ImageReady is no more, and Photoshop wont open animated GIFs ! WTF !!!

error message in photoshop cs3
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Hot off the missing thumbnails comes another Photoshop CS3 ‘feature’, or lack thereof


ImageReady was the animated GIF editor of the creative suite, but has been discontinued for CS3 and above. Photoshop CS3 wont import the layers and timelines of animated GIFs. Adobe wants you to pony up for Fireworks for the ability to open animated GIFs.(via)

But there is a simpler way to open animated GIFs in Photoshop.

I came across these via the Firewalker blog at Photoshop CS3 Can Still Open Animated GIF Properly in Windows. He dug them up from the Adobe Forums.

Choose File » Import » Video Frames to Layers

In the file browser in Windows, type *.* in the File Name and press Enter or click Load.

It will not open any file, but it will view every file without restriction of Type of Files.

Open your animated GIF files, it will show you a dialog box regarding the imports. Press OK to import as default.

Voila! The file is opened in animation frames. You can view the animation frames from Windows » Animation

And for Photoshop CS3 on Mac OSX

Change the animated GIF file you want to open into .MOV file.

Therefore the Import Video Frames to Layers function will recognize it as a video file and will open it as animated sequence.

However, this method won’t always works and the quality of the file is questionable.

If you found this useful, you can thank Firewalker at http://firewalker.kamusilmiah.com/photosh… for digging this up from the adobe forums.