How to Make a GIF in Photoshop

Shanoon Cox

Mar 27, 2024• Proven solutions

We all love GIFs and their impressive style of delivering stories. They not only contain set of frames rather they wrap inside lots of emotions and thoughts of creators. You can easily find numbers of eye catching GIF collections over social media sites.

If you love these animated images then probably you might have initiated a search over internet about how to create GIFs. And search engine must have shown you a path to unlimited GIF creator tools. That's common. But here we are going to talk about one professional recommendation for GIF creation. Yeah, it is Photoshop and it can instantly generate appealing animated Gifs for you.

Below you will be able to learn strategies to create GIF images with latest version of Photoshop:

How to make a GIF in Photoshop

• Method 1: Make a GIF from Video in Photoshop
• Method 2: Make a GIF from Still Photos in Photoshop

Method 1: Make a GIF from Video in Photoshop

Step 1: Launch your software:

Once you have downloaded your Photoshop software tool on your device then simply run it. Note that CS6 versions of Photoshop provide full support to animated files.

Step 2: Get your video clip imported:

As your software timeline is available on screen, now you have to import your desired video file to this platform. Simple go to File option from top left corner of toolbar and then from drop down menu select import. Further select, video frames to layers. Choose your video file and soon all its frames will appear on screen. Photoshop also allows users to work on clipped versions of video files; in that case you can use slider to limit the frames at the time of uploading process.

Step 3: Adjust file Import Settings:

You will be glad to know that Photoshop offers creative editing features where you can also make color balance adjustments. When you are done with the frame adjustments then go to File and now choose Save for Web from drop down menu.

It will immediately open one new window containing all advanced settings that can assist in better customization of your GIF image. As users need small file size for web uploading needs so you can adjust all these parameters below to get best results:

Colors: Colors are most important descriptive elements for any video so their selection must be done wisely. As more colors can ensure better view but for reducing file size at the same time you can prefer to drop this selection up to 128.

Dither: The dithering process is used to scatter so many colour rich pixels into image so that even a limited colour package can develop intermediate colours over it. If you pick higher number of colours then definitely the image will look finer but at the cost of higher file size.

Lossy: If you want to add some internal drop in the quality of image then this setting is useful. But try to keep it lower because higher range may destroy actual information from image whereas smaller value is good if you want to just reduce the file size.

Size: Users can prefer to change overall dimensions of their GIF that ultimately leads to huge impact on file size.

Step 4: Time to Save your GIF file:

When you are done with the editing process and want to save the newly created GIF image then simply move to the File menu available on top left corner of software window and from drop down menu choose "Save for Web" option. It will further ask you to adjust the output file parameters ahead, make changes as per need of your project and finally get it saved to your device.

Check this video to know more:

Method 2: Make a GIF from Still Photos in Photoshop

It is also possible to develop animated GIF images from collection of still images in Photoshop. In this method, users simply need to maintain layers of each frame and then they are sequenced using timeline tool or Photoshop's animation based editing. Here are few simple to follow steps to get best results:

1. Step 1

First of all, user is advised to bring all desired still images into a single folder in his computer. Then go to the software window, move to Files option and further choose Scripts. It will provide you an option for Load Files into Stack. Now hit browse button and choose your images from desktop folder that you further want to use for development of GIF image. Hit OK. It will immediately open a new composition on screen and all these stills will appear like individual layers of a new single image.

Users can reorder or rearrange these frames as per their desired GIF animation but note that the frame that you want to place at first position in your final GIF must appear at bottom layer and others must follow the same sequence upwards.

All these GIF layers can also be created individually by user using Photoshop tools. To do this, simply run your Photoshop and then use File > New option to start working with a new project. Hit Ok. It is time to unlock the background layer; you can do this by simply double clicking on the lock icon available on screen. Now in order to create a new layer over it, move to Layer option and press New button. You can design all your new layers with this process. As soon as all your images get created then arrange them in bottom to top order same as the previous method.

Note that, this process becomes effective only if you are working on the older version of software and it does not have "Load Files into Stack" feature. You can simply load all your desired stills on Photoshop platform and then drag them to new project window. The free transform tool of Photoshop can help you to resize all the added layers as per need. Use shortcut keys: Ctrl+T to make changes faster.

2. Step 2

Now as your entire GIF image layers have been arranged so next task is to start sequencing. If you are working on CS5 or lower version of Photoshop then you van move to animation window by using Window plus Animation option. On the other side, CS6 or CC users need to click over Window + Timeline option.

As soon as sequencing tool appears on your screen, you will find a small right facing arrow on upper right corner of your screen. Hit this arrow and then choose "Make Frames from Layer" option. The eye icon can be used to hide all unwanted layers. From bottom menu, you can choose looping sequence for your image.

3. Step 3

Finally your animated GIF image is ready and now you can export it to your computer. Hit File option and then Chose Save for Web from drop down menu. But note that for web uploading a file size less then 1MB is acceptable. You can alter it by changing, loss, dither, color and size settings. At last hit Save button and now you can upload your GIF.

Read More to Get : the ultimate guide on How to Convert GIF to Video on your laptop or phone.

Conclusion

If you feel like Photoshop is difficult to learn, Filmora meme maker is your ultimate solution. It helps you make image, GIF and video memes directly without watermark. It is totally FREE to use and no sign up. You can change text size, color and position to create caption when you are editing. You can also put text inside or outside in GIF. Just with a few clicks, your GIF is done. Try it now!

Shanoon Cox

Shanoon Cox is a writer and a lover of all things video.

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