all beyond this ole' man's head but sometime I will give your very detailed process a try.outstanding tut!!!

Wow! Thanks heaps Eric. I will give it a go! Might fry my poor li'l brain but I shall survive!! Jenny

Thanks for this! I have downloaded for further study. I recognize that you have perfected the technique.

Wow...thanks ever so much for sharing... This is incredible...

wowwww, i agree with kenmo, you're incredible!!! ggod day and hugs ;)

A stroke of genius, Eric. I'll bet there'll be a mini-boom of animated GIFs around here soon! Thanks, pal :-)

I hope so Nigel! We would all benefit from that boom!

Mucho Grassy ass, just wot the Doctor (Who) ordered, smashing tuts ahoy...Thanx Eric way kool ! Cheers

Awesome tutorial! I may just have to give this animaiton stuff a try now!

You explain everything very clearly. Sadly I know I would get in a terrible mess. I will leave all this immensly clever stuff to you, and I'll just enjoy your work.

Good stuff, Herr Doktor Professor, and an inventive use of Photoshop and a great tutorial. Corel Photo-Paint is more versatile than Adobe Image-Ready for making .GIFS, and it has a whole suite of "GIF-izing" options including different palettes (Black and White, Greyscale, Optimize, Adaptive, Black Body, Custom, etc.) and many modes of dithering which can be closely controlled in several different ways. With the real sticklers the custom palette is essential, and there are several tricks to using the custom palette which would be too long to go into here. When push comes to shove and you're up against 512, masking and pasting from one frame to another is useful in getting rid of some dancing pixels. But that is also tricky. The every other frame delete is a useful shortcut. The real beauty of the .GIF is being able to time each frame independently of the others. Making thumbs under 15k is also a useful challenge--how many frames can you get in 15k? Another real challenge--using the medium rather than fighting it, which means exploiting artifacts, including knowing beforehand what you can do with this or that palette or dither, and using it as part of your image. I put up the avatar that was recently suppressed because: (1) it was good; and (2) because it had so many frames and a convincing swim stroke in under 15k. Not BECAUSE of nudity. But the moderators and admins, tools of an idiot owner and an idiot view of "art", took care of that. Different images "GIFize" differently--Bryce's colors are hard but other programs are too in different ways. Adding 2D processes is often essential, and is also part of creating and exploiting your medium. The key is that "automated" GIFing works only in a few cases, and everything else must be done by hand and eye, carefully, cunningly, and case by case--a real "art" and a real challenge. .GIFizing other files can take long hours and necessitate several different strategies. And we haven't even mentioned making images in .GIF from the beginning or going back and forth between .GIF and .AVI, for example, using different dithers to optimize results. I don't know the upper limit number of frames for 512--certainly over a hundred even with color, and depending on size as well. If the people who ran this site had any brains, and were truly interested in "art", rather than exploiting artists, they would up the limit on .GIS, but why talk to a wall? As you say, many animations never appear here because however good they are they cannot be .GIFized under 512. Don't you know they are doing "artists" a real favor letting them post their fluffy duffy stuff FREE, hoho. Onward to other realms, Doctor. Secret handshake and all that.....

Thank you Very much for sharing this!!...What a very imformative tutorial. I'm saving this lesson to my photo's to study when I get some time...but then I read under "what you will need"..#4 (patience and imagination)..I fear I may be underqualified, haha

Splendid lesson my dear Professor! You are SO right (On all counts) the pixel by pixel method I hear you describe is one I am very familiar with! Back in the days when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, and the web was just some university project, some of us made a living making 8-bit and even 4-bit icons, at 32 X 32 pixels!! One pixel at a time...and indeed, THAT would be the way to maximize your output! But I do not miss those days! I want to run naked and free through the wide landscape of tera-byte hardrives and plasma screens!! AUTO-BATCH!!!!! Opps, sorry, got carried away! ; ) Your swimming avatar is/was a classic! I noticed the thong you added, did the admins miss it? Well of course they did (On many levels). More on this later...

Um.......huh?

I'm going to favorite this just in case I ever have need of it. You da man.

I concur! Maybe someday, rosity will accept png, QT or Flash, and we'll get to see the large, smooth, colorful & sonorous versions of your works. But gifs can look good as you demonstrate.

Thank You, Eric! Now maybe I'll give this a try. Well done!

Thanks for this tutorial --it's great...but I have this one where I take many images, and put a quarter in a slot..and in a few seconds out pops a gif...but maybe one day I'll wise up and follow U LEAD...er UR Lead !

You should write a tutorial book. Very imformative, not that I understand it all...yet! Maybe time to get out the plasticine again. Thanks for the long time it must have taken to write.

thanks Eric, great tut!

Most imformative! :)

Wow.....This is so sweet of you to do!I can imagine how many people you have inspired to try animations because of this...Not that you aren't already inspirational with your wonderful work...but you know what I mean...I hope...LOL.Anyway,a great big thank you for your thoughtfulness.You are such a generous soul...but I knew that already....-M :^) PS My eyes glazed over at tip 3 so I doubt you'll see any animations from me in the near future,lol.(I seem to have ADD when it comes to instructions/manuals of any kind,lol...It has nothing to do with you...You did a great job,here!...Boy,I'm rambling a lot today! Sorry! ;^))

THANK YOU so very much! Some of your Tutorial is over my head right now, but I am saving it for future reference... in case my brain ever catches up with my fervent desire to learn more!

I made some but nother like yours or hopalong. IO going to make some more. I did find some free programs useing google last nite. I got one in my digital image pro9[pichture it]

Whoa - way over my head! But I'm going to try and read it anyway. LOL

Can you make the printing larger? LOL!! Thank you so much....this is so clever to post it this way!!

I'll probably never get to the animation level, but to read about it is still fascinating nonetheless. I never knew about dancing pixels. The tutorial is clear and quite professionally done.

Super Eric, you da man! So nice of you to share your animatic alchemy with us all. It has generated some great discussion as well. My animations are mainly a Photoshop/Image Ready affair, but it is great to learn other ways. THANKS! F

Thanks, I'm sure this will help for the animated icons I sometimes make.

WOW ! I will have to try this if I ever get some time to sit and focus :) Thanks for the tutorial !!~COOL~!!