programs for 2D animation? (photoshop style)

[ema_lone]

First of all, hi everyone in the forum. I,ve been a lot of time reading it. Second, sorry for my english i'm from spain 

The question is if someone knows about a program where i can create animations (gifs) in 2D with the posibility of aply layers and draw with diferent pencils, creating well painted characters.

I know a lot about animation in flash, but is all vectorial. I tried image ready too, but te way you must create and view layers with de animation frames is a little bit complicated.

Now i'm trying after effects... but i don't know if it is recommended.

If someone could help me i've been gratefull.

[Alphasoldier]

I don't know what you exactly want but animated pictures, known most of the times as GIF's are made by programs like Ulead Gif Animator.
I used to have this animation as avatar on other forums.
And I have made quite some animations with these tools, especially stuff that has to do with 8-bit metroid. Made because I used to be very active on a forum of a online webcomic, Zebeth

Several Examples of Gif Animating

I however have no knowlege about flash and would love to learn so. =p

EDIT: By the way, I would suggest using this program with Photoshop or something like that. But I guess you already knew that. :p

[Glamador]

Hmm...I might use these programs.  I used to use Imageready CS2 but when I switched over to Photoshop CS3 I found that it doesn't come with Imageready anymore...and I didn't know any other programs to use.  Good info alpha.

[ema_lone]

lot of thanks to both of you ! 

[Alphasoldier]

Haha, your welcome to both of you. =p

[silverflagon]

Hmm...I might use these programs.  I used to use Imageready CS2 but when I switched over to Photoshop CS3 I found that it doesn't come with Imageready anymore...and I didn't know any other programs to use.  Good info alpha.

It still has the animation tools from Imageready Glamador but it's not so easy to find now so I'll open it up and recheck how you open it.

[silverflagon]

Here you go  Ema_lone, Glamador , just open that drop box, click on animation and if you can recall how to use Imageready then you can also use this.