When you're done, make sure the bottom left corner is set to "Forever" and not "Once" and test out your animation by pressing the play button on the Animation palette. Then you can crop and resize the file but going to the crop tool:
and entering "1 in" into both the Width and Height boxes at the top. Click and drag your mouse across the image, play around with the crop box so that everything you want is in the square, and press the "Enter" key. Then press CTRL+ALT+I to get the Resize dialog box and enter 100 px for the Width dimensions (the Height dimensions should automatically change).
If you're satisfied with the animation, go to "File" --> "Save For Web and Devices" and a big dialog box will appear:
You want to set the Preset to either "Gif 128 Dithered" or "Gif 128 No Dither" (you can press the play button in the bottom right to compare the settings). Also, pay attention to the size of the file (in the bottom left below "GIF") as you want to make sure it is under 40K for LJ use. If your file is too big, you can try deleting frames from your animation palette to decrease the size. And then save! :D
If you get used to this and get more comfortable with Photoshop, you can play around with image quality and coloring and maybe check out the Archive (http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=icon_tutorial) at icon_tutorial for more tips. Otherwise, I hope this was newbie-friendly enough for you!
rest of my guide :D
and entering "1 in" into both the Width and Height boxes at the top. Click and drag your mouse across the image, play around with the crop box so that everything you want is in the square, and press the "Enter" key. Then press CTRL+ALT+I to get the Resize dialog box and enter 100 px for the Width dimensions (the Height dimensions should automatically change).
If you're satisfied with the animation, go to "File" --> "Save For Web and Devices" and a big dialog box will appear:
You want to set the Preset to either "Gif 128 Dithered" or "Gif 128 No Dither" (you can press the play button in the bottom right to compare the settings). Also, pay attention to the size of the file (in the bottom left below "GIF") as you want to make sure it is under 40K for LJ use. If your file is too big, you can try deleting frames from your animation palette to decrease the size. And then save! :D
If you get used to this and get more comfortable with Photoshop, you can play around with image quality and coloring and maybe check out the Archive (http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=icon_tutorial) at