Whats the best way to keep the KBs down while making a gif?
I'm only getting about eight pictures out of 512 kb
Thanks.

limit how many things move in your layers.
also try to keep the colors down when possible.
I try to get all layers used done first then build the animation.
Flatten any filters like drop shadows or glows into the layer before animation.

People will tell you to flatten the entire image for each frame, I've noticed that eats up KB's a lot of times especially on very colorful images. I just flatten what wont move, and use layers turned off and on for each frame that I want to animate. and move that layer around when ever possible.

Try to avoid large pictures where most of it isn't even in frame. Unless you're using it for your background. Even then it's going to take up KB's.

BUT its basically trial and error for me. I don't have a real 'secret'... but I've noticed the above holds true in being able to successfully animate under 512kb.

my latest gif (for a future contest) was 46 frames and 464kb with no loss in detail. Used a static background with the subject moving around the frame.

my last gif (already past) the Journey (the fish one)
http://photoshopcontest.com/view-entry/172956/the-journey-gif.html
that was 26 frames and was exactly 512kb with lots of loss. I had a lot of layers and a huge background that moved from left to right through most of those 26 frames though.

Secret Squirrel was the same
http://photoshopcontest.com/view-entry/164752/secretsquirrelgif-sc.html
came in at 22 frames and roughly 436kb


I've left the PSD in both authors notes if you're interested.

Reduce your image size.

best way is to use Image Ready instead of GIMP and manually optimize the gif.If that is not possible like it said in those links I sent you minimize the colours,no dither and reduce the no. of frames and the size of the image but put it on 550 x 413 white b/g to maintain it within the gif size limits permitted here.Also when working with layers use one background layer on the bottom and each layer above as weightless as possible ie. don't include the b/g on each layer (use transparent layers) & only put the part of the image to be animated on each successive layer above the bottom b/g.

I used to use image ready.

now I use PS CS3 for all the animation.

I´m still using CS2.I' ve got CS5 but haven't installed it yet.I´m right on the limit with the system requirements.I've got a 6 year old pentium 4 (with just as old graphics card) still and although I've got enough RAM, and lots of Gb of HDD I'm afraid my ol' pc wont be up to par and it might start crashing on me.I do believe it is time for a new top of the line Dual Core.

I hear ya on the computer front Luis.

At home I have an old Dell PC with the original Pentium Processor. The thing is like 10 years old. It has enough ram (1GB) to run PS CS... BUT my computer is so old it takes it forever to run. When I do use PS on occasion, it either crashes/freezes or I get frustrated with the wait time when smudging or burn/dodging. Just not worth the effort.

I guess I'm just spoiled that I can Photoshop at work.
my work computer is a MAC G5 2.5 GHz PowerPC
with 3GB SSR SDRAM inside. It's kinda old (4-5 years) but it still runs really fast.

For the longest time I'd use Image Ready for all animation after building all layers in PS, but when I upgraded to PS CS3 I learned the animate part of the software. Much easier IMPO. Still can Save for web and do all the adjustments to get you under PSC KB's limits just like in IR.

Now GIMP, I've never used that program. If that's what the crazy man is using, I don't know how much help any of us are gonna be...

As I understand it, successive gif frames are created by XORing the difference from the previous layer. So if there are a lot of fuzzy edges or partially transparent areas in your objects, the differences between layers will be much bigger. Use sharp edges whenever possible.

BTW, I was surprised, reading Shaman's recipe, how little of that applies to PS Elements: every layer of a PSE psd becomes a frame when converted to a gif, so the non-moving parts (backgrounds) have to be duped and flattened into every layer. Poor me!

What's a GIF?

OK Brad let me enlighten you!
http://www.sylloge.com/5k/entries/87/1.htm

Seriously though this flag approach is intereseting and says a lot about how to keep the gif weight down.Oh and Doug here it explains why sharp edges weigh less than blurred ones...To quote from the link:

So that's how GIFs optimise -- they abbreviate any horizontal stretches of the same colour.

Of course, the fewer colours the better too (a better description of GIF encoding would also include a list like ("colour1=RED, colour2=BLUE") but this abbreviation method tells you that the flatter the colours, and particularly the longer the stretches of horizontal colour, the smaller the GIF will be.

This means that:

* Blurs
* Blends
* Dithering (when it's not a flat colour, but a spotty mix of colours)
* Anti-aliasing (the slight blurring added to curves or diagonals to soften the jaggedness)

all diminish the ability of the GIF to abbreviate, because they all mean short, alternating, or frequently-changing rows of colour.

And this I found interesting and has a few links to further understanding how gifs work:
http://www.botos.com/anigif.html

As well as a neat little gif editing program you can download the "GIF Construction Set utility": http://www.mindworkshop.com/gifcon.html

thanks for those links! I never knew that

in PS once you've saved it as a gif, and if you were to bring it into say Image Ready... each frame would then be a flattened layer.
You must remember to save your psd. Or you'll never be able to go back and tweak your image. Because each frame is now flattened. Kinda the same Doug but its not flattened first, just after you're done.

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I thought thats what you get when you played a country song backwards?!?

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