On Making GIFs and Scripting

[sashimitales]

What this is not: a tutorial on how to make GIFs, a tutorial on how to make GIFs pretty

What this is: something that might make your GIF-making process a little smoother

Written for: Photoshop, people with previous GIF-ing experience, people who have little to no programming experience, and people who don't mind reading text-heavy monologues

Warning

Comments

[whiskyinmind]

This is fantastic! Been using actions for ages but didn't think about scripting before now. Thanks for posting this!

[sashimitales]

Thanks! I'm glad it helped. :D

[hayate_kun]

Geez, this look complicated.. O___O

but,i'll try it later!

Thanks for the tips! :)

[sashimitales]

Well, bulk of it is really just the WHY and the HOW of the script. If you get past that, the script itself is already there for you to take and do with whatever you wish. :D

Good luck!

[gothrockrulz]

Oh. Em. Gee. I think you may just be a lifesaver. Thank you for this tut! I'd almost given up GIF-making simply because it's so tiresome to tweak each layer individually. :D

Question: will the script work with other graphic programs, like Paint Shop Pro or GIMP? I'm more familiar with those programs.

[sashimitales]

I agree-it's so mindlessly boring to tweak each layer.

Re. portability of script to GIMP or PSP: Sorry, afraid not. GIMP scripts use a language called Scheme, and PSP (as far as my Googling tells me) uses Python. :\ Between the two, documentation for GIMP seems to be really sketchy, whereas Corel has a relatively detailed documentation here if you're up to it. I would help as Python's a favorite language of mine but I don't have PSP.

[gothrockrulz]

Okay, thank you. I didn't realize Corel used Python--good to know. I plan to become better acquainted with Photoshop (eventually), so I'm sure I'll use your tutorial in future. :)

[anivad]

:D
I knew about Actions, but I'd completely forgotten about them in the context of gifmaking. >_> and I'd never dared touch scripting before, despite sort of being a programmer.
So thanks for this!

[sashimitales]

Heh, I guess I was just so desperate to not keep on repeating the same tweaks on a layer over and over again that I discovered Actions and scripts. Before making GIFs, I knew about Actions but I was all, "Meh, who needs 'em." LOL.

Anyway, always glad to be of some help! Thanks for reading. :D

[thalassa_ipx]

OMG!!! Thank you so much for this specially the script part.

[sashimitales]

No problem! :) The script template is something I see floating around in Tumblr, but no one has really taken the time to explain how it works.