Did you know that a recent email marketing campaign using GIFs increased revenue 109% for Dell?
Also relevant is that video accounts for 60% of global internet traffic.
If you’re an individual or a multinational corporation how do those stats affect you?
They affect you because if you master how to make a GIF from a video you can have a real global reach and impact.
We’ll talk about the tools you can use, and discuss the benefits and drawbacks of each.
Are you ready? Keep scrolling to find out how.
What Is a GIF and Why Use One?
Dell was able to more than double its revenue using GIFs in its first email campaign using them, but what is a GIF anyway?
In 1987, more than 30 years ago, the Graphic Interchange Format was born.
GIFs facilitate small image sizes through lossless compression during a time when memory (both for RAM and for storage) was at a huge premium.
The first use of a motion GIF “in the wild” was for a weather map that repeated, to show the change of weather patterns over time.
This great innovation went as viral as it could in a time four years before the world wide web debuted.
Fast forward to 2019’s “And I Oop,” and the GIF is stronger than ever.
We use them in our chats, websites, apps, and emails.
How can you make one?
How to Make a GIF From Scratch
If you want to make a GIF, there are two ways to go about it.
The first method is to create individual frames from image files like BMP, JPG, or PNG.
Simple animations under tight controls use this method.
Most professional animation apps do the same thing, except in the back-end, behind the scenes.
Professional animators and businesses like Dell create their GIFs, often from 3D models or illustrations in this way.
The other popular way, used by many is to make a GIF from a video.
There are countless movies, TV shows, and YouTube videos out there that people take clips from.
Or you could film your own video and start from there.
Have Video, Will GIF
We’ll focus on the more accessible option of already having a video go through the process of creating a GIF.
To start, there are 3 kinds of GIFs.
- Static
- Motion
- Looping
A static GIF is just an image that doesn’t move.
While not what we are necessarily looking for in this case, it does come in handy from time to time for various uses.
A motion GIF will, you guessed it, move.
The GIF will go through each frame with a specified delay between frames until the end—and stop.
Some will move quickly, others more slowly.
The delay is fairly important if you have people moving because if it is too slow or fast it will look unnatural.
Of course, this might be your point. This kind of GIF is used more than you think.
Lastly, we have looping GIFs. A looping GIF is what you’re likely most familiar with, and will loop endlessly.
This kind of GIF is most useful on websites and emails, as it is loaded only once by the app, but will continue to play.
Cinemagraphs are seamlessly looping GIFs.
You’ve seen them but we doubt you realized just how difficult it can be to pull off.
A flickering flame or a geometric, repeating pattern are good examples.
Many apps, such as Slack, WhatsApp, WeChat, or LINE use GIFs that sometimes play only once.
The App will play it probably five or six times on scrolling and then stop playing.
If it’s set to loop forever, it will also only loop five or six times then go to the last frame before the loop.
Usually, the app does this seamlessly, so if you post either one, it knows how to handle it, regardless of the GIF you load.
What to Use
There are tons of different ways to make a GIF.
Here are a few ways, starting from the most difficult to easiest.
- Adobe After Effects (or Olive)
- Adobe Photoshop (or GIMP)
- Canva (or Giphy, or EZgif.com)
- Giphy Cam(iOS/Android) (Or GIF Maker(iOS/Android), or GIF X(iOS))
Some people think using an iOS/Android app is easier because they are comfortable using their phone.
Some think it’s easier to use a website like Canva or Giphy or EZgif.com.
The choice, really, is up to you.
Of course, the steepest learning curves come from professional apps like After Effects and Photoshop.
We’ve added free alternatives next to each of the paid services.
Anything Adobe will be expensive, and Canva, while free to use doesn’t give as many options in the free version.
You are free to create your animation but to download it as a GIF takes the paid membership as of this writing.
The Workflow—How to Make a GIF Using Anything
We’ve talked a lot about what a GIF is and what to use to make it, but not how to make it.
Are you ready? The general workflow of a GIF is this:
- Determine the size of the workspace in Pixels
- Load the video into the workspace
- Determine the GIF length in time
- Determine the starting and ending frames of the video and clip it
- Export as a GIF
Easy right? Of course, you’ll have a lot of options you’ll have to play around with.
The timing between frames, color depth, dithering, transparency, and other features all determine the size of a GIF.
All of these things together can balloon the file size of a GIF.
Create for your intended medium.
If you are using a GIF that is long or large, or both, you can adversely affect page and email load times.
Your audience will move on without even seeing the fruit of your hard work.
The Last Frame
If you’re a gamer, GIF-making might appeal for a variety of reasons.
Tech Gaming Report encourages you to make a GIF today.
Try it out and see if you can become the next PewDiePie or Ninja by growing your fanbase.
If you don’t think you have the skills just yet to compete with them, you can always compete in the arena of GIFs.
Still trying to reach that next-level status?
Keep reading our gaming blogs and soon your tech will help you rank enough that someone will make a GIF about you!