Learn how to create an animated GIF of videos. Discover how to create GIFs, animated images you see on Internet.
The animated images you see on Internet are called GIF images or Graphics Interchange Format, they are nothing less than a bitmap that repeats your animation infinitely.
In this tutorial, you will learn different ways to create a .gif image, either by software on your computer or by Internet sites that make the service available. Let’s make two types of GIF’s, from images and from videos.
In addition to the features we’re going to recommend for you, other programs and websites can be used, but the ones presented here are considered to be the simplest and most efficient way to create a GIF image.
Table of Contents
Using programs installed on your computer
Converting a video to .gif in Format Factory
Many will criticize the way we choose to make this kind of GIF, but as we have already mentioned, this is the simplest and most practical way we can find it.
Before you begin the conversion, you should be aware that the .gif format is a low-quality image format that takes up a lot of space for having animations, so we recommend you edit your video before doing the process that we are going to present. Editing is easy because you can use Windows Movie Maker itself to crop the video as long as you like.
When you save the edited video, make sure it is in a low-quality format (.mp4 is a great format for it), which is not too long (max 15 seconds), and will be less than 10MB (reducing video resolution helps a lot).
Once your video is ready, just follow the steps below.
Download and install Format Factory by clicking here.
Open the program and choose the final GIF format option.
In the window that opens, click “Add File”.
Select the video you’ve edited and click “Open.”
Choose the destination of your GIF by clicking “Change” and then click “Ok”.
Make sure your video is in the conversion queue and click “Start.”
Wait for the program to perform the conversion and you’re done! Your GIF will be at the destination you have selected!
The GIF we created in the tutorial can be seen below.
GIF of the Street Fighter video of our creation
Creating a GIF from images on your computer
The program we selected was PhotoScape, which makes creating GIF very simple and still has some effects that can be added to it.
First, you need to download and install PhotoScape on your computer by clicking here.
Open the program and click on the “Animation Gif” option.
Click the “Add” button and then “Add a photo.”
In the window that opens select all the photos you want and click “Ok”.
Now it all depends on your creativity. You can change the delay time between each image you have chosen for the GIF, change the transition effect, set the size you want, as the image will be displayed in the plane. It’s all up to you.
This part does not require explanations because it is extremely simple, even the most novice user can perceive the modifications just by changing the values of the editing options.
Once the edits are finished, see if the result is as expected and click “Save”, choose the GIF target location and save it to your computer.
Using online resources to create a GIF
Several sites on Internet offer totally or partially free the creation of GIF’s, ours was chosen for its simplicity and effectiveness was Bloggif.
Gif video on Bloggif
To create a video GIF, you only have to choose the “Video GIF” option in the Bloggif portal or click directly here. After, follow the steps below.
Choose the video on your computer by clicking “Choose File” and then click “Create my GIF Video” to upload it.
From the scroll bar until you find “Options Video GIF”, we recommend that you change only the “Max” field that will determine the dimensions of the GIF, in our case we use 400 px. After choosing the size click on “Submit Changes” to reload the GIF with your changes.
Now just choose what you want to do with your GIF, do you want to download it? Click on “download my GIF”. Want to share it on Facebook? Click “Share”. Want to use your HTML to post it on your website? Click “HTML”. Want to email someone? Click Email.
You have one hour to choose what you will do with your GIF, after that time it will be deleted from the Bloggif servers.
Gif image on Bloggif
To create the image gif, just select the “GIF Slide Show” option in the Bloggif portal or click here.
In Bloggif you can use up to 10 images in your GIF by clicking on “Choose File” and selecting an image on your computer. If you want additional photos to click on “More Images …” and repeat the last step.
After choosing all the images you want to click on “Download” to upload your images to the site.
Now you will choose the GIF settings, giving your background color (if there is transition), how many times it will repeat itself (0 represents infinite times), its size (we recommend 400×400 px which is as big as possible on the site) and if you want it with a black and white effect.
After selecting the desired options click on “Submit Changes”.
Taking the scroll bar a little further down, you can see the transitions menu, and you can choose the transition that suits you best in each image.
After the selection of transitions is finished, do not forget to click “Submit Changes”.
Now it’s time to decide what to do with your GIF. The options are the same as those that were presented when creating the video GIF, the only difference being the “Download without logo” option where you can download the GIF without the site logo.
Below you can see the GIF of images we created in Bloggif.
Is it worth downloading my GIF or doing it in a program?
It depends on you if you think it’s a bad idea to download software to help you create a GIF, obviously the best option is the online resources. However, as you can see, GIFs made in programs have a much higher quality than Internet, not to mention that it has much more capacity, both in scaling when in video time or quantity of images.
On other GIF creation sites, you will hardly find an option that supports more than 10 images or a video much larger than 10 MB. So our recommendation is that you download the programs and make a higher quality GIF to meet your expectations.
If you need help, have doubts or concerns, do not hesitate to leave a comment in the comment box below and we will try to help you as soon as possible!