Gif Tutorial!

Hiiii,

I know I promised to answer questions in my next post, but I haven't gotten that many responses...:( (I did get one though! And they were good questions! ^^) So I'll answer questions in my next post. (And please make sure to ask, people!)

Anyway, in my last post, I featured some edits I've done, which were mostly gifs. I got a lot of compliments about them from people on Pinterest, and quite a few "how-do-you-do-that's?" as well. So today I'm doing a tutorial!

Keep in mind--I am a total amateur. I wouldn't say I have no idea what I'm doing, but I know very little about the gif realm. I just started getting into making them. And all I really know how to do are little word edits, not actual gifs from like TV shows and stuff. So this is just like a beginner crash course.

Anyway, let's begin!

Step 1: The first thing I do is create the actual images for the gif. I do this using a photo editing site called PicMonkey.

I use the "design" tab and select the square layout.

You don't have to change size of the canvas, but I usually change it to 500x500 (using the resize tool in the sidebar).

Once you've selected what size you want, you can add a custom background (using the "texture" option in the sidebar) and other little effects to the canvas.

Step 2: Now for adding the text. This can be kind of annoying and tiresome, depending on how many words you want to have and what kind of effect you want.

For a gif, in order for it to have a certain effect, you have to save an image for each word you have. For instance, the gif I'm making for this tutorial has ten words, so I'm going to have to save at least ten images for this gif. In each image, I'm going to add another word to the image, and when put together, they'll...well...they'll have the "gif effect" (haha, told you I'm amateur :P).

So the first image will just have one word:

And the second one will have two:

And so on and so forth.

Notice how the words in the second image are askew? I tilt the text in different directions every time I add a new word. In the end, that will give the text a "dancing" effect, like in this gif I made:

Step 3: Once you've added all your text, you can have a little fun.

In the example gif I gave above, I added little hearts around the word "song". You can add cutesy little things to your gif, too. 

In the "overlays" option in the sidebar, you can add hearts, stars, arrows, and other cute stuffies to your image. But make sure, if you want a certain effect, that you add in the overlays one at a time, just like you did with your text.

Step 4: Okay, hard part is over! Now it's time to make the actual gif.

**Make sure you saved all your images from PicMonkey into a folder on your computer, so that they can be all together.

Now, to make the gif itself, I use a website called EzGif. 

I select the "gif maker" tab at the top of the page.

Upload all the images from PicMonkey that you need to use in the gif. I have 13 for mine (agh! :P) but there's a maximum of 50 for the site, so it's fine.

Once you've uploaded the images, you can arrange them in the correct order so the words come in right. You can also speed up or slow down the speed in which the text comes in.

Once you're happy with the speed and appearance of your gif, save it.

***

That's it! You've got your gif! Here's how mine came out:

(This didn't come out exactly as I'd envisioned it, but my gifs never do :P)

I also made another gif a couple of days ago:

(I like this one. It's kind of hipster and Tumblr-like :P)

So let me know what you thought of my tutorial. Was it helpful? Was it descriptive enough? Tell me in the comments! Also, leave me some questions (not just about gifs, but about me in general) so I can answer them in my next post! And if you have any more questions about making gifs, ask those too! :)

☮