Programs for gifs [Archive]

tracer

2003-11-08, 15:12

Hi,

I was wondering if there were any programs I could use to make some gif images. I am quite good with gfx but I want to help you guys out with these avs. If you could tell me what some of you use please tell me.

Flash_Squirrel

2003-11-08, 16:34

Shii

2003-11-08, 16:36

Avoid GIFs at all costs... they are really ugly and limited to 256 colors. Use PNGs instead.

If you need to make something animated, Flash_Squirrel's programs are the best I have heard of.

Flash_Squirrel

2003-11-08, 16:45

[...]limited to 256 colors.[...]

Look at my signature, its a mystery IMHO, but the format is .gif and the picture have more than 256 colors. (I know because if I try to save my signature as a .gif again, it loses *a lot* of colors.).

Jpeg is the best, PNG is still not fully supported on the 'net.

Shii

2003-11-08, 16:55

Jpeg is the best, PNG is still not fully supported on the 'net.
I dare you to find me one web browser that does not support PNG. Safari, Konqueror, Netscape, Mozilla, Internet Explorer, Firebird, Opera? All of them support PNG.

On the other hand, it is widely known that GIFs are limited to 256 colors.
http://www.scantips.com/basics9g.html
If you look closely, you can see the bad dithering in your signature. My signature has no such problem.

Imazul

2003-11-08, 17:47

png is better than jpeg, usually smaller and more quality

[Titan]

2003-11-08, 17:56

Look at my signature, its a mystery IMHO, but the format is .gif and the picture have more than 256 colors. (I know because if I try to save my signature as a .gif again, it loses *a lot* of colors.).

http://server2.uploadit.org/files/081103-flash_sig_properties.jpg
:o

I love gif, I can get a big (animated) signature with transparency without exceeding the 50.000 byte rule :)

ashibaka: I doubt anyone will notice the 'bad' dithering in Flash' signature, unless the distance between their eyes and the screen is less than 30 CM...

Shii

2003-11-08, 18:04

']I love gif, I can get a big (animated) signature with transparency without exceeding the 50.000 byte rule :)

PNG is always smaller :)

Flash_Squirrel

2003-11-08, 18:14

No need to be so mean. <_<;
I think there is nothing wrong with a gif file, the quality is not that bad and the size is quite small, the same pic saved as .gif with photoshop had a different color quality, thats why I was wondering about that.

Shii

2003-11-08, 18:15

GIFs have to be dithered to fit in 256 colors, and some programs do it better than others.

[Titan]

2003-11-08, 18:17

Tried png, after I had to resize my signature (the almighty Xris ordered me to do so :heh: )

the original GIF I used (68825 bytes)
http://server2.uploadit.org/files/081103-sig%202%20copy.gif

a 100% jpeg of the same image (78070 bytes)
http://server2.uploadit.org/files/081103-sig%202%20copy.jpg

the png I made out of the same source as the gif (148192 bytes) also, transparency did not work in this image
http://server2.uploadit.org/files/081103-sig%202%20copy.png

in the end, the png was more than twice as large as the gif. So I went for a jpg of 30 KB.

Flash: As for the quality of the gif in Photoshop, PS has several palettes, my guess is you (or the program) picked a wrong palette :heh:

Shii

2003-11-08, 18:21

']in the end, the png was more than twice as large as the gif. So I went for a jpg of 30 KB.

I don't know what you did to that PNG, but correctly converted it is 10KB smaller than the GIF. And the transparency does work, you just can't see it because you're not using a Web browser (http://ashitaka-san.home.comcast.net/yayrant/ieharmful.html).

Actual PNG: 59163 B
http://ashibaka.home.comcast.net/itsforyou/small.png

To convert, I just ran "convert hideous.gif small.png" on the commandline. Nothing special.

By the way, my signature is also transparent.

[Titan]

2003-11-08, 18:44

that's because you converted the 256 colour gif to png, instead of the 23812 colour source picture, even with maximum compression using irfanview, I can't get the filesize below 130 KB :(

bottomline:
-gifs have only 256 colours, which is not really a problem unless the source contains a huge amount of unique colours
-png has superior compression techniques compared to gif and supports 16.7 million colours, but if you have a large amount of unique colours in your picture, filesize can get large, also, transparently does not work correctly in IE (which a huge amount of internet users use, and I don't think they care about IE not being a browser, I know I don't :))
-jpg also supports 16.7 million colours, and has great compression (really useful if some mod orders you to get your sig size below 30 KB :rolleyes: j/k ), but has no transparency and compression is lossy

I'll quit here, it's not like we're ever going to agree 100% anyway :)

Shii

2003-11-08, 18:55

']-gifs have only 256 colours, which is not really a problem unless the source contains a huge amount of unique colours
-png has superior compression techniques compared to gif and supports 16.7 million colours, but if you have a large amount of unique colours in your picture, filesize can get large
Breaking news! When you're using twenty times as many colors, it takes up more space!

Yeah, whatever. Just don't use GIFs. :)

tracer

2003-11-09, 00:28

um....I already knew about gifs and stuff. I was wonderin how do I cut the clip out of the eps. Do I do it in premiere or in photoshop. I have flash, imageready and all those goody programs. So what do I do?

werellar

2003-11-09, 03:16

bsplayer, jasc animation shop, powerdvd... there's a few

Flash_Squirrel

2003-11-09, 03:18

werellar

2003-11-09, 04:19

VirtualDUB for frame capture.

by the way Flash Squirrel, your borders are excellently done

Flash_Squirrel

2003-11-09, 05:40

by the way Flash Squirrel, your borders are excellently done
Its a super cheap effect. -_-;; (Gaussian blur: 2,3)