Tuesday, April 24, 2012

How To GIF - Part 1

aWQhfX on Make A Gif, Animated Gifs

Hi everyone, Katie here.

Yesterday's animated ears were such a hit, I thought you might like to know how simple it is to create an animation with your OWN photos.  It's SO easy, I swear.  I'm going to split our How-To lesson into two blog posts, today (Tuesday) and Thursday.  That means you've got all of Wordless Wednesday to pick out the photos you want to animate.
  
By Thursday night, if you so desire, you'll have a completed animation.  How cool is THAT!


So Easy A Human Can Do It

This step-by-step is a breeze for cats, dogs, ferrets, bunnies, birds and EVEN humans.  You don't have to be a photographer, artist or designer.  You don't even have to be creative.  Really.

The animated file is called a .GIF file.  It's a file made up of 2 or more individual photos.  Nothing fancy, just the regular digital photos you take with your cameras and phones.



All You Need Are Two Photos 

Pick two photos that are almost identical.  The background should be the same.  Just a little difference in the subject's position.  Like these two photos of me.  See my ears?  They moved just a little bit from one photo to the next.




Here's what the animated .GIF file will look like.












OR take one photo with a plain background and flip it horizontally, like a mirror image. Just use your favorite photo editing program to do the flip and save each individually.




_Akztg on Make A Gif, Animated Gifs

Here's what the animated .GIF file will look like.
I'm DANCING!












OR if you're feeling adventurous, take a photo and manipulate it in your favorite photo editing program so that you have two versions of the same picture.  See my goggles?  All we did was color them in to look dark, saving each photo separately.
oKiMt_ on Make A Gif, Animated Gifs



Here's what the animated .GIF file will look like.
This is BLINKING COOL!











So that's it for Part 1.  Your homework is to find two photos to use for your animation.  On Thursday, I'll show you the REALLY fun part.  We'll make your pictures MOVE!


PLEASE VOTE!
Please help me decide which cover photo to use for my blog.  Cast your vote at the top of the sidebar. Thanx!




33 comments:

Sparkle the Designer Cat said...

My human can do animated gifs in Photoshop, but when she tried to explain how she did it (we had one a few months ago), most humans had a hard time grasping it! I hope your explanation on Thursday is better than my human's.

Katie and Glogirly said...

This one doesn't need a fancy program like Photoshop and it's SUPER EASY!!! I think most humans could have some fun with it. Well see! ; )
-Katie

Cory said...

I can hardly wait! Mom has some pictures of Ginger rolling in the garden that she would love to animate!

Clooney said...

How fun! Love this post and "the ears"!

Patty Woodland said...

This human is useless...
I voted!

Prancer Pie said...

We is SOOO excited! Can't wait til Thursday. We voted on the bottom pic. It's got just a little humor. xoxo

The Furries of Whisppy said...

That seem simple enough. Can't wait for Thursday!
We've voted!! :)

retro77 said...

super :))

dArtagnan Rumblepurr/Diego Hamlet Moonfur said...

Miss Katie, you are brilliant and bootiful.

Carolyn said...

OK I'm going with this. So exciting!!

Voted for top one just to be different ;)

Inkan Holmqvist said...

I think you got my cat Bandit there ?! BIg Hug

ArtemisiaFSS said...

Wow we always wondered how you did that. Thanks for explaining. We voted.

Melodie said...

I voted! Sadly,I would have to get my Boy to do this for me.

Cat said...

I love the Gifs, we'll definitely be back on Thursday to find out how you did it!!!

Your new banner is gorgeous :-)

Repositório said...

Lovely share... I will try to make one gif with my photos... =)

Nerissa said...

That's amazing! I wonder if MY peep could figure out how to do this. She's not too bright, you know...

Brian said...

Y'all sure gots the talent!

Tamago said...

I thought it would be something complicated, but if human can do, I can do! Can't wait Thursday to learn. Thank you for your lesson!

meowmeowmans said...

How exciting! We're looking forward to the rest of your lesson on how to GIF! :)

Deb Barnes said...

Wow Katie!! Something else for our human to become obsessed with!! This is GREAT information and we can't wait until Thursday to see how it's all pulled together! As far as pictures.... hmmm... I think perhaps we could round up several thousand or so to chose from!!

Meows and Purrs from Zee & Zoey - catmates of Season 2 of the Real Housecats!!!

Old Kitty said...

Oooh me and Charlie are late for class! LOL!! And we are taking down notes! LOL! We are super awe at just how clever you are lovely Katie - we love the dancing feeties and ear moving!! Yay! Take care
x

Cathy Keisha said...

Good thing you didn't have the entire lesson today. TW's head is exploding as it is. HAH! Lord knows what she could make me do! Oh wait, I'm presuming that she's gonna understand Part 2.

Dunno about those headers. While I prefer the one with just Katie, the bottom one is less formal and more playful. yep, I'm no help.

Cathy Keisha said...

BTW, we cheated when we did the picture of me smoking the cigarette. We used on online picture pimping site.

ABBY said...

WE can't wait to find out how to do this!!!
purrs
>^,,^<
♥Abby♥Boo♥Ping♥Jinx♥Grace♥

The Purr Diaries said...

OMG so cool! Can't wait for part two! P.S. Can this be done in Photoshop?? Or is that info in part two ;o)

D Ma said...

I didn't know creating gifs was simple.... I like the dancing one for the header.

Eric and Flynn said...

We voted! We can't wait to learn how to make a gif.

The Island Cats said...

Oh this better be easy because our mom is useless when it comes to computer techie stuff.

Oui Oui said...

We saw the ears yesterday, but it was so late we didn't comment. Thanks for showing us this. Even the mom knows she can do it! You are the bestest!

Oskar said...

Ooh, I can't wait to find out how!

Nubbin wiggles,
Oskar

Rykers Boyz n Allie said...

MOL! We wanna know when you're Glogirly is coming over to the "dark side" and going after After Effects!! We'll go vote now!

T said...

This is GREAT! thanks so much, now i feel like i can try it with my gang!

Nikita Cat said...

Very interesting, and very cool!

We will have toread the rest, and see if we can pull this off ourselves!