January 30th, 2006 
Free Tutorial: 3D Text Rotation
In this tutorial you will learn how to create an animated GIF file that is rotating around a 3D ball. You will do all of this using Adobe Photoshop and Imageready, which is included in the Photoshop package.
Start off by opening a new ?.psd? document in Photoshop. Make the size of the document about 500x500 pixels. Name the document according to your personal specific needs. The ?dpi? in the new document window determines the amount of pixels/dots per inch. In other words, the higher the value, the finer the detail of your design. See Figure 1 for details on opening your new document.
Figure 1
After configuring your settings as shown in Figure 1, and you pressed ?OK?, you will now see a blank space in front of you on the workspace. This is where you have the freedom to create your design.
Figure 2
Choose the marquee tool in the toolbar. As default, the rectangular marquee will be selected, so you have to hold your mouse pointer on the selection, and wait for the options to appear. Then choose the elliptical marquee tool.
With this tool selected, draw a circle on your workspace. You can simply click and drag the mouse pointer to do this. In order to get a perfectly round circle, hold down the ?SHIFT? key while doing this. When you hold down the ?SHIFT? key while dragging, Photoshop assists you in creating a perfectly round circle.
Once you release the mouse pointer, you will see a circle drawn with a dotted line. You can now move the circle around, and position it accordingly.
In the toolbar you can now choose a color that you are going to fill the circle with. I chose a soft blue, but the choice is up to you. After you have chosen your desired color, with the circle still selected, go to ?Edit->Fill?? Or as a shortcut, you can press Shift+F5. This will now fill the selection, in this case your circle with the desired color that you chose. See Figure 3 for further description.
Figure 3
Ok, so you now have your filled circle. You can rename any layers in the layer panel by double-clicking directly on the name of the layer, and then editing the name by typing your desired name. If your layer panel is not visible, you can press F7 to make it visible on your workspace.
Figure 4
In Figure 4 you will see an action where the first layer is renamed as ?Circle?. It is always better to rename your layers for your own convenience. This way you will make it easier for yourself to work on your project, by knowing what layer name symbolizes what.
If you are interested in the rest of this tutorial please visit http://www.tutorialsite.org for the rest of tutorial. As well as for other free tutorials.