How to Make an Animated .gif (free and easy!)

By Kate Riley February 9, 2012

My brother is slowly teaching me the ins and outs of Photoshop Elements and one of the things I asked him to teach me was how to make an animated .gif.  There’s an Animate function there that I’ve learned to use, but it’s always nice to be able to do it for free somewhere else right?  Well, you can.  Rhoda uses Photoscape for editing her images so after I read her post I hopped over to test it out. I liked a lot of the tools available with this free software, but the one that caught my eye was the Animated GIF option.  Note this available only for PC users.  

For those who don’t know, an animated GIF file compiles a number of images as frames displayed successively, kind of like an old flip book movie. It’s a fun tool for play but also useful for making buttons or ads too.  With an animated .gif, you can layer several images on top of one another – look how fun it can be! 

 

fan deck gif

 

To do it easily and for free, you can use the Photoscape software, available here.

 

animated gif option in photoscape

 

Simply click on and drag your images to the row above.

drag to toolbar

 

Then choose your interval times and sizes.

select interval and size

 

Save your new animated .gif, it’s that easy.

Have fun with funny faces, kids, pets, any subject you like.

petals gif

 

You can use illustrations or your logo to create ads for your business or blog with this same tool (just make sure your images are the right pixel size before importing them).  If you have Photoshop Elements, you can do it there to, here’s a helpful You Tube video – the first four minutes explain how to make an animated gif in Photoshop. 

Have fun creating! 

kate signature image

 

 

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21 comments

    • Hi there Random Musings, i was unaware it’s only for Windows, aw shucks! Thanks for the tip on GIMP, I’ve played around with it, do you find it user friendly? It’s got a lot in common with Photoshop from what I can see.
      Kate

  1. Oh wow, this is quite a unique post, and so helpful too … Thanks for sharing this with the simple illustrations!

  2. Gif’s are really cool, I have one for my blog banner, hubby made it for me but I will have to learn how to do it for myself, it doesn’t look too hard! :) xo K

  3. I LOVE gifs! Especially the ones of kittens doing cute things, but after this post I may have to try some for my own blog. I’m gonna have to look into an easy .gif maker for mac! Thanks for the post!

  4. I’m a bit scared of Photoscape….guess I better get over it, huh? The animated gif’s are really cool though! I have a LOTTTTT to learn about photography/editing in general! Thanks for sharing!

  5. There are also a few websites that will make one for you. You just upload the pictures and it lets you download the gif.

  6. Grt tutorial! Thanks for sharing..love ur non design related posts..pls keep it coming!

  7. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wondered about making an animated .gif and then … never did anything about it. Thank you ma’am! I’m heading over to the Youtube Photoshop tutorial immediately. ~ karen!

  8. I feel like I’m floundering around with Picnik shutting down. I was going to try this out as a possible Picnik replacement, but when I went to download it, my McAfee warned me that it had problems with that site. Anyone else have that problem??

    • HI Elena, you shouldn’t have a problem, I know both WordPress and Blogger can support .gif formats…. many advertisers use it. Hmmmmmm, not sure what to advise!
      Kate

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