GIFS!!! - What am I doing wrong?
So, I've got a question for any of you who might happen to make gifs or just know your way around photo editing programs.
I've been playing with three different programs and having very little success. First of all, the timing never looks the same in the preview as it does when I open it. (Side note: I have to open it in my web browser. On my XP computer I could just hit enter and it would play the gif, but on Winodws 7, it just opens a still image and I have to click through it frame-by-frame.) Second of all, the colors are doing all sorts of strange and unwanted things...also different from how it looks when I preview it in each program.
I've tried with Active Pixels, Photoscape, and Gimp. I tend to prefer Active Pixels for adjusting color settings (brightness, contrast, saturation). Although Gimp makes it easier to crop all the frames at once. I actually cropped the frames in Gimp, edited the colors in Active Pixels and then copied those frames to use in all three programs.
Here are the results...
Active Pixels
GIMP
Photoscape
That's how my Gifs come out. The colors get blotchy and pixelated. Not to mention whatever weird things are happening to Naru's tongue.
Meanwhile, other people post amazing things like these...
Why can't I make mine look like those?
Is there a setting or something that needs to be adjusted? Is there a different freeware program that can do it better? Am I going to have to spend money if I want my gifs to look that nice?
What am I doing wrong?
I've been playing with three different programs and having very little success. First of all, the timing never looks the same in the preview as it does when I open it. (Side note: I have to open it in my web browser. On my XP computer I could just hit enter and it would play the gif, but on Winodws 7, it just opens a still image and I have to click through it frame-by-frame.) Second of all, the colors are doing all sorts of strange and unwanted things...also different from how it looks when I preview it in each program.
I've tried with Active Pixels, Photoscape, and Gimp. I tend to prefer Active Pixels for adjusting color settings (brightness, contrast, saturation). Although Gimp makes it easier to crop all the frames at once. I actually cropped the frames in Gimp, edited the colors in Active Pixels and then copied those frames to use in all three programs.
Here are the results...
Active Pixels
GIMP
Photoscape
That's how my Gifs come out. The colors get blotchy and pixelated. Not to mention whatever weird things are happening to Naru's tongue.
Meanwhile, other people post amazing things like these...
Why can't I make mine look like those?
Is there a setting or something that needs to be adjusted? Is there a different freeware program that can do it better? Am I going to have to spend money if I want my gifs to look that nice?
What am I doing wrong?