Hey, let me drunkenly animate your photos in about 25 to 60 days!

hey, stevie d asked me something on facebook about optimizing gifs, and i thought i'd repost my answer here in case A) it's of use to anyone here and/or B) someone wants to suggest other tips for optimizing gifs for file size, or i'm deeply wrong about something, or whatever:

One way to optimize in Photoshop is just to give it an approximate size and let it do it for you. In the upper-right corner of the "Save for Web" box, there's an "Optimize to File Size" option you can choose.

The problem is that PS tends to make gifs look like shit when it auto-optimizes, imo. In my experience it usually knocks down the overall colors a bunch, whereas I usually want to keep as many of the 256 colors as I can.

The best way to optimize it depends on what you're working with. If you're working with design kind of stuff - a few different solid colors, not too many gradients - then you can knock down the overall colors to 32 or so and it won't harm the quality much, and it'll help with the file size a bunch. If you're working with a real life image - like from a movie or something - with lots of different shades and colors, you can't really knock it down beneath 128 colors without sacrificing a lot of quality.

I'm running out of time (headed out the door in a sec), sorry. But I guess my standard tip to drastically reduce file size is to start by bumping up the "Lossy" value to something low, like 5 (out of 100), and then lowering the "Dither" value to something like 90 (out of 100). Adjusting those two values even just a little bit sometimes drops the file size significantly. So where a 0/100 Lossy gif might be 1.5 MB, a 5/100 Lossy gif might be 1.0 MB. but then a 10/100 might be just 950 kb, 15/100 might be 925kb, etc. My point is that for some reason the first few bits of Lossy value that you introduce have a much more significant effect on file size than continuing to add Loss.

So if you need to reduce file size, start by doing just a little Loss, a little dither, and see if that helps. Generally the gif will still look acceptably close to the original full quality version, and sometimes at half the file size. That protip comes with a ton of caveats and doesn't always work, but it commonly does help out so give it a try.

If the file is still too large, try reducing the size of the image just a little. Going from 500x500 to 400x400 makes a huge difference because you're going from an area of 250,000 to 160,000 - a reduction of about 36%.

Finally, of course, think about removing a frame or two, especially if one of those frames uses colors that are really different from the rest of the frames. The more consistent you keep the colors in the frames that are used in the gif, the more efficient the optimization will be.

IMO!

http://25.media.tumblr.com/7b70b7f4f7141e654b862f224296cfdb/tumblr_mumsmchLoJ1qdmmiqo1_500.gifhttp://24.media.tumblr.com/8028b39e8b15b4926bbf968346496bdc/tumblr_mv92i2g6I21qdmmiqo1_500.gif
http://25.media.tumblr.com/87d25711c030f3f714003ef83a3e40fb/tumblr_mvo0kt5KgH1qdmmiqo3_500.gifhttp://24.media.tumblr.com/a6bbbfc92c6cf597f51b166ba8f08447/tumblr_mvo155sJHt1qdmmiqo1_500.gif
http://24.media.tumblr.com/6ecade61d80ff08bcd33299a24b35fc0/tumblr_mvo2voNeIo1qdmmiqo1_400.gifhttp://24.media.tumblr.com/097afacf08796cf06e62a617bdea12e2/tumblr_mvo447ubMu1qdmmiqo1_500.gif

is there a tumblr where u post all your best, trippiest gifs?

weinventyou

but it's basically just this thread
i have no editor, i just post something whenever i finally manage to get off my lazy ass and do something

sweet. i really love this one.
http://24.media.tumblr.com/4c56a1a62cf804c648f99fa796354de9/tumblr_msgypiXdSM1qdmmiqo1_500.gif

thanks!

http://24.media.tumblr.com/fe764be9a1b8243156605349b8b02a02/tumblr_mvo6d580Ko1qdmmiqo1_400.gif

http://cachemonet.com/

banging track

Should we all pitch in and get ZS one of these?

Looks awesome

lol, i love the third one down (the deer shitting out a human) on this page: http://www.giphoscope.com/#!collection/ck0q

http://googlyify.2013.nodeknockout.com/

http://googlyify.s3.amazonaws.com/AQnd5qjz_/render.gif

http://googlyify.s3.amazonaws.com/AEYvPbg8G/render.gif

http://i.imgur.com/i2UaGfV.gif

http://24.media.tumblr.com/d4f64e062816afa8db07d383aaee1360/tumblr_mxjwc6DdKF1qdmmiqo2_400.gif

clean loop

http://31.media.tumblr.com/05bb16f85032fa4faf07e7b2ff82235a/tumblr_mxrquu0YxR1qdmmiqo1_400.gif

(for conferencecall.biz)

http://25.media.tumblr.com/f48be2be687ef1218c9ab42fabc2c7bc/tumblr_myhmtpS4sL1qdmmiqo1_500.gif
http://24.media.tumblr.com/c27f2ff137c36aebbb84f524d8b1ca7c/tumblr_myhkhsmsGZ1qdmmiqo1_500.gif
http://24.media.tumblr.com/9763fcd81eb71ec6dfb5574cf8becb8d/tumblr_myhkxgnWYY1qdmmiqo1_500.gif
http://24.media.tumblr.com/cb23d05aa54de48cf62b45f73363d152/tumblr_mxvi36JswR1qdmmiqo1_500.gif
http://31.media.tumblr.com/8a18ab8cb412f434ee3c8beb4721ae91/tumblr_my7y9fpXs21qdmmiqo1_500.gif

Oh, off-topic, but it reminds me of the greatest youtube video of 2013: Acquiring business

not at all off-topic! the last few are all for conferencecall.biz (a sneak preview is there right now, but the site will go live on Jan 2nd), and at one point i included a slow motion high-five from the stock footage you just linked to as one of the clips to be included. i took it out, though, because i think it's too well known and i want everything that people see on conferencecall.biz to be new. but that's one of the vibes i'm shooting for - sort of surreal people making $140,000 but with impostor syndrome

sorry to toot my own horn but i'm really happy you referenced that. :)

Oh, hah, that sounds great! I recall seeing you looking for advice in the programming thread. Hah, I love how the sounds on the page give it a kind of "Riget" (Trier's "Kingdom Hospital") vibe.

http://25.media.tumblr.com/9033447339fa67f72375ce0b6061b35f/tumblr_myw8jjwbW51qdmmiqo1_500.gif
http://25.media.tumblr.com/7c307d89682c5f8d1047d4ab178ec6c8/tumblr_mz1mdq2DTl1qdmmiqo1_500.gif

i'm shooting for a gif per day in 2014. here's tomorrow's:

https://31.media.tumblr.com/2e075bb25b37e0147dc273547c680238/tumblr_mz25r2x1wL1qdmmiqo2_500.gif

hey karl here is a website with content u may enjoy

http://www.videoblocks.com/

for instance:

http://www.videoblocks.com/videos/details/slow-motion-gargling-milk-closeup/

http://www.videoblocks.com/videos/details/truck-dumping-garbage/

whoa, that's a great resource, thanks! i've been working in stock footage more frequently, but usually just ripping them from youtube videos since most stock footage sites want people to pay for some crazy reason

omg conferencecall.biz is amazing beyond my wildest dreams

yeah that one is a "subscription-based" format, not sure wtf that means but it looks like they have a 7-day free trial

xpost

xpost

nice, looks like i'm going to get to be a featured "gif artist" on giphy.com! unfortunately there are about 71 other gif artists, and they're listed in alphabetic order so i'm going to be near the bottom (weinventyou), but still pretty cool!

http://25.media.tumblr.com/a045c5d462ce88e814426ff4f5a99643/tumblr_n0527cVLI91qdmmiqo1_500.gif

Ooooh, I like that one! Have you done anything with the codex seraphinianus yet?
This one seems ripe for animation:
http://archkiosk.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/76191-codex_seraphinianus.jpg%3Fw%3D640

you know, i keep meaning to do something with it and i haven't yet. maybe tomorrow! (lawyer enters: "25 to 60 days")

wait until you have enough time to do every single page then upload them all at once imo

That's not a bad idea...wonder how many pages there are?

About 400, but many of them are filled with only his made-up script.

Well it would get u on boing boing fer shur

wait until you have enough time to do every single page then upload them all at once sell them on a CD imo

http://gizmodo.com/man-photoshops-technology-into-15th-century-paintings-1495244734

Ha I saw an article about that German apocalypse book y/day and meant to post it to the German thread or somewhere but I like what you've done with it a lot more.

(Voynich manuscript gifs would be relevant to my interests)

(liking the concept of the Scorpion Dagger guy more than the execution but the ones shown do have a pleasingly Gilliamesque vibe)

http://24.media.tumblr.com/53b83ef612c44930b82095c019b8b86f/tumblr_n06sfb7H1p1qdmmiqo1_500.gif
http://25.media.tumblr.com/f4dd571e8515672d317c7dfd2082d17f/tumblr_n0a5sgSqgI1qdmmiqo1_500.gif
http://25.media.tumblr.com/bd8ba534c514f8309c410a85dd395799/tumblr_n0k16bGXuf1qdmmiqo1_400.gif
http://24.media.tumblr.com/89448d6d11f10d931906c94a730a0394/tumblr_n0nbqx0Bvc1qdmmiqo1_500.gif
http://24.media.tumblr.com/a3fc18c45f0332686ad95cd0e0c6ab1c/tumblr_n0otu5a8Ab1qdmmiqo1_500.gif

http://i.imgur.com/k6b41WI.gif

love the 4 walking businessmen

reservoir cogs

couple more:

http://25.media.tumblr.com/e14cf19fd0057243f654a24f17dbdf76/tumblr_n0p86kBfpP1qdmmiqo1_500.gif
http://25.media.tumblr.com/84a0898921af04ddfcf6ec34deca15c2/tumblr_n0v4hpPx5T1qdmmiqo1_500.gif

last one

http://25.media.tumblr.com/b8d672e9b9f2664e243fe910449241c4/tumblr_n0v6l5MlGm1qdmmiqo1_500.gif