Cinemagraphs are fun and surreal still images that display an element of movement. This is achieved by shooting a short amount of video footage, loading it into Photoshop, creating a still and then masking out selected areas to reveal the movement behind. By then saving the file as a GIF you have a cinemagraph. If you’d like to learn the basics of shooting video with your DSLR or mirrorless camera take a look at part one of this tutorial – shooting video for cinemagraphs – by clicking here.
If you have a copy of Photoshop CC you have everything you need to create cinemagraphs. You can buy special software to do it, but it’s expensive and creating them in Photoshop is just as quick and easy when you know how. And best of all, the tools available for making adjustments are just as powerful as when editing still images.
How to create a cinemagraph in Photoshop
Examples of cinemagraphs created in Photoshop
To create a cinemagraph you need suitable video footage. To learn how to shoot video for cinemagraphs click here.