Member Avatar for rooter1204

Are there any easy and probably "free" ways to make good animated gif banners?

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A compact, practical workflow for making web-ready animated GIF banners that complements the tool suggestions already posted by others. If you tried a GUI editor (as noted by , and ) the missing step most people need is careful export + post-export optimization: size, frame timing, palette and disposal are what kill or save file size and quality.

Create frames at the final pixel size (or 2x and downscale for crisper text), export a numbered PNG sequence, then build a GIF with a generated global palette so colors stay consistent. Example (high-quality palette method with ffmpeg):

ffmpeg -y -i input.mp4 -vf "fps=15,scale=480:-1:flags=lanczos,palettegen" palette.png
ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -i palette.png -filter_complex "fps=15,scale=480:-1:flags=lanczos[x];[x][1:v]paletteuse" -loop 0 output.gif

If you export from an editor as frame*.png, one ImageMagick command will coalesce frames and optimize color usage (note: -delay is in 1/100 sec):

magick -delay 10 -loop 0 frame*.png -coalesce -layers Optimize -colors 128 animation.gif

Final optimization and size trimming is often fastest with gifsicle:

gifsicle -O3 --colors 128 --lossy=80 animation.gif -o animation.optimized.gif

Quick troubleshooting and design tips: keep frame count and dimensions as small as acceptable; prefer 64–128 colors for banners; tweak dithering (more = smoother but larger); if you see ghosting, -coalesce before optimizing; render small text larger then downscale for legibility; avoid loops that flash rapidly (keep frame delay >= 5–10 centiseconds for legibility). For modern web delivery, consider animated WebP/APNG or short looping MP4 instead of GIF where client support allows — they often give far smaller files and better color.

Recommended Answers

All 24 Replies

Member Avatar for Member #334542

You can do in photoshop and imageready.

Member Avatar for Lusiphur

Generally I use Adobe Fireworks for all of my animated GIF files.

However, the Adobe suite is far from "free" lol.

I might check on the Tucows download page for possibly shareware or freeware GIF animators but I wouldn't be able to speak to the quality of anything you get for free.

Mark solved if this helped solve your problem :)

Member Avatar for Member #120589

Try this: http://picasion.com/

Or this:

Did you even try Google?

Edited by Member #120589 because: n/a
Member Avatar for Lusiphur

Did you even try Google?

LoL Y'know, I was thinking the same thing...

Member Avatar for Ritesh_4

try google and download Ulead gif animator 2.0, this version has been released as a free one for some time now

Member Avatar for Reliable

yep, GIMP will do the trick 4 free and there are even several sites where you can upload you images and create them free online.

Member Avatar for flashfango

some programs support exporting flash banner into GIF format, and i think it will be more helpful!

Member Avatar for marcusmouse

try using Adobe fireworks, but just make sure you export/publish using the right format (gif) because that's not the default format fireworks exports to. cheers.

Member Avatar for logoonlinepros

Try GIMP or photoshop to create gif image.

Member Avatar for Profcat

Ulead Gif Animator is a good and easy solution about making an animated gif. also i you use flash cs5 , i think animated gif export is better than the other versions of Flash.

Member Avatar for virtuemart

Of the programs you can use Adobe Photoshop CS3 - for training banner and Ulead GIF Animator 5 - to create a ready-made frames from an animated movie in the format of GIF.
There a lot program animators, you can even export the gif banner from the Flash.

Member Avatar for rajesanthu

ok,,its nice,,,got your question....if you are ready to create your own animation,I will tell you how can we make it in our own way by using photoshop and imageready...
or if you just need a noncustomizable animation(softwares that accept some photos from you and create animation in predefined ways,,here you are restricted to choose only the types of animation that the software has) please go for easygifanimator its trials are released for free and its much simpler to use... \
Cheer up!!!
Your Friend,,,
Rajeesh.N.Santhu

Member Avatar for Member #120589

You're all bonkers. You're replying to a thread that the OP has obviously ignored. He made a request on 30-06-10! And you lot are still replying now. You all desperate to bump up your post count maybe?

Member Avatar for virtuemart

You are also answering here as well!

Member Avatar for VulcanDesign

Hahahaha. This is an interesting way for even the people who supposedly disapprove of that to bump up their post count. Now I just have to go around and post similar disapproving messages on every other thread; I could have thousands of posts in no time at all :)

Member Avatar for Member #120589

Well my post made a 0.03% difference to my total. I don't think I'll be losing sleep over scrabbling for desperate posts. My post was supposed to be tongue-in-cheek, hoping to save some people from wasting their time replying to a thread that died a long time ago.

Anyway, in response:

> You are also answering here as well!

Doh! Didn't think of that. :(

> Now I just have to go around and post similar disapproving messages on every other thread; I could have thousands of posts in no time at all

That reply increased your post count by about 3% - not bad! Although, there's the law of diminishing returns... :)

Member Avatar for Member #120589

Well my post made a 0.03% difference to my total. I don't think I'll be losing sleep over scrabbling for desperate posts. My post was supposed to be tongue-in-cheek, hoping to save some people from wasting their time replying to a thread that died a long time ago.

Anyway, in response:

> You are also answering here as well!

Doh! Didn't think of that. :(

> Now I just have to go around and post similar disapproving messages on every other thread; I could have thousands of posts in no time at all

That reply increased your post count by about 3% - not bad! Although, there's the law of diminishing returns... :)

Member Avatar for johnwords

it usually requires setting up an account and taking out time to create a good slideshow. you can check out a few websites that let you take a couple of pictures and turn them into animated GIFs for free! It’s super fast, requires very little work and gets the job done!

Member Avatar for VulcanDesign

OK everything that people are saying has been said at least three times before here. This is bursting with all the information anybody could possible need on the topic.

PEOPLE: PLEASE STOP POSTING!

Member Avatar for Ritesh_4

Try Ulead Gif animator (I think the version 2.0 is free else need to buy the new versions)

Member Avatar for gogreen1

we can do gif animations using these software's Adobe Fireworks and Adobe Photoshop.

in Fireworks

please follow the steps ...its very easy to do in fireworks :-)

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