You can use macromedia flash and export it as a .gif

Well, I guess its adobe flash now.

If you dont have it, there are some other programs but they usually leave watermarks.

I don't understand why people say I can make Animated GIFs with Photoshop, but for me it still saves them as stills.

Anarchemitis:
I don't understand why people say I can make Animated GIFs with Photoshop, but for me it still saves them as stills.

I don't know the earliest version to do that, but I use CS3 Extended to make mine, it treats layers as frame attributes. Export it 'for web and devices' (read: Gif or Png) and it animates it. Mine was made in PS - just two frames, 0.07 second speed and exported.

Mercury, if you want something specific, I can give it a shot in my spare time, just message me your concept.

ContemporaryStudent:

Anarchemitis:
I don't understand why people say I can make Animated GIFs with Photoshop, but for me it still saves them as stills.

I don't know the earliest version to do that, but I use CS3 Extended to make mine, it treats layers as frame attributes. Export it 'for web and devices' (read: Gif or Png) and it animates it. Mine was made in PS - just two frames, 0.07 second speed and exported.

Mercury, if you want something specific, I can give it a shot in my spare time, just message me your concept.

Wait- Export as GIF, or Save as GIF?

Flash, photoshop, imageready, if you want any info on the specifics just say, but it shouldnt be too hard if you have one of those programs already.

My copy of Paint Shop Pro shipped with a plug-in for building animated .gif files... I suspect Photoshop and other image editing suites likely have something similar.

-- Steve

I use Adobe Photoshop as my .gif creator. Such as my current one. It is rather easy, just make multiple layers that you wish to be your separate frames, select them all, and select make into individual frames, or something like that. The you save for web and devices, not export, as exporting makes it into a video file, such as .avi or .mov.

Although, for that .gif to work on this site as your avatar, it must be exactly 75x75, as the reducing for larger images ruins the .gif, and simply will use the first frame of it.

Anarchemitis:

Wait- Export as GIF, or Save as GIF?

'Save for Web and Devices' will bring up another window, offering you further saving options - filetype, preset values, dither, transparency, animation speeds, etc. Apologies for the exporting confusion.

Is there a set time length for gifs? Most are just something spinning, but I've also seen ones upwards of like 15 seconds.

Auron555:
Is there a set time length for gifs? Most are just something spinning, but I've also seen ones upwards of like 15 seconds.

If I'm not mistaken, the only thing limiting the length of a Gif would be the size of the file. That and how sluggish it would run.

MercurySteam:
ContemporaryStudent: how did u get your .gif of ZP? How did you get the images?

Sorry I took so long to respond. I printscreened one frame of the gunwank anim in the CoD4 Review, and cropped the image to 75x75. Then lengthened the gun barrel, redrew the hands. After I just change the position of the hands, per frame. I thought it would be better to recreate the animation sequence rather than rip it directly from the video, for (a) quality's sake, and (b) functionality.

I personally use Photoshop Image Ready CS2, and with it I can make my own =)

btw, you can still download Microsoft GIF Animator. It's old but it's free, and it doesn't leave a watermark. Just in case anyone's still interested.

there's a site that lets you do it, let me find it...

here it is, it let's you use ten images to make the gif, not sure how good it is, never used it myself. http://gickr.com/