How to Make an Animated GIF In Photoshop

Although Adobe Photoshop is mainly used as a photo editing software, it can also be used to create animated GIFs. Here is how you can animate your pictures.

Converting images into a GIF

GIFs in Photoshop are created through frame-by-frame animations.

Importing Your Images

For this method, you should already have images for each frame in your GIF.

1. First, you should import images as layers into Photoshop. Go to File > Scripts > Load Files into Stack.

   

2. In the new window that pops up, you can choose to import every image within a folder or choose files individually. First, click on the Use dropdown. To import everything within the folder, select Folder in the dropdown. If you want to select specific images within the folder, choose Files.

   

3. Click on Browse and navigate to the folder or images you wish to import. Select the images and click on OK.

   

4. Photoshop will create a New Document, and after a couple of seconds, your images will be imported as layers. The layer names will be the same as the name of your images.

Creating the GIF

Once all your images are loaded as layers, it’s time to create the GIF.

1. First, go to Window > Timeline.

   

2. Another window will appear at the bottom of the program. You can click on the play icon to see what your GIF will look like.

   

3. If you are happy with how it looks, go to File > Export > Safe for Web (Legacy).

   

4. In the type options, select GIF; in Looping Options, select Forever.

   

5. Click on Save, and navigate to where you want to save your file. Name it however you want, and click on Save. That’s it!

   

Converting a Video to GIF

If you have a video file that you want to convert into a GIF, you can do that in Photoshop by following the steps below:

1. 1. First, go to File > Import > Video Frames to Layers.

      

   2. Locate your video file, and click Open.

      

   3. If you want the GIF to be the same as your video, click OK.However, if you want to change what the GIF looks like, you can do so in this window. For example, you can trim the video by selecting a specific range using the trim arrows below the video.

      Limit To Every X Frames is an option that allows you to import every X frame of the video. For example, if you select “Limit To Every 2 Frames”, for every second frame of the video, Photoshop will create a frame animation layer. In other words, this sets the frame rate for your GIF.

      

   4. After importing the video, go to File > Export > Save for Web (Legacy).

      

   5. Make sure you have the GIF format selected and the Looping Options set to Forever. Then, click on Save, and you’re done!