This is my Animated GIF Tutorial. Its made for someone with intermediate knowledge of their programs.  Remember that I'm describing this tutorial using Corel Painter, but can be applied to most programs.
 

1.  First you have to have an idea of how you want your animation to work, then the types of movements and effects you want. 

• Keep in mind that for an animation to look smooth and continuous, you'll have to get the last frames to easily match the first frames IF LOOPING, if you do not want it to loop, then it doesn't matter.

2. Compose different frames (picture by picture)

3.  Below is a picture of  an animated GIF that was cut up. This shows you frame-by-frame what the gif looks like in a static mode. "1" Is the first frame, "15" is the middle of animation. Using Animagic GIF, I will then duplicate all 15  frames and reverse them, creating a smooth animation.
 

• 1 shows the beginning of the animation. The Box or Fence thing is closed over the imagine button.
• 2 shows 2 little bar's which will come down and give an effect of the box being sealed.
• 5 shows the 2 bar's coming back up, unlocking the box.
• 8 shows the box beginning to slide open  revealing the "imagine" button.
• 12 shows the button completely revealed.
• 13 shows some kind of  machine coming in from the top & bottom towards the button.
• 15 shows the machine "electrocuting" the button, for the "electrocution" effect I simply made the whole frame negative.

The final animation:

 

4.  Finally to put all of the animations together you must do one of  the following:

• If you are using Fractal Painter like me, Then the animator is enough for putting it all together, just go to "File" > "Save As"  >[GIF]
• If you are using any other program such as Adobe Photoshop, you will have to save each frame and put them all together using a GIF program such as  Animagic GIF, Ulead GIF animator........
• With whatever GIF Editor you will use,  to get a nice effect you will  have to speed up, and slow down certain frames to get a nice effect.

5.  GIF Effects

• Lightning:   Simply instert a pure blank white frame in the animation.
• Electrocution:    Just make the frame you want to electrocute a negative (effect > tonal control > negative)
• Earthquake/rattle/jiggle:  simply take an object and move it a few pixels left, then right , then left......  It'll give a nice effect.
• Use Plugins!!!!   Experiment with all of your plugins, you can achieve astonishing effects in an animation....
• HAVE FUN    Animating Gif's is a hobby... if you don't like it then don't do it.. try to have fun!

CLICK HERE TO VIEW MY GIFS