creating gifs

letsgobilliejoe

hi, i'm a total novice when it come to technology, so could somebody tell me how to create my own gif? do i need specific software? if so, can i get it for free somewhere?

Chippy_Minton

Windows XP includes Paint. Click Start - All Programs - Accessories - Paint. Create your image then Save as type GIF

espresso

A gif is simply another image file format. If you have not got Irfanview I would suggest that you download if for free as it an excellent piece of software for all types of image files.

If you are referring to an animated gif as in an Avatar, there are threads on here about creating those or just search on Google for more info.

letsgobilliejoe

espresso wrote:

A gif is simply another image file format. If you have not got Irfanview I would suggest that you download if for free as it an excellent piece of software for all types of image files.

If you are referring to an animated gif as in an Avatar, there are threads on here about creating those or just search on Google for more info.

i've tried searching. i want to create an animated gif (i thought this was what a gif was anyway!), but i don't know how.

espresso

A gif is a graphical image file. An animated gif is a series of gif's put together to make a moving image.

See http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=158127&highlight=avatar

sra

letsgobilliejoe wrote:

i've tried searching. i want to create an animated gif (i thought this was what a gif was anyway!), but i don't know how.

I've found free software to animate a Gif difficult to find.

You can often do it as part of a paint program like Photoplus but it can be quite complicated managing frames

letsgobilliejoe

so, are there other types of animated images other than gif?

sra

There's flash

I've seen flash used more and more where gifs would be used in the past, but I think gifs are usually much preferred (especially for those of us who've blocked flash in our browser unless we want to click the particular image)

Chaos

Hi,

I use a program called DrawPlus, by Serif Software with our year 7's to create animations. We use version 7, but version 4 is available for free from www.freeserifsoftware.com I don't know weather you can create animations on this version or not, buts its worth a try.

They have loads of other older versions of their software available too.

The software is very easy to use and the kids (sorry, pupils) love it, they even come in at lunch times to make animations.

Hope the links useful to someone.

Terry

Kentish

I've just done a quick search on the downloads section of https://www.zdnet.com and have found this small, simple, and free program which will create animated gifs from either jpeg or bmp files:

Animator-9: you just download the zipped file and then extract it to where you want it - it's so small that there is no install required.

When you open it, the command you want to select is "Stitch" - that allows you to select your sequences of bmp or jpg files to animate. There are some instructions in the readme file which comes with it but I found it relatively easy to get it working in minutes.

intel

I use gif animator 5 with the Gif x 2 plug in and also the Flash Plugin.