Animated GIFs

1
Animated GIFs

• Allow you to add simple motion or animation to
  your graphics
• Commonly used on many Web sites to add interest
• Typically used on banners across the top -
  often for ads
• Also used on icons to add interest
• May be used to show a rotating selection of
  pictures

2
How do animated GIFs work?

• Very similar idea to cartoon animation
• Multiple images are displayed one after the other
• Can give illusion of movement
• Soan animated GIF really isnt a single graphic,
  it is several graphics packaged together into a
  single file that are played in succession
• You cant open an animated GIF in a regular image
  editor like PhotoShop because it will just use
  the first image, to see them all you need a
  special tool

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Animated GIF Example
4
Animated GIF Editing Tools

• There are tools like
• Microsoft GIF Animator
• The GIF Construction Set
• Many other shareware options you can download at
  home to create and edit animated GIFs.
• Adobe ImageReady can also be used to create and
  display animated GIFs

5
Animated GIF Editing

• Each portion of an animated graphic is a separate
  image in the file
• You insert each frame one file or image at a
  time
• If you were creating your own image map, each
  frame would be a separately created file that
  you would insert and each graphic would probably
  be the same exact size so the illusion of
  movement would be maintained
• ImageReady and other GIF animation tools allow
  you to control the order that each frame
  appears in, how long it is on screen, if the
  entire animation will loop etc.

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Animated GIF considerations...

• They are cool but dont over use them!
• Just like with regular images there are many
  animated gifs you can obtain off the Web as well
  from sites like
• http//www.animfactory.com
• Animated GIFs are for simple things, more
  sophisticated animations may require the use of
  other tools such as Macromedia Flash and the
  installation of a Flash plug-in to play them in
  the browser