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Create Animated Gif Images from Scratch

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Create Animated Gif Pictures from Scratch

If you've always wanted to create animated images from scratch, there are now simple ways to learn how even if you're not a professional cartoonist. Animations work similar to cartoons because you must create a variety of images that are very similar, but different in just a small way. As the images are "flipped" or looped on the computer screen the animation comes to life.

Free animated gifs are available online, but sometimes you might need to create your own. For example, you might want to create a holiday special animation for your website to announce a special sale. There are many Christmas animated gifs available, but none of them have your company's name or special offer on them. Once you understand how to create your own, you can customize them with your company name, your colors, logo, special offer, etc.

Graphics Program for Animated Images   To create animated images, you must have a good graphics program that offers this feature. Some graphics design programs will merely create the animation for you. Go Here to Get Your Free 15 Day Trial Download of ®Xara X Others, however, will enable you to design your own gif files from start to finish so you can control what goes into your animation.

Choose a graphics program that's easy to work with and affordable. Believe it or not, you don't have to spend hundreds of dollars to get these great tools. There are graphic design programs available for less than a hundred dollars that will work just fine!

Create the Images

When creating animations, you should first design all variations of the image and save them to your hard drive. If you ever drew cartoons as a child in a little flip book, then you probably remember that each image represented a certain position of motion. This is how animations are drawn. You might have 25 images in a loop to create one animation.

Draw a foundational image, or background image, that will remain the same throughout all loops. This could even be a plain white background. Next, you'll draw the image in the first position, then in the second position, and so on.

Layering Animated Images

Layering your animations can be tricky. You'll want to layer them so the animations will flow evenly during the movements. Your graphics program might offer help files to show you how to layer properly.

Timing Animated Images

The movement of your animated image will depend on the time of the loop that you set. The graphics program should allow you to set the time of animations. If you choose 1 second, then the images will "flip" to the next one every second. You will probably need to speed up or slow the images to get the speed of the animation you need. Some animations will be fast-moving; others will be slow. It depends on what type of image you have and for what purpose.

Types of Animated Gifs

There are unlimited types of animated gifs you can create once you have the right graphic design program to work with. If you're into sports, you can create softball animated images or football and basketball animations. For the holidays, you might create Christmas animated gifs or images for Easter or July 4th. You can also create free download animated gifs for others to use who visit your website. The possibilities are endless.

Once you learn to create animated gifs from scratch, the sky's the limit as to what you can create for your website. And, you'll save money by not hiring an animated gif designer.

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This graphics design report written by Candice Pardue, Internet article content writer and owner of Creative Writing Services for Internet Business. Go here to learn graphic design from start to finish. You will enjoy this course!! - Bob

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