How to Make GIFs With Ulead
Online GIF animation sites are great for creating quick GIF animations, but real power comes when you use your own software to build them. Ulead's GIF Animator, now owned by Corel, comes with a set of tools that allow generate professional animated GIFs. Use these tools to add images to the animation, reorder them and even tweak the animation's speed. Ulead GIF Animator has quite a few buttons and tools that may look imposing, but you can customize your own animated GIF in minutes once you know which buttons to click.
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Instructions
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Launch Ulead GIF Animator and click "Animation "Wizard." Type a width value in the "Width" text box and a height value in the "Height" text box. The values you type determine the GIF's width and height in pixels. If you are creating an animated GIF for the Web, consider using smaller dimensions to minimize the file's size.
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Click "OK." The Select Files window opens. Click "Add Image" to view the Open dialog window. This window contains a list of all the folders and files on your hard drive.
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Hold down your "CTRL" key, and click images you wish to add to the animation. Click "Open" when done. The Select Files window opens and displays the names of the files you selected. These file names appear in a vertical list. The first file you selected appears at the top of the list, and the others appear below that file.
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Click and drag the file names to reorder them if you like. The order you choose determines the order they appear in the final GIF animation.
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Click "Next" to view the Frame Duration window. The "Delay Time" text box contains the value "25." This is the default delay between frames in the animation. This value is in hundreds of a second. Change this value if you like, or leave the default value at "25." You can adjust it later if needed.
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Click "Next" to continue, and then click "Finish." Your Animated GIF appears in the center of the screen. The images making up the GIF appear at the bottom of the screen in a horizontal Frames bar. "Play," "Stop," "Rewind" and "Fast Forward" buttons appear below the Frame bar. These allow you to view the video and control its playback.
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Click one of the frames in the Frames bar, hold down your left mouse button and drag the frame to the right or left to reposition it. Use this technique to change the order of the frames as they appear in the animation.
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Click "Save As," and then click "GIF File" to open the "Save As" window. This window shows your hard drive's folders. Double-click the folder where you wish to store the file, and then type a name for the GIF in the "File Name" text box. Click "Save" to save the animated GIF to the selected folder.
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Tips & Warnings
To change the animation's speed, press your "SHIFT" key, and click the first frame on the Frames bar. Move to the last frame in the Frames bar, and click that Frame. Ulead highlights all the frames. Click "Frame," and then click "Frame Properties" to open the Frame Properties window. Type a new value in the "Delay" text box.Click "OK" to apply the changes.
It is a good idea to also save your project as a Ulead * file. This allows you to come back to it later if you like and continue working on it or changing effects and other properties. Save a project by clicking "File," and then clicking "Save." A dialog opens and prompts you to save the file. Type a name for the project in the * text box, then click "Save." Ulead saves it with a file extension ".uga." If you ever see that file in Windows Explorer, double-click it, and Ulead will open the project.
