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How to Make a Moving Magnifying Glass Animation in Photoshop

In my previous animation tutorial, you have seen how to make an animation of a hand drawing a comic. Now, we will see how to make an animation of a moving magnifying glass, which you can use for your logo, your avatar or even for your lover's name.

1. Click File > New (Ctrl+N) and enter a reasonable value for width and height (Width 400, height 90 pixels in this example).
2. Set the foreground to the color that you would like to be the background of your image.
3. Click the Paint Bucket tool (Shift+G) and fill the entire background area.
4. Click Set foreground color and change it to a suitable color.
5. Click the Horizontal Type Tool (T) and type the words you like for example, your domain name, product name or even your name.
6. Now, how to center the text in your image? Click the Move Tool (V), select the two layers that you have now (the background and the text layers) and click Align vertical centers and Align horizontal centers located at the top tool bar.
   
7. Select both layers in the layers window and choose Merge Layers.
8. Click Custom Shape Tool (U), click Shape located at the top tool bar of Photoshop then click the small arrow located at the right of the small window and click All then Ok to see all the available Photoshop shapes.
   
9. Set foreground color to green, scroll down in the shapes window until you find the Search shape (the Magnifying glass) and click it.
10. Now draw the search shape in the left corner with a reasonable size so the lens is over the text. You can click the space bar to move the Search shape and leave it to resize the it.
    
11. Click Window > Animation to show the animation window then click Duplicate selected frames located at the bottom of the animation window.
12. Select frame No. 2 and the Shape 1 layer in the Layers window then the Move Tool (M) and move the Search shape to the right corner of the image.
13. Click Tween animation frames located at the bottom of the Animation window, type 16 in the Frames to add in the Tween window and click Ok. Now, you should have 18 animation frames with the Search frame moving slightly to the right until it reaches the right corner in the last frame.
    
14. Rename the first layer to Main and the Shape 1 layer to Search by double clicking on the name in the Layers window.
15. Select the Main layer and press (Ctrl+J) "Duplicate Layer" 17 times.
16. Select the first frame in the Animation window, right click on the Eye icon on the left of the last layer in the Layers window and click Show/Hide all other layers then make the Search layer visible by clicking the left corner of it.
17. Make sure the first frame and the Main layer are selected then choose the Elliptical Marquee Tool (Shift+M) then select a little smaller than the lens area.
    
18. Click Edit > Transform > Scale then drag the selection a little to make it slightly bigger in order to get the zoom effect and press Enter.
19. Click the second frame in the Animation window, click the second layer "Main Copy" and make it visible by clicking the left corner of the layer then repeat the previous selection and scale step.
20. Repeat the same steps (Selecting the next frame and the next layer, make the layer visible, select inside the lens area and scale it bigger to get the zoom effect) until you reach the last frame.
21. You can maximize the effect by selecting the lens and choosing Filter > Render >Lens Flare and Filter > Distort > Spherize for all the animation frames.
22. When you are done, select the Search layer and choose Drop Shadow by clicking the Add layer style icon located at the bottom of the Layers window.
23. Select all the frames, click the down arrow and choose 0.1 Seconds delay time.
24. Select the last frame, click the down arrow and choose 2 Seconds delay time.
25. Click File > Save for web and save the file in GIF format.