Best Gif Animator?

[Mission]

Hi.

 

I have Zoner GIF Animator. It's an OK program, but the animated .GIF's that it creates (that are as dynamic as the ones I see online) are kind of large (200+ KB in size).

 

I see some good customized animated GIFs (not like the free ones at sites like BannerForge) online that are 30KB and less in file size. But when I "optimize" mine to be that small using Zoner's optimize feature, the colors are horrible and it speeds up the animation tremendously. I optimize the images before importing them into Zoner, so I start out with small image sizes before the animated GIF is created.

 

Does anyone know what a good program is that makes such small file sizes for animated GIFs? I'm currently looking at Ulead's GIF Animator 5.

 

Maybe it's a moot point, though. Since so many people are on broadband connections now, perhaps GIFs don't need to be so small any longer as when most people were on dial-up connections...???

[rksprst]

Why not simply use something like photoshop or fireworks?

[TCH-Don]

I use Photoshop and optimize using dithered color palette.

They do not look too bad and are reasonably sized.

 

Remember there are still about 40% still on dial up.

[Mission]

Why not simply use something like photoshop or fireworks?

 

Thanks, rksprst. Unfortunately, I don't own Photoshop or have access to it, and it costs about 10X more than what I wanted to pay for a gif animator. Also, I downloaded the trial for Photoshop Elements awhile back and its GUI was somewhat confusing to me. I'm only imagining that the flagship Photoshop itself would have a similar GUI.

 

I use Photoshop and optimize using dithered color palette.

They do not look too bad and are reasonably sized.

 

Remember there are still about 40% still on dial up.

 

Thanks, Don. I guess my target is more for people who are on broadband. The major part of my site is my radio station and dial-ups cannot stream the bitrate I'm streaming. So I don't expect too many dial-up adherents to be visitng my site... So perhaps I should stick with what I have after all.

[Samrc]

I use ANIMATION SHOP (comes with Paint Shop Pro) or separately from COREL.

Lightweight and easy to use. Though I use flash for some things, I often choose to use my Animation Shop instead. Three choices for coloration (websafe, median cut and Optimized Octree) so you can get a nice result, even for a gif format.

[sanderson]

I also vote for PhotoShop as it is friendly and about cost. Of course if you need a quality thing then surely you have to pay for that.

[Mission]

Of course if you need a quality thing then surely you have to pay for that.

 

As they say, "Sho' u right!" I just figured there was something between poor and perfection.

 

[stevevan]

quite true...but it's kinda like asking "what's your favorite editor". Depending upon who you ask, you'll get that many different replies.

 

Personally...my favorite is whichever one will get the job done...with not too steep of a learning curve!

[carbonize]

This may be of interest to you

 

htxp://paintdotnet.12.forumer.com/viewtopic.php?t=2492&

 

The second program mentioned in that email is officially found at htxp://benetonfilms.com/software/Beneton_Movie_GIF.php

Edited October 30, 2006 by carbonize

[BluegrassGardener]

My vote would go for animation shop also.

[sarumonkey]

My vote would go for animation shop also.

 

me too, I'm with you on this one BluegrassGardener, and it saves electricity too - turn off your PC for 3 days or more, you'd be amazed at the savings!

 

regards,

-Brett

[TCH-Bruce]

Welcome to the forums remi

 

I use Animation Shop as well.

[remi]

My vote is for Photoshop too.

Its an awesome product.

Esp in Slicing, if u start working...you dont get rid of that.

[Steve Scrimpshire]

...Of course if you need a quality thing then surely you have to pay for that.

 

I could not possibly disagree more. There are plenty of quality Open Source and free programs of the same quality as many, many commercial applications.

 

I can do everything with The Gimp that I could do with Photoshop and with the same, if not better, quality.

Edited November 7, 2006 by Steve Scrimpshire

[mariyamakron]

Hello Friends ,I am visit this site gifmakeronline.com this is a best free animated creation site. No charge and no time consumming, its simple animation creatin and gif image maker. plz visit this site and reply me.

Edited May 29, 2013 by TCH-Thomas
Deactivated link to non-TCH hosted site.