[ajprice]

I'd like to make an animation of magazine pages turning over (not a turnpage viewer for the actual mag, just a little graphic with pages turning), to be put on a website as an animated gif. I have no knowledge of flash, but I really would prefer an automated way of doing it with a piece of mac software(free or trial, can't really get a software purchase for something little like this), or a Photoshop/Imageready plug in.

I could do it manually in Photoshop/Imageready, but I don't really have the work time to do it, and I don't think its something that I could do easier the second time as I'd probably have to rebuild the photoshop each time (this is for a group of magazines, so the new issues between them all happen quite often). Is there an easy way of doing this, by software, plug-in or tutorial, without using Flash?

The closest I've come to is the revolving door transition in Keynote, but I need that to show 2 pages together instead of one page disappearing into the left or right hand side of the image (unless there is a way of saving 2 animations side by side as one, that might work).

[Thorzdad]

There's nothing I know of that automatically produces what you want in Photoshop. That doesn't mean something doesn't exist. Have you asked in the Adobe forums?

[bluedog]

You could record an action that takes layers you create of the pages and does the 'flip' animation. I tried this once and found its not really worth the effort to continue doing this. Animations are helpful when they are directing your attention to an action or piece of information. IMO flipping pages on a catalog as an animated GIF doesn't qualify.

This doesn't mean in the context of your site/page that it is a design element. Try seeing if you can put several pages onto a layer and begin recording the actions you would need to create the flip idea.

Here's a plugin which we purchased for my work (which has many additional features than just a page curl):

AV Bros. Page Curl 2.0 - The Most Powerful Photoshop Plug-in (8bf) for Turning Page Effect.

If anyone knows of something free as a plugin please post it. I suggest the plugin as it can be more easily scripted for several pages rather than making a lot of 'adjustments' on each frame.

I would think you can use a plugin, apply it to a layer set with incrementing values and then export the layers as an animated GIF.