According to studies, one in five Americans are obsessed with animated GIFs.
Animated GIFs are everywhere. They’re on your favorite social media sites, in your email inbox, and even on billboards. But how do you make one?
We know that making an animated GIF can be a little intimidating at first, but it doesn’t have to be!
Keep reading for some ways you can make your own GIF for yourself or your company without any special or expensive GIF software.
GIMP – The Basic GIF Construction Set
GIMP is a free, open-source program that is available for most operating systems (including Mac OS X). You can use it to create animations, even if you’re “only” using the basic features. A few minutes playing around with this tool will get you started on making your animated GIFs.
Photoshop – Slow, but Powerful
Photoshop is great at doing things other programs can’t do, but its interface isn’t exactly easy to learn — nor is getting the hang of using layers for animation. Be prepared to spend a good chunk of time getting to grips with all the bells and whistles.
Online GIF Construction Tools – Easy, but Basic
There are several free online tools for making animated GIFs. They’re pretty limited compared to GIMP or Photoshop, but because they’re browser-based they’re quick and easy to use.
Most don’t allow you to save your work as an animation, but there’s always the option of screenshotting it as an image — that way you can reupload it somewhere else if need be.
Web Apps – The Best of Both Worlds
These online apps give you the best of both worlds: they’re quick and easy to use but feature-packed enough that you can create some great animated GIFs.
The Wayback Machine lets you upload a video file (in AVI, WMV, or MPG format) and converts it into an animated GIF. It’s simple to use and you don’t need an account.
GIF YouTube is similar; upload a video file (in MP4 or FLV format) and it automatically creates an animation with sound. Again, there’s no signup required.
If for any reason those don’t work out, try GifMaker.me — though be aware this site has ads on every page, which may annoy some users.
GIPHY – The Easy Choice
GIPHY is a free website that’s packed with GIFs (more than 50 million at the last count). It also creates animated GIFs from videos, both yours and those on YouTube. To do this you’ll need to sign up for an account but it’s well worth doing if you’re interested in using GIPHY as part of your visual communication strategy.
And when you’re ready to can convert your GIF to MP4 quickly and easily for more brand reach.
Make an Animated GIF Today
Animated GIFS are a great way to show off your product or service interestingly and engagingly. They can be used on social media, marketing emails, landing pages, and more.
In this post, we’ve shown you how to make a GIF using free tools online. We hope now, you can make GIFs quickly and easily!
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