Importing Media into Flash from PS CS 3
Using The Adobe Creative Suite CS 3 or newer, you can import media into Flash directly from a Photoshop or Illustrator file. This is a fantastic features, with a few limitations. Layers are maintained, so if you or whoever designed project kept a clean Photoshop file with named layers and logical organization, that will carry right over into the Flash file. You can choose to create a MovieClip for a Photoshop Layer or Group right in the Photoshop Import Window. To get to the Photoshop Import Window from Flash CS 3, go File > Import to Library > choose .psd file. You can also choose what layers to import, and unique compression options for each. So all in all, its great. One drawback I’ve noticed is it doesn’t handle transparency very well in certain situations.
If you have a graphic on a layer that has transparency, especially if it moving, you may see white ugly crusty edges around your graphic. This is because when importing from Photoshop Flash isn’t using as good of transparency as a .png (Portable Network File) does. So if that happens to you, simply make the layer in Flash that the crustiness is on a guide so it won’t show up in the final swf, and use it as reference to place a png image. You’ll need to go back to Photoshop, show only the layer you want to save, crop it, and choose File > Save For Web > PNG 24 Transparency to create a .png image from Photoshop.
Get an example psd file here.
- Create a new .fla file
- choose File > Import to Library (or Import to Stage if you want it to be automatically placed on the stage)
- Select the .psd file
- Notice the options in the Import Window
- Try making all the head layers their own MovieClip and give them instance names
- Notice that layers from the .psd file were maintained
