I almost never work with animation so I haven't bothered with it.

I really hate photoshop. I have it but have only used it about 4 times (just to open files sent to me that were created in photoshop).

Not a knock on it's quality though, just on how freakin' slow it is.

Yeah it can be slow alright. If youse wanna avoid photoshop for viewing psd's you can use IrfanView and do a save as to png, tiff, jpg or just about any other format you'll need. It also opens all these file types -- and it's free.

Hmm, won't IE display the image?

PSD's in IE? Not gonna happen.

I've never tried it, but IE displays quite a bit. I should get Irfanview, it's been recommended so many times to me.

Jasc Software offers 30-day free trials on their Paint Shop Pro and Animation Shop programs.

http://www.jasc.com/