How to quickly create GIF animation in Photoshop. GIF Animator: free program for creating GIF animation online

Greetings!

The world is going crazy for GIFs. They are everywhere. And not only on social networks and forums, they began to illustrate scientific articles, they are used by the media, and even companies post gif animations on Landing Pages. To attract attention, of course. Our brain is designed in such a way that it is more likely to be interested in what moves than in a static picture. If you also need a GIF, then come here – we’ll learn how to make them.

The search engine returns a bunch of sites where you can create GIF animation online, but not all of them work correctly. Here are verified resources.

How to create a GIF from a video

1. A suitable and free service to create gifs online. If you want more opportunities, register. The only thing is that the video needs to be downloaded first. Select the required segment of the video and click save - the gif is ready. Add captions, play with fonts and styles. Here is a gif animation created on this resource.

2. You don’t even need to download videos here. GIFs are created from videos taken from YouTube. Just copy the link to the video, paste it into the search bar and it will automatically download. When the video loads, select the episode you want.

3. Assistant for all times. With its help, you can remove logos of third-party resources from the video, add inscriptions, and special effects. The video must already be downloaded and, importantly, not exceed five seconds. Open the video ( File – Import – Frames to layers) and let's go. Create!

How to create a GIF from photos, pictures

. Easy to use service. Upload pictures, add captions and you're done! You can select the “delay” range, the default is 20 milliseconds, so that it doesn’t flicker very quickly, make it 50.

How to create a GIF on iPhone

Cool free app. Here are the instructions.

1. Open the application and select a photo or image to create a GIF animation.

2. Now click on “Stickers” and look for something worthwhile. There are a lot of banal stickers, but there are also some cute ones.

3. If nothing works, insert an animation of snow or raindrops. To do this, select the “Masks” tab. You'll find effects there.

4. When you add animation, click “Apply” and adjust the speed of movement.

How to create a GIF on Android

Convenient and free software. Instead of stickers, there are stickers here. Choose a background (for example, a city) and characters (people, animals, birds, planes, cars). Create funny pictures. Try it!

So, to summarize, there are many services for creating GIFs, mostly they work online. Choose the one you like best. If you don’t have time to create GIF animation, keep a couple of sites where you can download ready-made GIFs: , . Good luck!

Sincerely, Your Essence.

GIF format is a raster technology that consists of alternating images or videos. There is also a single image that maintains high resolution and the most compressed size. The format was created in 1987 and has had some modifications. True, we won’t talk about this, but about how to make a GIF.

We will not dive into the history of creation, since the purpose of the article is to show users about creating GIF animation using various methods.

I hope you are aware that you can make a GIF online, as well as using software. I will try to cover as many means as possible to do this. Let's go!

First, let's look at online services. I present to your attention ToolsOn - a popular resource for creating GIF animation. There are other functions, for example, creating collages, ICO format icons, logo creation and ringtone converter.

To create a GIF online, you need to go to the section. We are asked to upload a couple of images. You can either select files from your computer using the corresponding “Select Files” button or simply drag and drop them.

Next step. We give the name, the interval during which the images will change, in other fields we enter the height and width of the gif.

In other parameters, you can choose whether the animations repeat, as well as whether to apply effects or not.

After completing the GIF settings, you need to click the button "Create" and wait a little. Download the resulting animation to your computer and use it for your own purposes.

Here you can create a GIF when you click on a button "Create Animation". Select images from your computer or directly from your camera.

A choice of animation change speed in milliseconds will appear on the right.

It is also possible to download applications for Android, iOS and Windows.

If you explore the site further, on the main page you can see GIFs of other people. Of course, when viewing it, it turns out that there are no posting rules at all, you can post whatever you want.

Google is trustworthy and has many products that have many positive reviews and for good reason. The Google Photos service not only allows you to store images in the cloud, which will eventually be accessible from any device, but also create GIF animation.

To make a GIF online in this service, you need to select the required number of images. Then click on the plus sign at the top right, selecting the item there "Animation". It will be created automatically and very quickly.

Select the gif and download it. Moreover, the archive will be loaded, which contains the animation itself and all the images used.

Finally we come to the issue of GIF animation created from video. Everything here is also very simple, we will look at several useful services, let's go!

GIF Maker Service

English-language, but very cool and functional service for creating GIFs from videos. On the main page there is a large field with a button "Browse", which we click on and select the video.

When it loads, functional parameters will appear. For example, “Start Time” means at what point to start the animation.

The slider below means the end of the animation, choose as you wish.

You can also add text to the GIF, there is a field for this "Caption". After you enter text, formatting options appear. You can change the color and font size.

After configuring the settings, click "Create GIF" and wait for the process to complete. If the video was large in size, you will have to wait a long time.

What shortcomings can be observed in this service?

• Creating only one caption per GIF.
• You cannot select the animation size.

Create GIFs from Videos Using Imgflip

Another service that needs to be worked with as follows:

Gifcam

Does the same thing as the previous program. Plus software only in a newer interface. In short, the choice is yours. You can download it.

For now these are all the options how to make a gif. There are actually a lot of methods, for now I will focus on the ones indicated. You can also make GIFs in Photoshop, I use it quite often and have already made GIF animation. Most likely I will write a separate article. I will naturally add to the material, and if you have your own suggestions, write about them in the comments.

Photoshop is a very advanced software and has some tools that even a novice user can master to create amazing effects. For example, you don't need any special skills to create an animated GIF.

In this Photoshop tutorial I'll show you how to create an animation of a wolf with red glowing eyes.

You can use any photo you like, but make sure it is of good quality and shows the eyes clearly. You can use the photo that I will work with.

Materials:

• (Envato Market)
• (Envato Elements)

How to prepare an image for animation

GIF is not a very well optimized format and files in this format can be very heavy. This is why we need to crop our image to leave only the important elements, in our case the eyes. Open the image in Photoshop, using the Crop Tool (C) (Frame), cut out the part of the image that you want to animate. Then press Enter.

We want to animate the eyes, so we need to separate them from the rest of the image. There are many ways to select an element in Photoshop, but I'll show you the fastest way.

Go to Select > Color Range. Select the second eyedropper with the “+” sign and click on the eye shades in the image until you see them turn white in the preview.

We chose all yellow tones, but some of them stood out in the gray fur of the animal. To eliminate them, play with the Fuzziness slider until the areas around the eyes turn black. It is very important to keep all areas except the eyes completely black.

Once you click OK, the selection will be created. It didn't turn out quite perfect. Go to Select > Refine Edge and use these settings to make the selection more precise. Check the box next to the Smart Radius option and play with the Smooth and Feather options until you achieve the desired result. After that click OK.

Copy the selected area to a new layer with Ctrl + J.

And the last thing we need to do at this stage is to reduce the size of the image. To do this, go to Image > Image Size and reduce the size of your image (to a reasonable size).

How frame-by-frame animation works in Photoshop

Let's start creating the animation. Go to Window > Timeline to display the Timeline panel at the bottom of the work area. Then click on the Create Frame Animation button.

The Timeline panel is not that difficult to use. Click the arrow next to Once to display options for repeating the animation. You can play the animation once, 3 times, continuously, or in the latter option you can set how many repetitions you need. Set it to Forever to have the animation play continuously.

Another important parameter is the duration of playback of one frame. The shorter the time, the faster the animation will play with smoother movements, but it will require more frames.

We want a smooth transition and will have a lot of frames, so select the Other option and enter a value of 0.06.

To create a new frame, click the Duplicates selected frames icon at the bottom of the Timeline panel.

Each frame remembers the state of the layers separately. Therefore, if you hide a layer in one frame, it will still be visible in another. Warning: Make sure you start from the first frame.

Hide the layer in one frame and play the animation by pressing the spacebar. The important thing is that this tool does: it hides and shows layers according to their state saved in frames.

Creating Photoshop Tweaks

But hiding and showing layers isn't all it can do! Three properties can be stored in each frame:

• Position
• Opacity
• Effects

This means that you can save these properties on one layer in one frame, and in another frame no changes will occur on the same layer (again, make sure you start from the first frame to avoid any "surprises") . The cool thing about this is that Photoshop is able to create an automatic transition between these states on the same layer. Let me show you this trick in the most effective state available - effects.

Make all layers visible on both frames again, and then select the second frame and click on the eyes layer. Double-click with the left mouse button to bring up the “Overlay Options” window; we are interested in the Color Overlay style.

Click on the gray rectangle and change the color to bright red.

Change the mode to Screen so that the eyes are not just painted bright red, but look realistic.

After that, apply the Outer Glow style.

Set this to the same bright shade of red.

Make the eyes glow stronger by playing with the Spread and Size parameters.

We have a simple animation, play it by pressing the spacebar.

Do you agree that the effect was not very convincing? It would be much better and more natural if the eyes lit up more slowly. This is where the real power of this tool lies. Hold Ctrl and select two frames. Click the menu icon in the upper right corner of the Timeline panel and select Tween.

The more frames you add, the smoother the transition will be and the longer the animation will be. I set the value to 10.

Another drawback of the created animation is that the glow of the eyes disappears too abruptly. Let's fix this by creating another transition. Select the first and last frames, go to the menu again, select Tween (Intermediate frames) and also set the value to 10.

Finally, find a frame with a bright glow in the eyes and change its duration to a longer number. Thus, at this stage, the eyes will burn longer.

It turned out well!

Bonus trick: If you want your animation to be better than what the GIF format has to offer, you can record the animation playing using some software (or export as a video) and save it as a video.

Conclusion

Now you know how to create an animated GIF file in Photoshop.

On Envato Tuts+ we limit image file sizes to no more than 200kb. However, you can see the finished GIF in all its glory in the video format below.

You can assemble GIFs from individual frames using special applications or universal graphic editors. Let's look at the available options.

Method 1: Easy GIF Animator

A simple and at the same time advanced in functionality program that allows you to make a GIF from both videos and photos.

1. Open the program. In the options block "Masters of Creation" click on the item "Create a new animation".



2. A window will open "Masters of Animation Creation". Click on the button there "Add Images".
   
   
   Will start "Conductor"- use it to open a catalog of photos from which you want to make a GIF. Having reached the desired folder, select the files (it’s most convenient to do this with the combination CTRL+LMB) and press "Open".
   
   
   Returning back to "To the Master...", you can change the order of the images using the arrow buttons. To continue, press "Next".



3. Adjust the loops and delay of the finished animation, then use the button again "Next".



4. There is no need to change anything in the image position settings window if you are using photos of the same size. If among the images there are frames of different resolutions, use the adjustment options, then click "Next".



5. Click "Finish".



6. If necessary, use other features of the program - for example, previewing the finished GIF.



7. To save the result, click on the menu item "File".
   
   
   Next, select "Save".



8. Will open again "Conductor"— go to the directory in which you want to save the resulting GIF, enter the file name and use the button "Save".



9. Done – a GIF animation will appear in the selected folder.

Easy GIF Animator is very convenient to use, but it is a paid program with a short trial period. However, it is perfect for single use.

Method 2: GIMP

The free graphic editor GIMP is one of the most convenient solutions for our today's task.

As you can see, it’s very, very simple, even a novice user can handle it. The only drawback of GIMP is that it works slowly with multi-layer images and is slow on weak computers.

Method 3: Adobe Photoshop

The most technically sophisticated one also includes tools for turning a series of photos into GIF animation.

Conclusion

As a conclusion, we note that the methods described above can only create very simple animations; for more complex GIFs, a specialized tool is better suited.

Earlier on the site we looked at third-party ones, but most of them can easily replace regular Photoshop. Animated GIF files can be created quite easily and quickly with its help. They usually consist of several images (frames), which, when changed step by step, form the final result. Today we will try to consider this issue from A to Z in as much detail as possible:

The screenshots below are from Photoshop CC, but working with GIF animation in CS6 and other versions of the program is similar, plus or minus. Perhaps the visual tools will be slightly different, but in general, the principle and algorithm of actions are similar. As an example, consider the trivial task of how to create a GIF animation in Photoshop from photographs replacing each other. Recently, using this guide, I made a gif about my adventures for the final post for 2016 on my personal blog.

The process took literally 5-10 minutes. The important thing here is to just follow all the steps carefully. At the end of the post you will find an English video tutorial on this topic.

Adding GIF Animation Images in Photoshop

The first thing you need to do is load all the pictures/photos that will participate in the animation into the graphics editor. Add them to one project in different layers - this will be the frames for the resulting GIF file. Check the size of the pictures and their display so that everything is as you need. Layers can be hidden (using the eye icon to the left of the layer) in order to view all objects.

In the center of this panel there is a drop-down list where you need to select the “Create Frame Animation” option and click on the button. As a result of this action, the Timeline will change a little, and you should see the image from the topmost layer as the first frame.

In the next step, select all the layers in the project (click on them while holding the Ctrl key). After that, open the context menu in the upper right corner of the Timeline window and select “Make Frames From Layers”.

From all visible and selected layers, Adobe Photoshop will create animated GIF frames. As a result, you will see them in the Timeline panel.

GIF animation settings in Photoshop

Here you will need to specify 2 things: the duration of display of different frames + the number of repetitions of the gif. Let's start with the first one. Under each picture object in the Timeline you will find the display time and a down arrow. Click on them and select the card duration in the pop-up menu.

You can specify different times for elements or set the parameter for several of them simultaneously (joint selection as in layers - using Ctrl).

To “loop” a GIF in Photoshop when creating an animation, select the Forever value in the appropriate setting as shown in the screenshot below.

There you can also specify any number of repetitions you need. Nearby is the Play button, which allows you to play an animated GIF and see what the final result will look like.

Saving GIF animation in Photoshop

In the final part of our guide, we’ll look at how to properly save GIF animation in Photoshop. For this purpose, the familiar Save for Web tool is used, but in the latest versions of Adobe Photoshop CC it is located in a new menu location (File - Export). Luckily Alt + Shift + Ctrl + S still works.

In the settings window that opens, you need to select the GIF format, and also make sure that the Looping Options setting is set to Forever. In the lower right corner of the window, there is an option to run the animated GIF you created in Photoshop for a preview.

If everything works as expected, click Save and save the file to your local computer. To check the functionality of a GIF, you need to open it in a browser, because... The built-in Windows viewer does not play animation.

By the way, you can also easily export your project to video format. The procedure is the same as when saving GIF animation, but in the Photoshop menu, select File - Export - Render Video.

In the window that opens there will be different video settings, but you don’t need to change anything additional, just click on the Render button. As a result, you will receive an mp4 file with a slideshow of photos/images.

Finally, we suggest watching an English-language video tutorial about creating animated GIFs in Photoshop. The algorithm for working there is the same as in the article, but perhaps it will be easier for you to perceive the information from the video.

If you still have any questions about how to make GIF animation in Photoshop or have any additions, write in the comments.