How long are the animated clips?

Each clip is a short 2–5 second loop, designed to add life without turning your album into a video.

Does animating change my original photo?

No. Your original photo is untouched — the clip is stored alongside it and can be removed or re-generated any time.

Do animations show up in shared and printed albums?

They play in the digital viewer and in exported album videos. Printed books use the original still photo.

Is it included in my plan?

Animation is available on paid plans and uses a small number of credits per clip, deducted from your balance when the clip is created — the same way Sustain’s other AI tools work.

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What’s New

July 9, 2026

· 4 min read

Animated photo books: bring your pages to life

Some moments were never meant to sit still. The way your daughter’s hair caught the wind, the waves behind that beach shot, the candles on a birthday cake — a single frame can’t quite hold them.

Animated photo books let you turn selected photos in your Sustain album into short, gentle clips that play right inside the reading experience. No timelines, no video editor — Sustain’s AI does the animating, you just pick the moment.

What it is

When you animate a photo, Sustain creates a 2–5 second living clip from that still image and plays it in the viewer in place of the usual slow zoom. The motion is subtle and true to the photo — a person keeps eating, water ripples, steam rises — so the page feels alive without feeling like a video.

You can animate a single photo, or animate a whole page as one cohesive scene while your titles and captions stay crisp on top.

How to animate a photo

Open your album in the editor

Go to the album you want to bring to life and select the photo you’d like to animate.

Open the ✨ menu

On the photo’s toolbar, click the AI tools (✨) button and choose Animate this photo.

The photo toolbar’s AI tools menu open, showing “Animate this photo”

Check the suggested motion

Sustain reads the photo and writes the motion for you — “gentle waves,” “balloons drift.” It appears right in the dialog. Like it? Pick a length and hit Animate. Want a different feel? Tap Try another for a fresh suggestion.

The Animate dialog showing the suggested motion, a Try another button, a length slider, and the Animate button

Preview and apply

Sustain generates a short clip in the background — you can keep editing while it renders. When it’s ready, open the photo’s ✨ menu → Animation → Preview (or tap its Play badge) and the clip plays right in the editor. Happy with it? It’s already saved to that photo. Prefer a different feel? Re-animate.

Not sure where to start?

Open the Suggestions panel and Sustain will point out the shots with the most natural motion — the ones that animate best.

Animate a whole page

Sometimes the whole spread deserves to move, not just one photo. Animate page turns an entire page into one cohesive, full‑bleed motion scene — while your titles and captions stay crisp on top.

Select the page

Click an empty area of the page (not a photo) to bring up the page toolbar.

Choose ✨ → Animate page

Open the page’s ✨ menu and pick Animate page. Sustain suggests a scene motion for the whole spread — animate by it, or tap Try another.

Watch it come alive

Sustain composes a single full‑bleed clip for the page with a gentle push‑in. Your text and decorations render statically over it, so they stay perfectly sharp.

Where the animations play

Animated photos and pages play automatically in the viewer as your album reads through — the camera settles on the animating photo, plays the clip, then moves on.

They also carry into your exported album video, so a shared or downloaded film shows the same living moments.

Good to know

Animation is available on paid plans and uses a small number of credits per clip. Clips generate in the background — you can keep editing while they render.