Gifninja.com is a website where people can create animated gifs for free. Gif stands for Graphics Interchange Format, which has a limited (8-bit or 256 colors) resolution. Gifs come in a .gif extension file. The Gifninja website demonstrates the different ways in which a user can animate pictures and videos by using some built-in tools. Visitors to the site can upload the animated gifs to their blogs or to social-networking sites (like MySpace) that support gifs.
Gif Animation
Animating a gif
To create an animated gif, you would need to create multiple gif images and combine them into one file. This would result in a display of multiple images shown one after another to give the illusion of movement.
To create animated gifs using gifninja.com, you can use a series of up to five images or pictures uploaded from files located on your computer, CD or USB drive. You also have the option to send a zip file. After uploading, click on "Make My Gif!" You will then preview your animated gif, and will have an option to change or start over if you are not satisfied. Once you are satisfied with the result, you can save your gif; but before you do, you can choose to allow others to rate your gif. Then click on "Save My Gif!"
Gifninja.com provides two codes: You can copy one of them to upload gifs to your blogs or any sites that support animated gifs; you can use the other code to upload to forums. The result should only be 4 seconds long and about 600 kb in size; anything larger will not work on most sites.
Converting a Video to a Gif
Animating video to a gif
Gifninja.com imposes some requirements for converting videos into an animated gif. Fist, the video should be in a WMV (Windows Media Video) or ASF (Active Streaming Format) format. Recently, the site started supporting avi, mpg, mpeg, mov, 3gp, flv and mp4. The next requirement (as mentioned above) is that the video should only be 4 seconds long. The website offers instructions for shortening a video file to 4 seconds using Windows Movie Maker. You can also use Windows Movie Maker to convert Quicktime and Divx videos.
Upon meeting the requirements, you can start animating your video clip. Start by clicking on the green "Convert Video to Gif" link at the right of the screen. Then click on the "Browse" button at the bottom of the page to select and upload the file you would like to turn into an animated gif. Click on "Make My Gif!" to start uploading your video clip. Right-click on your animated video gif and select "Save As." Choose a path or folder on your computer to save the file. You will then be given the code to upload the animated gif to the sites you choose.
Splitting an Animated Gif
Splitting a gif
You can actually dissect your gifs into separate still images and then mix them up. Start by clicking the "Split and Animated Gif" link at the right of the screen, then click on the "Browse" button to choose the animated gif you would like to use. Then click on "Split My Gif!" The program will split the animated gifs into separate images, which will then appear on your screen. You can right-click on the specific images you want or download the zip file. Click on "Save As" to save your file to any medium of your choice.
