Our goal is to make a 32 pixel by 32 pixel drawing and save it as a GIF.

Open photoshop and create a new image.



Set image size

Make the image 32 pixels high and 32 pixels wide. Give it a screen resolution of 72 pixels and name it whatever you like.


Create a lovely image using pencil and paint bucket

In this lesson, we’ll use two methods for creating our image, the pencil tool and the paint bucket. First the pencil tool. Select it from the tool palette. The pencil shares a space with the paintbrush, so don’t get freaked out and drop out of school if you don’t see it at first. It’s 6th place down, on the right.



Color picker

The color that you draw with is set in the color picker. You can access it by clicking on the foreground color box, it’s near the bottom of the tool palette.





Pencil tool: size

The size of the pencil tip can be set. neat!


Paint bucket vs gradient tool

At this point it may occur to you that it would be useful to be able to fill in larger areas at once. For this we suggest the paint bucket. Note that the paint bucket shares a space with the gradient tool. The Paint Bucket tool fills adjacent pixels that are similar in color value to the pixels you click.


Paint bucket: turn off anti-alias

Unclick anti-alias so you get a nice clean edge.



Save image while you work

Remember to save your image while you work.
You can just use the normal “Save” function (command-S) and save your work file as a Photoshop document. However Photoshop documents do not show up on the web….

Save image for Web

When you’ve finished making your image and you’re ready to save it for the web, go to the file menu and choose “Save for Web.” You’ll be confronted with a plethora of enticing options. Ignore them for now, and simply choose the pre-set option GIF 64 No Dither from the handy pull down menu.

GIF 64 No Dither

A Pixel Artist is You!

You should now be able to open your saved image in any web browser.