How do you make gif animations through video or pictures?

Zantalos · Post by **Zantalos** » Thu Mar 15, 2007 12:50 am

Well I got that 30 day trial of photoshop.

So when saving them for the web you can tweak what file they are and their quality (for GIFs you just change how many colors you need, Lugaru doesn't need the full 256), but Photoshop automatically optimizes them pretty well though.

Each of my images were like less than 100 kb, but they could be much smaller if I shrunk them more and stuff.

Usagi · Post by **Usagi** » Fri Mar 16, 2007 8:23 am

I always leave it at 256 unless I desperately need the room. It barely shrinks the file until you get down to 16 colors or so.

Resizing and reducing frame number does the most, but it's harder to give the full fruity import of a GIF with fewer, smaller frames.

rudel_ic · Post by **rudel_ic** » Fri Mar 16, 2007 8:34 am

By the way, Adobe recently stated that they will give a Web Edition of Photoshop CS away for free download in a few months. No, I'm not an Adobe employee.

Szs315 · Post by **Szs315** » Fri Mar 16, 2007 2:30 pm

That's good to know. Looking forward to it. Anyways, trying to find inspiration for a gif. Where do you guys get inspiration to make gif?

Usagi · Post by **Usagi** » Fri Mar 16, 2007 3:38 pm

I play lots of Lugaru and pay attention to the images and surroundings and movements and models and...well, pretty much everything. If I see something interesting I take some screens.

If I like some of the screens, I make a GIF.

I also just scroll through some of my old screens (sometimes I make a slideshow) and see if there's anything that looks like fun.

Or, I think about everything in Lugaru and I try to make connections in my mind to other things and decide if it might make an interesting GIF, then go play and set it up and take some screens and make a GIF.

Or I make a GIF in response to something someone posts.

Or I make a GIF because I feel like it.

Or I make a GIF when...oh, never mind.

Zantalos · Post by **Zantalos** » Tue Mar 27, 2007 12:18 am

Usagi, how do you resize a GIF in photoshop? Whenever I try that, photoshop doesn't pick out all the frames so all i get is one picture rather than an animation.

Usagi · Post by **Usagi** » Tue Mar 27, 2007 8:54 pm

After I've layered up all my shots...

I use the crop tool...

to set the image area and proportions I want..

then go to Save For Web, select GIF and Animation...

and choose a final size.

I usually make GIFs and JPEGs about 350 - 400 pixels high; it seems to work well on the forum.

Zantalos · Post by **Zantalos** » Tue Mar 27, 2007 10:08 pm

Cool, and how about when you do things like, grabbing somebody elses GIF, resizing it for them, or fixing their animation speeds.

Whenever I try to play with GIF images in photoshop, I loose all the layers.

Usagi · Post by **Usagi** » Wed Mar 28, 2007 7:37 am

Right click on an image and choose save.

Open in PS (I use PS Elements; it's got everything I need) and make any modifications you want.

Save For Web and choose your size and speed.

Save it, host it and post it.

PS: All info is for Macs, because Windoze, um, I mean Windows suc...uh, Windows is something I hat...er, something I haven't used much 'cuz it's the suxx...that is, 'cuz I've always had a Mac, since I really, really hat...well, um, really haven't used Windows much, thank the good Lor...rather, er, thanks to the vagaries of fate. Yeah, that's it.

I'm sure PS works much the same on PeeCe...other machines, although the interface is probably ridicul...ahh, different.

Grayswandir · Post by **Grayswandir** » Sat Mar 31, 2007 3:54 am

Szs315 wrote:That's good to know. Looking forward to it. Anyways, trying to find inspiration for a gif. Where do you guys get inspiration to make gif?

Hmmm...Well, if I'm watching something or whatever, if I think it's funny, I'll sometimes make an animation out of it. It really depends on my mood and how patient I am.

For example:

I'm working on another one that I'll post up (or use...) eventually.

Szs315 · Post by **Szs315** » Mon Apr 02, 2007 4:34 pm

I'm trying out delay, how is it working for me so far? This one is 400x300 and 611kb:

Zantalos · Post by **Zantalos** » Mon Apr 02, 2007 7:32 pm

That's a really cool shot. Maybe you should have a slight pause at the end of the animation.

Szs315 · Post by **Szs315** » Wed Apr 04, 2007 9:56 pm

Good idea, i'll try that now.