gif animations

If you download that gif and open it in a program like Apple's Preview, you'll see that it's made up of a series of simple images—each one a stage in the transition. Once you have all those images, it's easy to put them together as an animated gif in a program like Photoshop.

Yeah I was watching the process of the simple images one by one, but I don't know of a good Photoshop tutorial that I would guide me through the process of animating. I can create the separate elements but the fluid transitions would be a bit of a reach for me. Good to know that Photoshop may be the answer.

Yes, creating the animation is not the same as creating the nice graphics that go into it.

At its simplest, it's easy to make an animated gif in Ps. Place each of the parts of the animation into layers, hide all but the first, and go to Window > Animation.

I googled something like "create an animated gif in Photoshop" and found lots of tutorials, from very simple to very advanced.

Thank you for your thoughts. I guess I'm looking for a real solid tutorial. One of the things I've learned after many tutorials online is that sometimes your 75% the way there and you realize that the tutorial is bringing you in a direction that you didn't want to go or is incomplete. That's why services like treehouse are fantastic. There's continuity, the content is edited, and really planned out in advance. Just wasn't sure if I missed something on the site… Guess not. Is there a place to make recommendations?

Not sure about a recommendations section (I'm new here). I'd think of creating animated gifs as a pretty small topic, TBH, and not one that would require a course. (If it's any encouragement, I'm not very smart, but managed to figure out how to make a simple animated gif in minutes, so it's worth digging in and just trying it.)

I agree that online tutorials are unreliable and often not what you are looking for. The same applies to courses, though. (None of the books and courses I've found on Git actually answer the questions I have, for example.) Nothing beats having a knowledgable teacher in front of you who can respond to the actual need.