This is a basic tutorial on how to make gifs in Windows using freeware. (I'm sorry, Mac people! I don't know enough to help you!)

There are things you can do to fine-tune the process; I'm not getting into those here. This is quick 'n dirty and makes heavy use of other people's tutorials, 'cause I'm lazy and they've already put up all the helpful pictures. Hopefully it will be a good starting point for anyone who hasn't done this before!

1. First, you need a video source. Maybe a download, maybe a DVD. (If you're going the DVD route, I've found that the simplest way to grab the section you want is to play the DVD in VLC, then use VLC's record function to grab the clip. You may also be able to find a program that will cap directly from the DVD with no middle steps.)

2. Second, you need a series of caps. I use Avidemux 2.5 (NOT the current version), but there are other programs you can use. (VLC apparently does it, and I know KMPlayer is popular too.)

If capping in Avidemux, what you need to do is load your video (the full movie/episode or the relevant clip if you have that), use the slider to pick your starting point, hit "A" to set it, move the slider to the ending point, and hit "B". Then go to File > Save > Save Selection as JPEG images.

Want more detail? Check out this excellent tutorial on capping with Avidemux.

3. You have caps! In fact, you probably have too many caps. Time to cut 'em back. If you've got under one hundred or so, you can probably use every other cap. If you've got over one hundred, you may want to go down to every third cap. It can sometimes be helpful to experiment with this.

In Windows, the fastest way to select the caps you want is to open the cap folder in Windows Explorer, make sure it's in large icon mode, then adjust the size of the window so that your caps are in two or three columns (depending on if you want every second or third cap). Then use the mouse to select the column you want. (Confused? Check out this YouTube video. You can skip ahead to 1:20 to see the actual technique.) Once you've selected them, copy or cut them and paste them in a new folder. (Or alternately, delete the ones you don't want.)

4. OPTIONAL STEP: If you have graphics software that's capable of batch processing, this is the time to use it. I use PaintShop Pro; I'm sure other programs can do this as well.

What you can do here is experiment a little with one cap to see what makes it look good (curves, layers, colour, etc.), then create a script that captures the steps you want to use. (Remember to merge any layers at the end!) (I think in Photoshop, it's actions rather than scripts, but same idea.)

You can also resize your caps as part of your script, or you can do it in the next step.

Note: When you're playing with colour, remember that gifs have a maximum of 256 colours. We'll index later on, but be aware that lots and lots of subtle colour variations are unlikely to show up well.

After you have a script, go to File > Batch Processing. Select the caps you want to edit (i.e., the caps you selected in step 3), the location you want to send them to, and the script you want to apply. Then sit back and let the software do its thing.

(Alternately, if you're comfortable with a command line interface, you can batch process in GIMP.)

5. Making the actual gif. For this, I use GIMP. To make a gif, open GIMP, then go to File > Open as Layers. Browse to your selected caps, then wait for GIMP to open them all.

Before you make the actual gif, there are a couple of things you may want to do. First, if you didn't resize your caps in step 4, you'll probably want to do so now. To do that, go to Image > Scale Image.

Second, I recommend that you switch to indexed mode as a way of coping with the reduced number of colours in the final gif. (Unless you're planning to make a greyscale gif, in which case you should go to Image > Mode > Greyscale instead.) To switch to indexed mode, go to Image > Mode > Indexed and then pick something from the dithering drop-down menu before you hit okay. You can experiment to see which method you like best.

Everything ready to go? Head to Filers > Animation > Playback to see what your gif will look like. This is useful for looking for things like whether you might need to trim it.

Once you're satisfied, go to File > Export. Pick a name, pick a location, and make sure you change the extension to .gif, and then hit "export." When the options box comes up, check off "As animation." You'll want to loop forever; you can play with the delay between frames. Hit "export" again, and you should have a gif! Congratulations!


Questions? Problems? Know of a better way to do this? Leave a comment!