How To Create And Work With GIF?

GIF, also known as Graphics Interchange Format, is a bitmap image format developed by Compuserve’s American computer scientist Steve Wilhite in 1987. Due to its wide support and portability, it’s all over the World Wide Web.

A small flipbook containing image sequence representing a gif

GIFs record resemble a vivified document, similar to how a flipbook works. They quickly show a progression of successive pictures that negligibly contrast from each other to deliver the illusion of movement. During the web early years, GIFs were the primary method of adding movement to a web page.

Needless to say, a lot has changed since the 90s. Animated GIFs are enjoying an interest in email marketing and Websites. While there is still some discussion as to how you actually pronounce “GIF”, most will agree that it can be an excellent marketing tool. Let’s look at why GIFs are so useful in email campaigns.

The average length of a GIF Image is between 10 to 15 seconds max. GIFS are not similar to JPEG image formats because they do not reduce the quality of the images. They use lossless compression and include a maximum of 256 colors.

WHY USE GIF?

WHY USE GIF? A Cyber Monday GIF example

Animated GIFs are used for adding an element of delight to a campaign that isn’t typically possible with static email designs. A number of campaigns use animated GIFs especially for expressed and do so with great success. Buzzfeed, a strong advocate of the GIF format, has seen their email program grow from a single newsletter in 2012 to 14 different newsletters at the end of 2013.

JPEG or PNG design is effectively fine via web-based networking media since we’re rapidly moving by visual content. However, the GIF format includes something more uncommon – a smaller than normal video, with no sound, that can be watched all the way in as meager as maybe a couple of seconds in a basic, auto-looping fashion.

WHY HAVING GIFS IMAGES BECAME SO POPULAR?

Before animated GIF images were available, people had to live with viewing motionless pictures. The other option to see the animation or movement in images was via videos. However, videos take a long time to upload and are often too huge in size to share.

At the same time, a person must watch the entire video or skip to the part he or she is looking forward to seeing it. Apart from that, videos take longer to buffer and pose a problem for those who have limited data or slow speed internet connections. GIFs are more popular when epic fail videos started popping up all over the web.

A beer ad in the GIF format

Many users took the parts of people doing insane, degrading, or unexpected things, and turned them into 10 to 15 seconds short movie clips. Not long after, funny, crazy, or wild animated GIF images were all over the web. Since they took such little space, it made sharing, storing, or saving them an easy task.

In fact, their ability of a GIF image to be shared so easily has helped to turn people to be more perceptive to the web. Millions of the GIF images found on the web that are trending have turned unknown people into online celebrities. GIF images also help to open out the clips of celebrities, athletes, and famous people taken from movies, TV shows, or games.

HOW TO CREATE A GIF?

There are many tools available for creating GIFs. However, most designers use Adobe Photoshop. Photoshop has a number of ways to create animated GIFs, including timeline animation, importing video frames, and frame-by-frame animation. The more important thing is that the designers have the full power of Photoshop’s graphics tools at their disposal when crafting their next great GIF.

The Adobe Photoshop interface

Frame-Based Animation in Photoshop

There are lots of excellent tutorials on creating advanced Frame-based animation in Photoshop.

Frame-Based Animation in Photoshop

Timeline animation in Photoshop

Not everyone has a Photoshop expert, though many designers and marketers need to make GIFs out of existing video footage. While you could use something like Adobe After Effects, there are tools for most platforms that make GIF creation easy.

Windows users can take advantage of programs like Instagiffer and GIF Animator. If you’re looking for online tools, there is no shortage of web-based GIF creators. There are even apps on mobile that can help you create GIFs!

FREE ONLINE GIF MAKER TOOLS

Below are a few examples of online GIF maker tools.

1) MakeAGIF.com

MakeAGIF.com

This is a well known GIF-production stage for loads of clients – dynamic GIF creators. Don’t hesitate to peruse the exhibition of GIFs that others have made over a wide range of various classifications. You can likewise tap on any GIF to download it, share it via web-based networking media, or even observe its source.

2) Giphy

Giphy

Giphy is the biggest web crawler for animated GIFs, and now it has a tool of its own one of a kind that permits its clients who love to find and offer GIFs to make their own. Alternatively, you can relocate existing video documents from your PC to the GIF maker. The video will begin playing and you’ll have the access to choose the clip you need for your GIF, in addition, to include a discretionary caption and tags.

3) EZGIF.com

EZGIF.com

Another uncontrollably simple GIF device is EZGIF, which offers two choices for you to change videos to GIFs. You can either upload a current video document from your PC or paste the URL of the video into the given fields.

Your GIF will be changed over and you see the completed item underneath. Ensure to read the tips and confinements underneath these sections to guarantee that your video converts in a limited measure of time and figure out how to exploit the editing tools that show up once your output GIF has been produced.

DISADVANTAGES OF THE GIF FORMAT

Animated GIFs holds advantages as well as disadvantages as they just have a most extreme shading palette of 256 hues. So, in this way, they can now and then look of poorer quality than different sorts of records or pictures. This can prompt the pictures to have more ‘blocky’ colors and furthermore looking somewhat pixelated.

Another inconvenience of utilizing animated GIFs is that once the animation has been coded into the genuine GIF record there is no real way to backpedal and alter the picture. This may prompt starting once more to make a minor adjustment to a picture.

Despite the fact that these pictures have little document sizes and in this way should run easily online, they are likewise dependant on web association and could prompt the webpage they are utilized on looking less expert.

Wrapping Up

Utilizing animated GIFs can be extremely effective or exceptionally unsuccessful. In the end, it relies on how they are utilized. On the off chance that they are utilized as a part of the correct way and are straightforward and compelling, they are great and give the site an exceptionally proficient look. Be that as it may, on the off chance that they are not utilized well and are spammed onto a webpage, they influence the site to look extremely unprofessional and low quality.

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