How To Upload Custom Gifs To Kik

How to make a GIF

ScreenToGif is a free app that keeps on gif-ing

(Image: © Shutterstock)

Welcome to our guide on how to make a GIF. The GIF is 1 of the most important forms of media on the internet. It's punchy, it'due south tacky, it's ordinarily accompanied past intentionally misspelled catchphrases that drag information technology to a meme.

Something then uncomplicated as a GIF should be easy to make, and it generally is, although you'll need third-party software to do it.

Before we first, it's worth pointing out that you may already take GIF-maker software without realising information technology. You can practice it in Photoshop for example, or in the driver software that comes with graphics cards from AMD and Nvidia. Simply to proceed this as universal as possible, I'1000 going to use a free third-party GIF-making tool chosen ScreenToGif.

Why ScreenToGif and not any of the other 1000000 tools that do a similar chore? It'due south versatile for a beginning, letting you import videos or images to turn into GIFs, every bit well as offering a feature that lets you plow whatever y'all accept highlighted on your screen into a GIF.

It's also completely free, with no 'Premium' paywall or other caveats. The programmer only asks that yous donate money or buy him games from his Steam wishlist, which is such an innocuous request for payment that it warms our souls.

So, read on for a step-past-pace guide on how to make a GIF.

1. Plow what'southward on your screen into a Gif

If you want to grab a clip from a YouTube video, something on your desktop, or an extract from a longer video on your difficult drive, you lot should apply ScreenToGif'due south screengrab function.

To practice this, open up ScreenToGif and bring up whatever it is you want to tape on your screen. If it's a video, go to the correct part of the video and suspension it so information technology's ready to go when yous outset recording.

In ScreenToGif, click the Recorder push button on the chief menu. This will bring up the ScreenToGif screengrab window, which you need to drag over whatever you lot want to turn into a GIF, so resize it appropriately.

If you lot want to capture an unabridged window, you can use the '+' icon at the bottom-centre of ScreenToGif to automatically snap the screengrab to the size of the highlighted window.

Once you've prepare your screengrab window, hit the Record push in ScreenToGif (or the F7 key) to start recording. Then, if you're recording a video, speedily hitting the Play button in the video (the quicker you exercise this, the less wasted frames yous'll need to delete from the first of the GIF when editing it).

When you've captured everything you need, press the End button in ScreenToGif (or the F8 key), and yous'll automatically be taken to the GIF editor.

2. How to turn video or picture files into a GIF

If y'all don't want to turn a screengrab into a GIF, merely instead want to accept a prune from an existing video or bring together together several image files into a GIF, you tin.

Just open a new instance of ScreenToGif, and so click 'Editor'.

From here, click 'Load', so select the video or images you desire to plow into a GIF. If you lot're making a GIF out of images, you can select withal many images you want from a single binder by property the Shift or Ctrl key while selecting them.

3. How to edit your GIF

Now you've selected your screengrab, video or images for your GIF, information technology's fourth dimension to trim them down and make the GIF.

We're going to use the YouTube video we screengrabbed earlier to prove you how to edit and create your GIF. At any time during editing, you can press the Play button at the bottom right corner to see your GIF in activeness based on the edits you lot've made.

The first thing you'll want to do is delete all the frames (ordinarily at the showtime or end) that you don't want in your GIF. To do this, select each one yous want to delete in the thumbnails at the bottom of the Editor and printing the Delete key (y'all tin select multiple frames by holding the Shift key while clicking them).

Nosotros've at present shortened our eventual GIF from around 100 frames to just 35.

Another crucial affair to edit is the delay between frames, which affects how fast the GIF blitheness will play.

Click the 'Edit' tab at the top of ScreenToGif. Here you can utilise a few options to modify the delay between frames. Override lets yous set an entirely new delay time (in milliseconds), but we recommend the more than subtle 'Scale' choice, which lets you suit the animation speed in relation to the current speed.

To edit the speed of the entire animation, click a thumbnail at the lesser then press Ctrl+A to select all the frames.

And then click 'Scale', and decrease or increase the percentage value depending on whether you want to wearisome down or speed up your animation. When y'all're set, click 'Apply', and it'll make the changes beyond your entire animation.

Another handy trimming feature under the 'Edit' tab is 'Remove Duplicates', which lets you delete frames that are very like to the frames next to them.

This will cutting down the length and file size of the GIF while non having much noticeable upshot on the animation.

4. How to add together text and other visuals to your GIF

At that place are quite a few other things you tin can practise in ScreenToGif, only if you're looking to create the side by side big meme (or just a goofy GIF to share with your friends), you might want to add some text to it.

To practise this, click the 'Paradigm' tab at the pinnacle, then 'Caption'. At this bespeak y'all should select the frames that you lot want the text to announced in (or but select all of them by pressing Ctrl+A with a thumbnail selected).

Enter your explanation text in the right-hand pane, and utilise the other options in the pane to get the text looking just how you want it. Click 'Use' when yous're done.

In much the same way you lot can add captions to your GIF, you lot can also freely describe on it, adding shapes, borders, and diverse other customization options nether the 'Image' tab.

5. How to resize and relieve your GIF

Finally, y'all should resize your GIF to the size you want. You'll discover the 'Resize' pick under the 'Image' tab, where you can also adjust the DPI to adjust the clarity of the GIF. When you're done, click 'Use'.

Finally, click 'File > Save equally'. Then in the right-manus pane we recommend selecting the 2.0 encoder, which seems to optimise the file size amend at no quality cost. Cull the directory yous want to save your GIF, give it a name, and click 'Save'.

Now yous know how to make a GIF!

These are the all-time laptops

Robert Zak is a freelance author for Official Xbox Mag, PC Gamer, TechRadar and more than. He writes in print and digital publishing, specialising in video games. He has previous experience equally editor and writer for tech sites/publications including AndroidPIT and ComputerActive! Mag.