How to make GIF's 101

Danny Diamond · 02-14-2007, 06:49 PM

This tut will teach you how to make an animated gif from a quicktime movie. This is great for forum avatars or buddy icons. First choose a movie trailer with a scene you would like as your animated gif. I have selected the flying bats from Batman Begins.

Movie Trailer GIF Animation

With your Quicktime movie open, and Photoshop open, go through the following steps.
1. Select a frame to start on.
2. Hit "Print Screen" on your keyboard.
3. Paste the frame into a photoshop doc the same size as your screen resolution.
4. Advance the quicktime forward a frame (right arrow key).
5. Hit "Print Screen" again and so on until you have as many frames as you like.
It will be slow at first, but after a few frames you'll get pretty fast. I only did about 20 in my animation.
Once you've screen captured and pasted all the frames you want, you should have a stack of layers like this. Select the crop tool from the toolbar, and crop the area of the video that you would like to appear in your gif. Usually your gif must be square for avatars, so hold SHIFT while you are cropping.
Further, you will want to resize your cropped image to fit the requirements of whatever forum or chat program you will be using the avatar in. Go to IMAGE > IMAGE SIZE and set the size as desired. You only need to do this once. It will affect all the layers.

Movie Trailer GIF Animation

Once you have done all this, your file should look something like this, with all the layers still intact.

Movie Trailer GIF Animation

Save your file and open it in Imageready.
This is the easiest part. With your file open in Imageready, open the animation palette (WINDOW > ANIMATION) and then click the animation options button (a little arrow on the top right of the animation palette) and then select "MAKE FRAMES FROM LAYERS." You may need to delete the first frame if you have a background frame in there.

Movie Trailer GIF Animation

Open the optimize palette (WINDOW > OPTIMIZE) and make sure your settings are for GIF.
Now all you have to do is save it as a gif. Select FILE > SAVE OPTIMIZED AS and save your gif file. Open it to test the animation.

Duke · 02-14-2007, 07:39 PM

sounds like i really need that photoshop

Beaker · 02-14-2007, 07:56 PM

i hurr dat!

Inogenius · 02-14-2007, 08:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duke

sounds like i really need that photoshop

You can do it with a program like Paint Shp Pro as well.

)85( · 02-15-2007, 08:50 AM

thanks now i van make my own WCW gifs.

Guardian Devil · 02-15-2007, 09:26 AM

Yes....WCW gifs, very exciting. Thanks for the info though Dan, I've always been curious, guess I'll have to get Photoshop now.

Danny Diamond · 02-15-2007, 09:33 AM

If we could get an exclusive Monk Gif Maker I would be in heaven.

)85( · 02-15-2007, 05:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Danny Diamond

If we could get an exclusive Monk Gif Maker I would be in heaven.

i made my first gif today....in my sig the kanearoo...uh, spinarooine i downloaded from monks uncencored.

Klawz · 02-15-2007, 06:18 PM

Klawz brings Gifness to all forums

Danny Diamond · 02-15-2007, 07:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by )85(

i made my first gif today....in my sig the kanearoo...uh, spinarooine i downloaded from monks uncencored.

Very cool. I will post a ton more media if you want to make more.

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How to make GIF's 101

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