So you've got a working animation, and now you want to spice it up. Maybe you're already very good at normal icons, and you want to know just what will work just as well with animations as with still photos.

First off, you'll be happy to know that there are actually very few limitations when it comes to translating regular icon methods to animated icons. You just have to treat your animation VERY gently. As long as what you want to do is not image-specific or individual (i.e. sharpen an eye, edit out a tree, etc.) pretty much anything goes. So, that would mean that you can color animations almost exactly as you would for a regular image. There's just a few things that are different, and I'll explain those now!

Remember the stickers-on-glass analogy when it comes to layers...anything you want on TOP of the animation, the Foreground, goes well, on top of the animation layers. Anything you want to go under, goes under. Sorry, that was clear as mud.

So what I've done here is create my little color layers, which consist of one Selective Color layer and one Curve Layer. That's what I used, but you can use any number of special layers or solid colors or whatnot; whatever rocks your boat.
Now, I'd already done color-editing on the still image and background of this icon before I did the animation layers, and I didn't want the process to be repeated.

So as you can see, I went to the little layer squares on the right-hand side and blacked out anything I DIDN'T want to be affected by the color layers. If you've never discovered masking, you really should. It saves so much time and energy, and is pretty fool-proof. I may explain that whole concept in a later tutorial, but for now, just remember white = visible, black = invisible.

Yay, you've done it! This is really all you need to do to color-edit an animation. It's very similar to working with a static image, you just have to treat the animation layers as one big layer. Congratulations!

"But wait!", you say. "I thought you were going to teach us how to translate even more coloring methods! What if the coloring process I use demands that I individually lighten or mess with the base layer! I can't go through fifty million layers doing all that work! Heellllllllpppppp!!!!"

Calm down, calm down. There's no need to get your knickers in a twist. Sure I'll show ya an easy way to work with individual layers!

Working with individual layers en mass can be quite a headache, but there is one secret weapon in Photoshop that I think is sadly underused nowadays that can really make a difference, and that's the Action tool. It will save you SO much time, I promise. I won't be going into detail on how to make your own actions at the moment, but look for that in a tutorial coming soon. But anyway, here's what I do when I want to individually edit a single frame.

I take my first frame, and run an action on it that I've made called Brighten Animation Layers. What this one did was take the layer, make a duplicate, set it to screen, duplicate THAT layer, and then merge all three. The end result was a nice, bright layer, perfect for the coloring process that I was using, which tends to make things pretty dark.

When you're done with that layer, simply click on the next layer, hit the "Play" button...

...and whoo hoo! Two brightened layers! Now all you gotta do is click on the next layer, and simply repeat the process. I'm sure there's fancy scripts or actions or whatnot that will do the entire animation with just one click, but I haven't figured that out yet and frankly don't have the time or patience to do so.

So here we are, with all the layers brightened. That wasn't so hard, now was it?

And here's the finished product! Here's the uncolored animation for a side-by-side comparison.

Not the most obvious example one might have chosen, but hey, if bright pink rocks your boat, go for it! Going black and white is a really classy option, too.

So yeah, this process can be used for any number of different coloring tutorials. Let's say you have one that calls for a long, ten-step process to making the icon. Just boil it down to the essentials, figure out what goes on top (color) and what goes on the layers (individual brightening, etc.). It sounds a bit complicated, but it really isn't. Just be reasonable...if you've got a tutorial that calls for sharpening of certain specific features or blurring or making eyes change color or whatnot, forget it. That is just not worth the time or effort. But hey, if you REALLY want to, who's keeping ya?