Animated GIFs are very popular among people on web for two reasons – motion and annoyance. If you don’t know what they are, here is a brief overview:

Animated GIFs, also known as images in motion, contain a set of different images (frames) within a single file that are played in a specific sequence or order. The looping or repetition of frames creates an animating view. The looping of Animated GIFs can be controlled by the creator.

GIF animations support version GIF89a which was discovered by CompuServe (the inventor of GIF format) in 1989 and can be exported (saved) with maximum 256 colors.

Some people consider Animated GIFs the annoying and late-loading while some like to put funny GIFs in a lighter environment like a Social Network. I think you can use Animated GIFs for many purposes. Some creative things you can do with them are:

  • Creating ad banners for your business websites or blogs
  • Making a short animated tutorial
  • Making a mini presentation
  • Creating a short product demonstration highlighting different products
  • Creating greetings and e-cards for near and dears by yourself
  • Making funny avatars and images
Do you know that Google Plus supports posting animated GIFs?
Creating Animated GIFs on your own

There are millions of free animated GIFs available on web to use for fun, but if you’re wondering around how to make animated GIFs on your own, the easiest and very common option available is some cool online services that enable you to upload different images (frames) from your disk and grab an animated GIF as the product. The recommended services to create GIF animations are:

Basic GIF Animation

Above mentioned services work on similar approach – you need to upload your images, change the order, width and speed of animation accordingly and grab the GIF. iMator also provides enhanced styling options like background-color, border and smoothness for frames.

You can show more creativity in your GIFs Animations using Software applications like GIMP and Adobe ImageReady as these programs provides you a full editing environment with more tools.