One particular website that I liked was GIFMaker.me. What I like about this GIF maker website is its simplistic design and that you don’t need to open an account to create animated GIFs.
Before I proceed writing my review on GIFMaker.me, I thought I’d explain what is a GIF image. GIF stands for Graphics Interchange Format which is essentially an image file format. You’ve probably heard of file formats like PNG (Portable Network Graphic) and JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group).
GIF file formats support animation, however, they are limited to 256 colors. Thereby creating low-resolution images with smaller file sizes. Therefore, they are not recommended for color photos, rather they are used for simple graphics, logos, icons and cartoons. By now, I’m sure you’ve noticed the animated blog post intro image. Well, it’s an animated GIF image created using GIFMaker.me and so is this Mark Twain quote below:
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All the animated images you see on this blog post are examples of GIF animated images. All these animated GIFs were created using GIFMaker.me. Creating GIFs using this website is quite simple. You can create a quick GIF image in three easy steps:
- Step 1: Upload your pictures;
- Step 2: Set the canvas size and animation speed;
- Step 3: Create the animation.
You can then download the animated GIF image which will be in “.GIF” format and then share it on social media, on your blog or website. You can check my video review on GIFMaker.me and see it in action as I create the GIF as well as share other features and functionality of the website.
Even though I mentioned earlier that GIFs are not recommended for color photos, I did try to make a GIF with recent photos of my Niagara Falls visit. As you can tell, the picture quality is not that crisp, however it’s ok to share this animated GIF on social media sites. The more pictures you include in an animated GIF and the more colors in the photos, the bigger the file size. In this particular GIF image, I included about 15 photos and it ended being a 3.96 MB file size.
Animated GIFs can be very useful as short instructional tools. Rather than creating a video tutorial, GIFs can be used for providing quick instructions just by taking screenshots and creating an animation. You can give it a try and create your very first GIF using GIFMaker.me...don't worry you won't break anything!
Credits: GIFMaker.me logo and screenshots are copyright protected, used with permission.
