Help Making A GIF

[Robinski]

I'm sorry if this is an inappropriate section to post this; I wasn't sure if it should be here or in Visual Arts.

 

Anyway, This is more of a request for help/advice rather than a graphic. I'm thinking of making a picture for some social networking site (yes I'm a mySpace kid) where, instead of having a large album of pictures, i'd have many pictures condensed into one. This is where my problem is. I want the image to be a simple file where each image is present for a second or so then the next one appears and so on. Nothing fancy. Now, I have no idea what programs/techniques to use or how to go about it, any help on this front would be appreciated.

 

If it helps:

• I have a very, very basic version of PS (Elements)

• I don't intend the pic to be massive, but of a reasonable size (around 500x500 or similar)

• I'm probably going to sue a quite large amount of photos if possible.

 

Cheers.

[CCPD]

The simplest way would be an animated GIF. You just post all images in one file and set the animation speed. The problem is that something large like 500x500 will be heavy in size (depends on the number of images used and the quality it’s saved at) and the quality won’t be very good. GIFs are best for small and simple animations like avatar or advertisement banners.

 

The best thing would be Flash, but it can be complicated to learn and you would have to get a very expensive piece of software. The quality will be great, but it will take a lot longer to load and a waste of money considering what you planning to use it for.

 

The third choice is using some external sources. There’re many online sites that offer to host your photos and view them as a slide show. You upload you photos, they organize them in a flash slide show and you can paste the HTML code on your page. Just like pasting any image, but the code is a bit longer. I have no idea what are those sites, but I know they exist. Just use your research skills to find them.