Tracing a Bitmap to Change the Color of an Animated Gif

Test it out on the right==>From: To:

• First you will need to get an animated gif. You can use one of the ones above or one you have found on the Internet.
• Open Flash and import the animated gif to the stage (File>Import>To Stage):

• Your timeline should look like the one below if you are using the bird animation:

• Now we need to resize the stage so that the animation does not have any wasted space. I resized mine to 90 X 75 pixels.
• Click in frame 1. Select the gif with the selection tool .
• Select Modify > Bitmap > Trace Image:

• At the Trace Bitmap dialog box, set the options to the below settings:

• Continue to trace the image in all the frames that contain the animation. This essentially breaks the image apart so we can select different parts of the image.
• Once all the images in the frames are traced, click back in frame one. With the selection tool click on the part of the image you want to recolor. If there are more than one section you want to color with the same color simply hold down the Shift key while selecting the other part.
• Click on the Paint Bucket tool then choose the color you want to use. Click over the image to fill the selection with the color. Continue this until all the frames are recolored.
• Now we need to publish the image (File < Publish).
• We don't want to make this a flash movie but an animated gif so select File > Export Image and select animated gif from the file type drop down list: