How an animated GIF is put together
An animated GIF is a stack of still images (frames) shown one after another, with a delay value attached to each frame. The browser plays the frames in order and loops back to the start. There is no audio and no real video compression, just a series of indexed-color pictures.
GIF is limited to a palette of 256 colors per frame, so the encoder has to reduce the colors of every picture you feed it. Flat graphics, screenshots and simple drawings survive this well. Photographs can show banding or speckling.
This tool builds a GIF out of the images you give it. Each image becomes one frame, in the order you added them, and all frames share the same delay.
When making a GIF from images makes sense
A GIF made from stills is handy when you want a quick, universally playable animation without video software. Typical uses include a short product walkthrough made from screenshots, a simple before-and-after loop, a hand-drawn flipbook, or a step-by-step illustration for a help article or chat message.
It also works for slideshow-style loops, where each image holds for a while before the next one appears. That is a good fit for a larger delay.
If your goal is to shrink a GIF after making it, the GIF Compressor can scale the frames down. And if you later want to pull an animation apart again, the GIF Splitter does the reverse.
How to create a GIF with this tool
- Drop two or more images onto the upload area, or click it to choose them. You can add more images later and they are appended in the order added.
- Each image shows up as a small thumbnail. To remove one, click the red trash icon on its corner.
- Set the Frame delay slider. It runs from 50 ms to 2000 ms in steps of 50, with 500 ms as the default. The same delay applies to every frame.
- Click Create GIF. A progress bar shows while the animation is built. The button stays disabled until at least two images are loaded.
- Check the animated preview, then click Download to save it as animation.gif. Start over clears the images.
Everything runs in your browser, so your pictures are not uploaded.
Practical tips and limits
The timing is easy to work out. With a delay of 250 ms and 4 frames, one full loop takes 4 times 250, which is 1000 ms, or one second. A 500 ms delay with 6 frames gives a three-second loop.
Frames are added as they are, with no resizing or reordering controls in the tool. For a smooth result, prepare your images at the same dimensions beforehand, for example with the Image Resizer. Mismatched sizes can produce awkward results. To change the order, remove the frames and add them again in the order you want.
There is only one delay for the whole animation, so you cannot hold a single frame longer than the others. A workaround is to add the same image twice.
Because GIF uses a limited palette and each frame is stored in full, many large frames make a big file. Use fewer or smaller images if the output is heavier than you want.