How do you make gif animations through video or pictures?

Szs315 · Post by **Szs315** » Tue Mar 06, 2007 8:50 pm

How do you make gif animations through video or pictures?

Which programs do you use? I've tried all video recording programs like hycam and fraps but even when they are compressed and transferred to gif through converter they are large file size. If you need to make gif through pictures and not video, which program takes low file sized pictures without stopping, automatically saves them, and a program that can make the pictures a gif? Is there a video to gif converter that works well? Is there a certain video recorder I should use?

HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Usagi · Post by **Usagi** » Tue Mar 06, 2007 10:20 pm

It sounds like you want your GIF making to be animated for you, but in my experience it's pretty labor intensive.

I don't record videos; I basically make stop motion animations. I've discussed this elsewhere, and I'll outline the basic steps again, but this is for Mac; I'm not sure of the keystrokes for taking screens, etc., on a PeeCee.

1. Take a series of screens using the V key to stop the action and Command-Shift-3 to take the screen. 15-20 is probably the max.
2. Open your screens with a graphics program; I use PhotoShop Elements.
3. Start with your first screen and drag the others in order on top of it as layers, making sure they line up.
4. Crop your picture.
5. Use the Save For Web command.
6. Select GIF.
7. Click "Animation"
8. Set the picture size. About 350 pixels is good, but smaller will reduce your file size.
9. Select the frame delay. 0.0 is smooth and fast; 0.2 is slow enough to see details; 0.5 starts to seem like a slideshow. 0.03 is blazing.
10. Preview in your browser and adjust the settings.
11. Save it.

You don't need to take low file size pictures, 'cuz you adjust that in PSE.

Taking pictures without stopping slows the frame rate down to 1, in my experience. That's why I uses slo-mo or super-slo-mo and the V key.

The screens are automatically saved; you just have to find them. Mine are on the desktop.

If you have a graphics program, you can make GIFs, but it's not automatic. If you have a video, you can make stills of the frames and maker a GIF from them.

That's all I can tell you. As I said, it's labor intensive. Ya gotta love your work.

Szs315 · Post by **Szs315** » Tue Mar 06, 2007 11:11 pm

Where do I get photoshop elements?

Edit: Made my first "real" gif, with extremly high quality.

It boggles your mind:

Usagi · Post by **Usagi** » Tue Mar 06, 2007 11:38 pm

Szs315 wrote:Where do I get photoshop elements?

Well, you can buy it at a software store, or online, or you can get it some other way that I can't mention and don't know anything about.

Szs315 wrote:Edit: Made my first "real" gif, with extremly high quality.

A relative term, of course, but yes, much better than the first one.

Szs315 wrote:It boggles your mind:

then he wrote:a mind-boggling image

It certainly does, and not necessarily in a pleasant way. It makes me feel sea-sick.

But keep at it, and you'll improve with practice. The more GIFs the merrier is my motto.

Szs315 · Post by **Szs315** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 2:07 am

Thanks. It was about how if you put the camera in a tree the characters disappear. I am working on more, thanks ofr the help.

Crill3 · Post by **Crill3** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 3:37 am

Is there any way to make this more automatic in Photoshop?
I tried to make a droplet but I didn't understand anything.

Usagi · Post by **Usagi** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 7:24 am

Well, you can mass process some files, but it really doesn't save much time or improve quality.

As I said, labor intensive.

Szs315 · Post by **Szs315** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 9:33 pm

New one:

wormguy · Post by **wormguy** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 9:54 pm

OK, that's just spastic. It's gonna give me a seizure.

You need more intermediary shots. Also, resizing is your friend.

Szs315 · Post by **Szs315** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 11:52 pm

Sorry, I need an idea for one. Here is another one that is smaller and I hope it is better:

Fast and big version:

Slower version - copied pictures each twice - bigger file size:

Which is better?

Zantalos · Post by **Zantalos** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 11:56 pm

Wow, that is much better actually.

I like it.

This is a really cool 360 freeze shot, the first I've ever seen. Nice, this is very good!

Edit: the top is better, it's could go a little slower, but it's also the perfect size.
The bottom is going reaally slow.

Szs315 · Post by **Szs315** » Thu Mar 08, 2007 12:03 am

Remade the slower one without logo and bigger, although since i copied pictures file size for slower one is bigger .

Edit: how do you compress them to make files smaller?

Edit: New gif here - 10 pictures:

Edit: Another gif, tried to make him jump over sarah, but he ended up jumping on her. It looks kind of funny so I uploaded it:

wormguy · Post by **wormguy** » Thu Mar 08, 2007 12:59 am

You're getting better. I like the 360 freeze shot on top.

Compression depends on what program you use. It also depends on size, the amount of colors you choose to use, etc.

BunnyWithStick · Post by **BunnyWithStick** » Thu Mar 08, 2007 5:02 am

By the way, why don't you just use delay instead of using duplicate images? That's really bad for filesize.

Szs315 · Post by **Szs315** » Thu Mar 08, 2007 11:02 pm

How do you use delay in microsoft gifanimator?

Edit: New gif with smaller file size - great quality:

I explode sarah yet she lives!