How To Create Easy Animated GIFs Using Photoscape

Here's another photo editing tutorial. You can create all kinds of animated GIFs with Photoscape. I use this awesome photo editing software to create animated GIFs and banners that can be used on blogs and websites.

Over the next few blog posts, I'm going to show you how to create different kinds of easy animated GIFs. Also, I will also show you how to create an animated banner with Photoscape.

An animated GIF is simply a number of single pictures or frames ordered in secession. Each frame or picture is a small change from the previous one that shows motion if shown or played back quickly.

This first animated GIF I'm going to create is only two frames or pictures. When shown quickly and back to back it becomes animated. Photoscape will save the two pictures being shown at the rate of speed you choose as a GIF file. This is SUPER easy. Here goes.

Open Photoscape and Click "Editor". Select your picture. For this tutorial I'm using a free public domain picture that I have already downloaded from www.clker.com. It's a clip art picture of a camera.

The picture will appear in the canvas area. First, I'm going to color in the lens on this camera to be completely dark.

Click the Color Select tool and click on the dark color on the picture of

the camera lens. This is to make the color I'm filling in is the same as the existing color inside the lens.

When finished coloring in the lens, I'm done for this one. Click on the Save button and save the picture as Picture 1.

Click the Undo All button to get back to what the original picture of the camera was.

Now, I'm going to add a glare effect to the flash area of this picture to make it appear as a picture is being snapped.

Click on the Home tab. Select the Effects option. Select the blue glare effect. It will appear in the canvas area. Adjust the effect image to cover the flash area of the picture of the camera.

I'm done with this picture. Click the Save button and save this as Picture 2. Now, I have my two frames or pictures to make my animated GIF.

While still in Photoscape, Click on Animated GIF tab at the top of the screen.

Locate your pictures 1 and 2 in the picture viewer on the left. Then drag and drop them on to the canvas area. You will see them in the order that you dragged and dropped them in at the top of the screen.

If you click the Play button you will see your pictures animated in the canvas area. You can change the amount of time each picture is displayed by clicking on the Change Time button. 100 means 1 second, 50 means a half of a second that the picture will be displayed before displaying the next one.

Notice that you can change the time for all pictures in your animation or you can change only the ones you select in the viewer area at the top of the Animated GIF interface.

You can make your animation go on in a continuous loop or you can make it play for a certain amount of time and stop. If you want to add more pictures to your animation, click the Add button at the top of the interface or drag and drop the pictures in from the picture viewer on the left.

Also, notice that you can change the size of your animation and the background color. When you're satisfied with the way your animation looks, save it by clicking on the Save button.

Some websites do not support animated GIFs, so you might have to store your files on your own website or use a photo sharing website like Photobucket. I uploaded the one I created up to this Blogger blog and it works.

Here's the finished animated GIF I made with only two picture frames. Pretty cool huh?