This isn’t a pronunciation lesson, don’t worry…

What is a GIF?

Put simply, a GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) is an image on a webpage that moves.  An animated GIF (pronounced with a hard ‘g’, as in ‘gift’ and not ‘ginger’) contains within a single file a set of images presented in a specific order, which can loop endlessly or show the sequence of images and then stop the animation.

If you have a look at GIPHY you will find perhaps the biggest (and most user friendly) collection of GIFs on the internet. It’s like Google, but for GIFs. You can type in just about anything you can think of, and GIPHY will scour the Internet for GIFs which best match your search terms.

But how do I make my own GIFs?

There are heaps of GIF makers out there, and they vary from the very high-tech, for those who want to create high quality animation, all the way down to the super straightforward that’s less about artistry than it is having a good lol on social media.

This post is going to focus on quick, online and free methods. If you’re looking to learn how to make something more complex however (and are willing to spend some money) – Photoshop is your best bet. Don’t be fooled into thinking Photoshop’s industry standard software is only for advanced artists, you can definitely start as a beginner and there’s lots of online tutorials to help you on your way.

Okay, here we go!

GIFMaker

As the name suggests, this is the most straightforward, simple GIF creator, and is a good place to start if you’re brand new. There is no registration required and the homepage itself is the upload screen. Once you have your selection of images uploaded, play around with size and speed. You even have the option to add music – through YouTube only – and then create the animation with a click. The newly made GIF will only stay on the site for six hours so make sure you download and save anything you make and want to keep.

Giphy Capture (for Macs only)

From Giphy comes this simple GIF making option. With a user-friendly resize and cut, and three choices of frame rate (speed) and size. You can add captions and upload it to social media platforms with a click. It is best for making fast, simple GIFs for the everyday joke, burn or laugh. Unfortunately at the moment it is only for Mac users, sorry PC fans.

Giphy Cam

Another offshoot of share site GIPHY, this app is about as straightforward as you can get. The app is just a camera, some filters, lots of weird and wonderful borders, backgrounds and animation overlays that you can use on your recording. That’s about it. Once you’ve made your creation you can save it to your phone to share elsewhere.

Boomerang

If you have an Instagram you might already be using this one, or have seen it in action on your feed. While the app technically isn’t making GIFs (the files get saved as .mp4 rather than .gif) they appear as GIFs that play in that endless loops once you upload them. Boomerang is for Instagram only and perfect for sharing two second snippets of your life. The only downside though is the videos will take up A LOT of space very quickly on your phone, so it’s best to delete originals after posting.

Tumblr

If you have a Tumblr, making GIFs in Tumblr is much the same as standard posting. Go into the app and select ‘Compose’ and then choose the ‘Photo’ option. From here you can select a video or series of still shots from your camera roll. Once you’ve set up your GIF you can add captions and tags, choose speed, loops, just like other GIF makers and post straight to your Tumblr blog.

Happy GIFing!