How to Make Your Own GIFs

An animated GIF is an easy way to relive a single moment over and over ad nauseum. The GIF?graphics interchange format, and pronounced jif (see Glossary, below)?was invented by CompuServe in 1987 as a way to compress color images without degrading their visual information. Because the format usually results in a small, widely readable file?and because a single file can include multiple layers and, therefore, be animated?it boomed in popularity along with the Internet.

But that was in the 1990s, before the Internet became so self-aware; now the information superhighway is bursting with GIFs of cats, politicians, cats with politicians--and so on. The initial return to the form may fall into the trend of reappropriating shopworn fads (Pabst Blue Ribbon, flannel), or it may just be because the GIF is such a simple standard. To add your own animated image to the mix, you can use either an online tool or a computer program such as Adobe Photoshop or GIMP. Making your animation online is the easiest way to go, but that offers the least control over the results.

If you're looking for a single, quick GIF on the go, head to gifninja.com or gickr.com, where you can upload photos or movies to stitch together into a repeating loop.

Photoshop and the open-source photo program GIMP (the GNU Image Manipulation Program) offer more GIF fine-tuning than Web tools, but the process is more manual. In Photoshop you can import a video directly, but in GIMP you'll have to manually split the frames into separate image files. You can do that either by taking screen shots or by using KMPlayer, a free program, to extract frames. Make sure all the images are the same size (if they're not, you can crop them in either program), and place each in a separate layer. If you're using still images in Photoshop, do the same thing; if you have a video clip, choose Import Video Frames to Layers in the File menu. Next, in either program, arrange the layers in the order you want them to play, with the first one at the top. In Photoshop you'll see your frames arranged in a timeline, where you can set how long each plays; in GIMP you'll have to choose Make Frames From Layers in the Animation palette menu to do that. To save in Photoshop, choose Save for Web & Devices and make sure the format is set as GIF. In GIMP, choose Export To in the File menu and select GIF as the format.

You're almost finished?all you have left to do is get your image onto the Internet, where you can post it to your heart's content. We recommend using a free file-hosting site, such as ImageBam or Imgur, to store and assign a URL to your animation. Then you can upload it to the blogging platform of your choice, or just send around an animated email.

Source: http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/how-to/tips/how-to-make-your-own-gifs-14880064?src=rss

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