When a friend sends a funny animation with animals, I want to show him the same short funny excerpt from the life of animals. But the video is much longer and harder for Internet traffic. What are the names of such documents resembling a cartoon? Silent animated images, excerpts from your favorite moments from videos and series - this is the GIF animation, or, as it is abbreviated to be called on the Internet, the gif. Where does this name come from and how to make a gif with the most interesting moment from the video? It's time to figure it out!
GIF animation: what is it?
The .GIF format, which stands for Graphic Interchange Format, is a compact graphic file whose properties are the ability to create animations and a transparent background. This image format gained popularity during the expansion of the Internet coverage area, when users needed to exchange “light” images, which do not take a lot of time to download and at the same time save traffic. Now Gif-animation is used in the design of sites, in messages, blogs as a means of transmitting the emotional state of the author. Where do they come from and how to create gifs? First things first.
Cans of GIFs
Speaking about the expression of emotions in messages using gifs, you need to know where to get the most spectacular and interesting images. There are sites that can be called banks of gif-animations, from where a huge amount of materials imported by users is taken, for example, to the popular social network VKontakte. With the help of these moving pictures you can express your emotions, mood, share the beauty of nature, funny moments from movies and TV shows. Gifs are silent, but often when creating them, the author indicates the source text or phrase on the image. Where to get these gifs? Convenient navigation and hashtag search help the user find the pictures of interest. Here is a list of GIF animation banking sites:
- Tumblr.
- Pinterest
- Giphy.
- Reddit.
- ReactionGifs.
- Gifs.net.
How to create VKontakte gifs?
In order to create gifs and send them to your friends on VKontakte, no special knowledge and skills will be required. It is extremely simple! Using sites filled with GIF content, you can perform simple manipulations and add interesting animations to your page and messages. So how does VK create a gif? The procedure is as follows:
- Select or create an animation. About how to create gifs, the article will tell a little later. After selecting, you need to save the image in the computer's memory.
- Upload image. On the left side of the main menu is the "Documents" button. After going to the context menu, you must click the "Add Document" button and select a file.
- GIF loaded! Now it can be attached to posts, comments and posts on the wall.
Obviously, there is nothing complicated in this sequence of actions. You can simplify the path and upload GIFs directly to messages using the "Attach" button. Next, you also need to select a file on the computer, and the gif will load on its own in the message field.
GIF from a regular photo
How to create a gif from a photo? It is enough to use online services to create animated images. To create a GIF, you need to upload several images to the site in acceptable formats, set parameters such as height-width of the frame, image positioning, speed of changing images by each other, adjust the correct order of frames replacing each other, and build proportions. Such programs are much more convenient in the work of an ordinary person, since there is no need for a long installation and study of a new program. It takes just a minute of time and a couple of clicks - and now the goal is achieved! You can upload an image to a social network. One of these online services is Gifmaker.me.
How to create your own GIF animation
Despite the vast collection of animated pictures on the global network, sometimes you want to create something unique, for example, turn part of your own video into animation. There are a number of programs that help an ordinary person quickly and without unnecessary nervous expenses to understand how to create gifs from various videos or collage photos. For example, a program such as Active GIF creator will help to make GIF animation from photos and pictures (installation of the utility on the local computer is required). The following applications exist for creating GIFs from various videos:
- Loogics helps you create a little animation from videos posted on Youtube.
- The Makeagif utility also knows how to create short animations from videos on Youtube, in addition, it knows how to create GIFs using a webcam or from a finished video.
- GIFPal, among other things, can decorate the finished animation with various effects.
Creating GIFs Using Photoshop
Often people are interested in how to create a gif in Photoshop. It is possible. It is enough to import the video file into the program (Import-> Video Frames to layers). Then you need to select a convertible excerpt (you can select the whole file). The video will be divided into many separate images, which will be arranged in layers. At the bottom of each image, the frame rate will be indicated. The higher the number, the slower and calmer the animation will be. In order to loop the file, you just need to leave a mark on the Forever item. To cut off excess areas, it is necessary to select the main zone and mark the item Crop. At the end of editing, you must save the file, not forgetting to mark the .gif format. In the future, the finished file can be imported into social networks, inserted into blogs.