attention animated GIF creators

[irelandwhispers]

Does anyone know how to get decent-quality GIF images without using PhotoShop? When I save them to GIF format from JPEG format, I lose way too much color info. I have seen a lot of sigs with some great-quality animations. Most of those GIFs were probably created in PhotoShop, but I'm hoping there's someone who knows how to do this without that program.



*sits back and waits*

 

[irelandwhispers]

I am already beginning to think this is hopeless...

 

[Kristie]

what are you using now?
are there settings for gifs? Like, can you set it for more colors or something?

 

[erised]

Does anyone know how to get decent-quality GIF images without using PhotoShop? When I save them to GIF format from JPEG format, I lose way too much color info. I have seen a lot of sigs with some great-quality animations. Most of those GIFs were probably created in PhotoShop, but I'm hoping there's someone who knows how to do this without that program.



*sits back and waits*

I start with TIFF images, and drop those into Jasc's Animation Shop. From there I can edit them quite a bit (crop them, resize them, etc.) When I go to save them, you get like, 3 or 4 choices for quality, and I just play around to see which setting will give the best quality at the lowest possible size.

Does that make sense?

 

[irelandwhispers]

I'm not sure. I have MS Paint, Micrografx Windows Draw, and PhotoImpression. PhotoImpression can't edit GIFs, but I could use it to edit the JPEG colors somehow before I save it as a GIF if that's what I need to do. I just need a little bit of guidance with this. Maybe a clearly-written web site might help, but I don't know much about this kind of stuff. When I work with software, I just go in and tweak stuff and I don't always pay attention to the technical terms for what I'm doing.

 

[irelandwhispers]

Re: Re: attention animated GIF creators

I start with TIFF images, and drop those into Jasc's Animation Shop. From there I can edit them quite a bit (crop them, resize them, etc.) When I go to save them, you get like, 3 or 4 choices for quality, and I just play around to see which setting will give the best quality at the lowest possible size.

Does that make sense?

Jasc's Animation Shop...?

*runs to Google.com*

 

[irelandwhispers]

It's Paint Shop, not PhotoShop! My brain is dysfunctional. ARGH! I don't have it, and I can't get it.

*edit: See what I mean? I don't even know the names of the dumb ol' programs even though I know exactly what I'm talking about.

Where in the world did I come up with PhotoShop? What the heck is that?

*edit again: Photoshop is the Adobe program. Whew. I'm not completely crazy...yet.

 

[erised]

Flaming June was using a free GIF generator that she downloaded from the web...maybe she could tell you if it was any good or not. I forget what it was called... I think she posted the name in the most recent Freestylin' Friday thread...

Me, personally, I always try to work with TIFFs until I have to use JPGs. The JPG format is a lossy format, which means everytime you save a JPG image, you lose a bit of its quality. So, in a nutshell, if you keep saving certain JPGs over and over and over while you're fine-tuning your gif, you're losing image quality before you even save and compress it into a GIF.

Btw, Paint Shop Pro is the next best thing to having Photoshop, which is probably why you got the two confused

 

[erised]

What program do you use to actually make your GIFs?

 

[irelandwhispers]

Flaming June was using a free GIF generator that she downloaded from the web...maybe she could tell you if it was any good or not. I forget what it was called... I think she posted the name in the most recent Freestylin' Friday thread...

Me, personally, I always try to work with TIFFs until I have to use JPGs. The JPG format is a lossy format, which means everytime you save a JPG image, you lose a bit of its quality. So, in a nutshell, if you keep saving certain JPGs over and over and over while you're fine-tuning your gif, you're losing image quality before you even save and compress it into a GIF.

Btw, Paint Shop Pro is the next best thing to having Photoshop, which is probably why you got the two confused

You mean I have to wade through the Edge weekend thread to find it?

Thanks for the info about TIFFs...I'll see if my programs can convert the JPEGs to TIFFs.

I never resave JPEGs...if I mess something up, I just delete it and go back and get the original, and then save it as something else anyway. If I get it converted from a JPEG to a TIFF, and then convert it to GIF...will the image quality be any better than if I were to save it from a JPEG to a GIF?

I feel dizzy.

 

[irelandwhispers]

What program do you use to actually make your GIFs?

Just the basic ol' Microsoft GIF Animator. I use a web-based GIF editor, too. I can't think of the name. I don't need anything fancy once I get my pics saved to GIF format.

I'd just like to be able to do something other than cartoony-looking GIFs. I'm jealous of all those awesome high-quality animations from stills.

 

[erised]

You mean I have to wade through the Edge weekend thread to find it?

Hey, blame the Edge girls for that, not me!

J/K Edge Girls!

If I get it converted from a JPEG to a TIFF, and then convert it to GIF...will the image quality be any better than if I were to save it from a JPEG to a GIF?

Only if you plan on editing it.

This might be more info than you need, but on one gif i made, I used a photo editing program to *erase* part of Bono's head in a few frames cuz it started to come into the shot and was ruining the *flow* of the gif... in a case like that, if you're altering the frames/images and saving them a few times before actually making the gif, you might want to work with TIFFs over JPGs, but if you're dropping the original image file in as part of a gif and saving it only once...that is, saving it only when you save it as a gif.. then that original JPG should work just fine.

Does that make sense?

 

[arw]

Hey, blame the Edge girls for that, not me!

J/K Edge Girls!

I'm confused. I've been reading this thread to help me decide if I really want to get involved in all of this stuff. I want to make my own gifs but all of your talk is going way over my head

I hope it's not as hard to do this stuff as I think it is. I'm not very well versed in computer talk.

 

[erised]

Just the basic ol' Microsoft GIF Animator. I use a web-based GIF editor, too. I can't think of the name. I don't need anything fancy once I get my pics saved to GIF format.

I'd just like to be able to do something other than cartoony-looking GIFs. I'm jealous of all those awesome high-quality animations from stills.

I've never used that... I'll have to see if I have it on my puter.

My advice would be to start with the best possible image... the clearest you can find.

I think the area where you're running into trouble is the compression of your gifs. If I compress my gifs too much, they'll start to look "cartoony" too... so that's when I usually uncompress and go back and make the gif physically smaller in size so that I won't have to compress it as much, ya know? I prefer making physically smaller, high quality looking gifs than physically larger, cartoony looking gifs.

Let me see if I can find some info on Microsoft gif animator, because I think the compression issue is where you're running into your concern.

 

[irelandwhispers]

Only if you plan on editing it.

This might be more info than you need, but on one gif i made, I used a photo editing program to *erase* part of Bono's head in a few frames cuz it started to come into the shot and was ruining the *flow* of the gif... in a case like that, if you're altering the frames/images and saving them a few times before actually making the gif, you might want to work with TIFFs over JPGs, but if you're dropping the original image file in as part of a gif and saving it only once...that is, saving it only when you save it as a gif.. then that original JPG should work just fine.

Does that make sense?

Yeah, I think so, but the first time I save it as a GIF (from the original JPEG), I'm losing quite a bit of color info. I didn't expect to lose so much info.

Now that I think about it, I shrunk the JPEG I was working with before saving it. Maybe that's my problem. I'll have to play with it some other time since I've got some studying to do for my Thursday and Friday classes. I'm looking forward to the weekend!

I'm pretty sure Bono wasn't playing around with all this junk on the computer...he doesn't have the look of consternation on his face that I do.

 

[erised]

I'm confused. I've been reading this thread to help me decide if I really want to get involved in all of this stuff. I want to make my own gifs but all of your talk is going way over my head

I hope it's not as hard to do this stuff as I think it is. I'm not very well versed in computer talk.

It's really not hard at all. I've just always used Animation Shop, which has a handy-dandy "animation wizard" which makes gif-making super easy. I'm not familiar with some of the other programs and how they work in making gifs.

And, I'm sorry... I can talk "tech talk" sometimes cuz I've taken so many classes on some of this stuff... so just tell me to talk English when I start doing that!

 

[erised]

Yeah, I think so, but the first time I save it as a GIF (from the original JPEG), I'm losing quite a bit of color info. I didn't expect to lose so much info.

Now that I think about it, I shrunk the JPEG I was working with before saving it. Maybe that's my problem.

it sounds like you need to adjust your gif compression settings, if you can do that. it sounds like the program is automatically compressing it quite a bit... if you can find a preferences area where you can select less compression, it might solve your problem.

 

[irelandwhispers]

I've never used that... I'll have to see if I have it on my puter.

My advice would be to start with the best possible image... the clearest you can find.

I think the area where you're running into trouble is the compression of your gifs. If I compress my gifs too much, they'll start to look "cartoony" too... so that's when I usually uncompress and go back and make the gif physically smaller in size so that I won't have to compress it as much, ya know? I prefer making physically smaller, high quality looking gifs than physically larger, cartoony looking gifs.

Let me see if I can find some info on Microsoft gif animator, because I think the compression issue is where you're running into your concern.

No, I'm having problems with the original conversion into GIF. The actual animation of the GIFs is a breeze. No problems with Microsoft GIF Animator. (Except that it won't let me choose a filename for my GIF, it just saves it over the first frame of my GIF, so I have to keep some extra copies on my hard drive.)

arw9797, it's not too hard to do this stuff if you have powerful enough software. The better software you have, the easier it is. The only good software I have is what I already own and whatever free stuff I can get off the web. The most important thing is wanting to learn how to do this stuff. If you just want the finished product, you're better off asking other people to make them for you.

 

[irelandwhispers]

It gives me options to choose desired resolution, number of colors in the image (16 million, 256, or 16), and method for representing the colors (smoothed or normal). I have no clue which settings to use. I've tried a few different combos, but haven't quite figured out which direction to go.

 

[irelandwhispers]

Dude! I think the resaving thing was my problem. I must have been shrinking my JPEGs and then saving them as smaller JPEGs before conversion. Thanks a lot.

If I resave GIFs, will I have the same problem? Will I always have to work with them in TIFF format and then leave the GIFs alone after the conversin?

 

[erised]

I got this from Microsoft's web site:

"Quickly make your animations Web-ready. GIF Animator makes it easy for you to prepare your animations for the Web by automatically assigning an 8-bit color palette to each of your images. This saves you the time and work of loading your own palette. You can also load your own custom palettes for each image."

This might be the problem?

 

[irelandwhispers]

I love learning new computer junk! I'm the biggest geek in the world! I couldn't do it without you guys!

*twiddles thumbs while waiting for the Flood Control monster to stop hovering*

 

[erised]

It gives me options to choose desired resolution, number of colors in the image (16 million, 256, or 16), and method for representing the colors (smoothed or normal). I have no clue which settings to use. I've tried a few different combos, but haven't quite figured out which direction to go.

A higher resolution and more colors will produce a nicer image/gif, however, the file size will likely be larger... so you'll have to play around and find the right balance that produces a decent quality gif with a decent file size.

 

[arw]

arw9797, it's not too hard to do this stuff if you have powerful enough software. The better software you have, the easier it is. The only good software I have is what I already own and whatever free stuff I can get off the web. The most important thing is wanting to learn how to do this stuff. If you just want the finished product, you're better off asking other people to make them for you.

no I don't just want the finished product. I actually spent quite a bit of time at Best Buy the other day looking at all of the different products and I wasn't sure which to buy to do what I want....which is make stills from some dvd's and also make gifs. I didn't know if I could do that with one program or if the dvd stills would be part of something else.

I left empty handed because I didn't want to spend all that money and then not know wtf to do with what I bought.

 

[irelandwhispers]

A higher resolution and more colors will produce a nicer image/gif, however, the file size will likely be larger... so you'll have to play around and find the right balance that produces a decent quality gif with a decent file size.

Alrighty, thanks so much!

Just awaiting to an answer to my TIFF question before I go to bed.

 

[erised]

If I resave GIFs, will I have the same problem? Will I always have to work with them in TIFF format and then leave the GIFs alone after the conversin?

If the program automatically compresses when it saves gifs, yes.

if I make a gif (compress it, the whole nine yards) and then decide I want to edit it some more, I always reverse my steps and uncompress before editing it, otherwise it will double or recompress when I save it the second time and the result is almost always a cartoony-looking gif, not matter what setting I try to save it at. That's how my program works... you'd have to try it with yours and see how yours works.

 

[irelandwhispers]

no I don't just want the finished product. I actually spent quite a bit of time at Best Buy the other day looking at all of the different products and I wasn't sure which to buy to do what I want....which is make stills from some dvd's and also make gifs. I didn't know if I could do that with one program or if the dvd stills would be part of something else.

I left empty handed because I didn't want to spend all that money and then not know wtf to do with what I bought.

I'm guessing you can get better deals for software online. You can sometimes find stuff on sale. I never buy anything online, but I've looked at a lot of different products, and on different sites they sometimes have different prices. Just use Google to research what you want to learn how to do. There are a lot of customer reviews and message boards for the product users that will help you figure out what's worth buying. Make sure you're an informed consumer, because I have seen some ripoffs online...people pay mega-bucks for really junky products that don't have all the features they need, or they pay extra for features that they don't need at all. Marketers are evil.

 

[erised]

no I don't just want the finished product. I actually spent quite a bit of time at Best Buy the other day looking at all of the different products and I wasn't sure which to buy to do what I want....which is make stills from some dvd's and also make gifs. I didn't know if I could do that with one program or if the dvd stills would be part of something else.

I left empty handed because I didn't want to spend all that money and then not know wtf to do with what I bought.

Again, i can only speak for what I use personally. I found this really nice program online for capturing DVD stills... it's not freeware, you have to purchase it, but I've been really happy with its performance.

I use a separate program to drop those stills into the wizard and make gifs.

arw, why do you PM with your specifc concerns and I can make some recommendations if you like.

 

[arw]

I'm guessing you can get better deals for software online. You can sometimes find stuff on sale. I never buy anything online, but I've looked at a lot of different products, and on different sites they sometimes have different prices. Just use Google to research what you want to learn how to do. There are a lot of customer reviews and message boards for the product users that will help you figure out what's worth buying. Make sure you're an informed consumer, because I have seen some ripoffs online...people pay mega-bucks for really junky products that don't have all the features they need, or they pay extra for features that they don't need at all. Marketers are evil.

I never buy anything online....except U2 stuff on ebay

There's a few programs at Best Buy that have some rebates so the prices are pretty much the same as they are online...I looked to compare.

 

[irelandwhispers]

If the program automatically compresses when it saves gifs, yes.

if I make a gif (compress it, the whole nine yards) and then decide I want to edit it some more, I always reverse my steps and uncompress before editing it, otherwise it will double or recompress when I save it the second time and the result is almost always a cartoony-looking gif, not matter what setting I try to save it at. That's how my program works... you'd have to try it with yours and see how yours works.

The whole idea of "compression" has me stumped...mine must be automatic. Is compression for the GIF frames or the GIF animation? (Sounds like for animation to me. I don't edit the GIF animations unless I'm adding weird special effects in which case the cartooniness doesn't matter. Microsoft GIF Animator doesn't let you work with the frames; it just puts the frames you've already made together.) Micrografx is supposed to have a feature to put animations together, but my particular version won't let me save the animations unless I upgrade.

I haven't looked at the file size of my final animations, but I know I can manipulate them to some extent to keep the file size down. What are decent file sizes for animations? How about a single frame?