# What's your favorite software for making animated gifs? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 30, 2011, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-software-for-making-animated-gifs/590869 "2011-07-30T23:19:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![OpalCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8edcca/32.png) [@OpalCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OpalCat)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2011, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-software-for-making-animated-gifs/590869/1 "2011-07-30T23:19:50Z")
Question’s in the title, pretty much. Would be nice to be able to import from video files and also be able to import multi-layer images such as tifs as separate frames to animate… ---
**Author:** ![Silver\_Tyger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/fbc32d/32.png) [@Silver\_Tyger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silver_Tyger)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2011, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-software-for-making-animated-gifs/590869/2 "2011-07-31T05:33:42Z")
I always use Photoshop (CS4, although I think CS2 & 3 could do it to). I know you can import frames from video, but I’ve never done it (I’m generally making avatars from comics.) ---
**Author:** ![A\_Tired\_Man](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/958977/32.png) [@A\_Tired\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A_Tired_Man)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2011, 9:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-software-for-making-animated-gifs/590869/3 "2011-08-01T09:16:55Z")
Virtually any version of Photoshop can make animated gifs, I think - I have only been using PS since version 4.0 (the newest one, CS5, is version 12). That said, if you don’t have PS already, it makes no sense to invest in an expensive professional photo editing software like that to make animated gifs. (yes I know people don’t necessarily pay for their copy…) And besides the price, it’s still overkill for that kind of stuff. I think most photo editors have the ability to make animated gifs. Haven’t used it myself, but GIMP is a free one that I gather is pretty popular. [http://www.gimp.org/](http://www.gimp.org/) Here’s a tutorial: [http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/Simple\_Animations/](http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/Simple_Animations/) Also, here are a couple of online services for making gifs: [www.gifninja.com](http://www.gifninja.com) [makeagif.com](http://www.makeagif.com) Haven’t tried those personally either, though. ---
**Author:** ![OpalCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8edcca/32.png) [@OpalCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OpalCat)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2011, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-software-for-making-animated-gifs/590869/4 "2011-08-01T18:05:32Z")
I didn’t realize photoshop did it… I have Photoshop CS4. Does anyone know a good tutorial? ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2011, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-software-for-making-animated-gifs/590869/5 "2011-08-02T15:04:12Z")
I use an old version of Animation Shop that came with Paint Shop Pro 6. It’s pretty simple. ---
**Author:** ![Silver\_Tyger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/fbc32d/32.png) [@Silver\_Tyger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silver_Tyger)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2011, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-software-for-making-animated-gifs/590869/6 "2011-08-02T15:23:44Z")
> [@OpalCat](#): > > I didn’t realize photoshop did it… I have Photoshop CS4. Does anyone know a good tutorial? Last time I looked, Photoshop’s help did a good job of explaining it. If you open up the animation palette, there’s two ways of doing it - timeline or frames. I find frames easier for most purposes.