GC_Film&Images Posted January 15, 2021 Share Posted January 15, 2021 I know this is niche and probably not a priority but one of my big clients uses animated gifs in their monthly emails. I've been trying out Affinity Photo for retouching and I think I could drop my adobe subscription if Affinity offered an animated gif tool. I've looked around for other options but nothing offers the ability to control dithering and compression to get the desired file size I need. Even Photoshop hasn't upgraded their animated gif feature in a long time since it's listed as a legacy tool. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pšenda Posted January 16, 2021 Share Posted January 16, 2021 Quote Affinity Store (MSI/EXE): Affinity Suite (ADe, APh, APu) 2.4.0.2301 Dell OptiPlex 7060, i5-8500 3.00 GHz, 16 GB, Intel UHD Graphics 630, Dell P2417H 1920 x 1080, Windows 11 Pro, Version 23H2, Build 22631.3155. Dell Latitude E5570, i5-6440HQ 2.60 GHz, 8 GB, Intel HD Graphics 530, 1920 x 1080, Windows 11 Pro, Version 23H2, Build 22631.3155. Intel NUC5PGYH, Pentium N3700 2.40 GHz, 8 GB, Intel HD Graphics, EIZO EV2456 1920 x 1200, Windows 10 Pro, Version 21H1, Build 19043.2130. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GC_Film&Images Posted January 16, 2021 Author Share Posted January 16, 2021 Thanks but I don’t think any of those will work. I need to load short video clips and turn them into looping gifs and control the file size to stay under 3mb. The apps I’ve seen don’t allow any control over the dithering. And the apps discussed in that thread, I believe, are all for animating several stages of sprite movement or stacks of layers of a psd file etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Medical Officer Bones Posted January 17, 2021 Share Posted January 17, 2021 Two options off the top of my head. 1) OpenToonz / Tahoma2d. I use this for my gif animations. Either import the movie file directly, or convert the movie file to an image sequence and import that. The advantage of image sequences: each image can be separately edited in an external image editor, and I use ColorQuantizer to control the conversion to 8bit images with precise controls for dithering, rare colours threshold, balancing gradients and details. The dither amount is controllable, as well as bypassing edges (preventing edge dithering). With ColorQuantizer I process all images to 8bit or even less colours depending on the source material. Then save as an animated Gif. As an image sequence OpenToonz/Tahoma2d automatically re-imports the adjusted images. Then I export to a Gif animation. It is also possible to render a movie file to images with OpenToonz/Tahoma2d. 2) an alternative option is ScreenToGif. The editor allows for movie import, and converts to image frames. Right-clicking one of the frames enables the user to open the folder with the images (which will all be 24 bit). (1) allows for much more editing control, but is a more complex animation application. (2) is pretty simple, and also includes gif animation controls to define the length of the frames. Both options are free! https://tahoma2d.org/ https://opentoonz.github.io/e/ (Tahoma2d is a simplified GUI version of OpenToonz). https://www.screentogif.com/ http://x128.ho.ua/color-quantizer.html Processing the frames with ColorQuantizer saves typically 50% in terms of file size in combination with OpenToonz/Tahoma2d and the proper output settings. ScreenToGif offers 5 methods to control the Gif anim export (does not support 8bit source images, so I would have to enforce RGB mode for output and use in ScreenToGif). zof 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GC_Film&Images Posted January 20, 2021 Author Share Posted January 20, 2021 Thanks for that reply. I should have said I'm on a mac. Looks like screen to gif and color quantizer are both windows apps. I'm pretty surprised this isn't a more readily available feature without work arounds. Thanks I'll keep looking. Photoshop is still really the only option for this to be done efficiently for an overly busy studio. I definitely do not have the time to open multiple apps to create one gif when it takes only a few minutes to do it in PS. I'd rather pay the $10 a month to save the time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
loukash Posted January 20, 2021 Share Posted January 20, 2021 2 hours ago, GC_Film&Images said: I'm on a mac Search the App Store for "animated gif". I just randomly picked https://apps.apple.com/app/pictures-to-gif/id947857208. Not as flexible as Photoshop but, um, a few hundred $$$ cheaper… Quote MacBookAir 15": MacOS Ventura > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // MacBookPro 15" mid-2012: MacOS El Capitan > Affinity v1 / MacOS Catalina > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // iPad 8th: iPadOS 16 > Affinity v2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fixx Posted January 20, 2021 Share Posted January 20, 2021 4 hours ago, loukash said: Search the App Store for "animated gif". I just randomly picked https://apps.apple.com/app/pictures-to-gif/id947857208. Not as flexible as Photoshop but, um, a few hundred $$$ cheaper… No app store gif app has support for layered PSD files (I am not sure if I have sampled them all ...but so far). Normal workflow is to create animation frames as layers and take that file to animation software for gif creation. No support for this. Tahoma app (or Krita, or just PS) seem to be the only way to do it. These simple gif apps just do not have functionality. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
loukash Posted January 20, 2021 Share Posted January 20, 2021 3 hours ago, Fixx said: No app store gif app has support for layered PSD files (I am not sure if I have sampled them all ...but so far). I haven't checked all but two freebies. The 2nd one does all I needed it to do so I'm already good. 3 hours ago, Fixx said: Normal workflow is to create animation frames as layers and take that file to animation software for gif creation. No support for this. Open your PSD in APhoto or create your own layers there, then export layers to individual files – preferably likely PNG – via Export Persona as described in this post. Then you can create the GIF from these individual files. Works fine with PicturesToGIF, even though you cannot optimize the file size as perfectly as in Photoshop. Compared to this GIF I created last week via Phtotoshop which is only about 430 KB, the same animation I just created via PicturesToGIF is about 760 KB. But the result is otherwise identical, even with individual frame durations and everything. The whole process to recreate my aforementioned GIF from the layered PSD file took me just about a minute or two. To be fair, I had to search the forum first on how to export APhoto layers as individual files, as it's not really obvious at first glance. On the other hand, since I haven't had created an animated GIF in Photoshop since at least a decade, a week ago I also had to search Teh Interwebz on how to import individual files to Photoshop layers, which took me also maybe 10 minutes until I figured it out… Quote MacBookAir 15": MacOS Ventura > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // MacBookPro 15" mid-2012: MacOS El Capitan > Affinity v1 / MacOS Catalina > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // iPad 8th: iPadOS 16 > Affinity v2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GC_Film&Images Posted January 20, 2021 Author Share Posted January 20, 2021 I actually found a pretty decent free option on the Mac App store called Gifski which is really simple but allows for basic compression options. So far it's working in the tests I did. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 20, 2021 Share Posted January 20, 2021 If you're on macOS check out GIF Brewery. https://gfycat.com/gifbrewery Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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