Make a GIF from Images

How to make a GIF from images

1. Drop your images on the frame above, choose several at once, or paste one with Ctrl+V (Cmd+V on a Mac). JPG, PNG, WebP and GIF all work. A GIF counts as its first frame.
2. Put them in order. Drag a picture to a new spot, or use the arrows under it. On a phone, drag by the dotted grip so the page still scrolls normally.
3. Set the timing. Every frame changes all of them at once; the box under each picture changes just that one.
4. Pick the size and how photos fill it, then watch the live preview. It plays your sequence with the real timings.
5. Press Make GIF, then Download, or Share on your phone.

Frame timing

Each picture gets its own duration in seconds. The default is half a second, which reads as a lively slideshow. For photos people actually need to look at (a product from four sides, a room before and after), give each one 1 to 2 seconds. For drawn animation frames, go the other way: 0.1 s per frame is 10 frames per second, and 0.08 s gets you close to 12.

A GIF stores timing in hundredths of a second, so we round to the nearest 0.01 s. And we never go below 0.02 s. Browsers show a frame set to 0.01 s or 0 for a full tenth of a second, so asking for “faster” would make your GIF slower.

One trick that costs nothing: hold the last frame longer. A sequence that pauses for 2 seconds on the final picture before looping feels finished instead of frantic.

Fit or fill

Photos rarely share one shape. A phone takes 3:4 portraits and 4:3 landscapes, a screenshot is something else again, and the GIF needs one size for all of them.

Size sets that frame. First keeps the shape of your first picture, which is right when all your photos came from the same camera. The fixed shapes (1:1, 16:9, 9:16, 4:5) suit the place you’re posting: square for chats, 9:16 for stories, 4:5 for a feed post.

Contain fits each whole picture inside the frame and fills the gaps with the background color. Nothing gets cut off, but a portrait photo in a landscape frame gets bars on both sides. Cover fills the frame completely and trims what sticks out, centered. Nothing else changes, so a face near the top of a tall photo can lose its forehead in a wide frame. Look at the preview before you press Make GIF.

Width is the other dial. 480 px is plenty for chat and social posts. Go to 320 px for long sequences, since every pixel of every frame ends up in the file. With First as the size, a small picture is never blown up past its own width, so pixel-art frames keep their sharp edges.

Examples

Sprite frames