On almost every website you will find an animated gif file, often in the form of a short, soundless repeating animation. It is still widely used, it is a useful alternative to a flash banner. Making a gif is very easy with the GIMP program.
01. Using Series Images
You can easily convert a series of images into a gif animation. Start the GIMP program and click File / Open as Layers and select all the images you want to use for the gif file.
Images are often too large, you can solve this by scaling them. Go to Image / Scale Image, adjust the width to for example 300 pixels and click on Bowls. Go to File / Export as, choose GIF image below Select file type and click Export. Select As animation and keep playing and click Export.
You can use a series of images to create a gif animation.
02. A video clip to gif
To make a gif from a video fragment you need GAP (Gimp Animation Package). Download this add-on and install it in the GIMP installation folder. Launch GIMP and go to Video / Split Video into Frames / Extract Videorange. Select an .avi file (the only format supported), click Video Range and use the slider to find the start frame.
Enter the frame number at From Frame and do the same To Frame (end gif). Select walk, sets audio track on 0 and select Create only one multilayer Image. click on File / Export as, choose GIF image as file type and click Export. Select As animation and click again Export.
To convert a video to gif you need GAP (Gimp Animation Package).
03. Create your own image
You can also create your own animation by adjusting a duplicate layer each time. click on File / New, give a Image size on and click OK (or open an image). Draw or edit the first layer, right click on the layer and choose Duplicate layer.
Click on the eye for the old layer, select the new layer and make the following change. Repeat this until the animation is finished. Go to File / Export as, select GIF image and click Export. Select As animation and keep playing and finally click Export.
Create your own animation like an old-fashioned cartoon, by duplicating and adjusting a new layer each time.
