Motion GIFs

kingdedede117 · Post by **kingdedede117** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 4:54 pm

Does anyone know of a good FREE program to make moving GIFs with? (Notice the emphasis on "free")

Post by **bicostp** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 5:06 pm

www.gimp.org or www.gimp.org/windows

It's like Photoshop but free.

You have to install the GTK2+ libraries, but it's worth it to have a free image editing tool that doesn't suck *coughcoughmspaintcough*

Also grab a copy of the GIMP Animation Package, it makes things easier. It's optional, but I recommend you install GIMPshop, it makes The GiMP's GUI work a lot like Photoshop.

Don't bother with a lot of the "free gif animator 4u!" kind of programs, because most will turn out to be demos or they are really lousy. If you don't mind a bit of work, a folder full of image files, and the dated 216 web-safe color pallete, track down a copy of Microsoft GIF Animator. It does its job, and you can even make each individual frame in MS Paint (but why?! Paint stinks!)

To give you an idea of what I'm talking about, here's 2 versions of the same image of a cute kitten (I like cats, OK?

):

Selective pallete (selects colors from the original image)
<img src="http://img480.imageshack.us/img480/8077 ... ten5ym.gif">

Web Pallete (selects approximate colors from the 216 avalible web colors)
<img src="http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/8352/tehsuck6qt.gif">