Images to GIF — Make an Animated GIF From Photos
Build an animated GIF from a handful of images — a before-and-after, a short sequence, a simple demo.
How to use Images to GIF
- Add your imagesSelect several at once. They appear as thumbnails in the order they will play, and you can remove any you don't want.
- Set the speed and sizeFrame delay in milliseconds, and the output width. 300–500 ms per frame reads as a comfortable slideshow.
- Create the GIFEncoding runs in your browser using background workers, then the GIF downloads.
Keeping the file size sane
GIF is an old format and an inefficient one. It stores every frame as a separate image limited to 256 colours, with no video-style compression between frames — so file size grows with both dimensions and frame count, and it grows fast. A 1200-pixel-wide GIF with twenty photographic frames can easily reach several megabytes.
Two settings control almost all of it. Width matters most: halving it cuts the pixel count to a quarter. 320–640 pixels is the practical sweet spot for anything shared in a chat or embedded in a page. Frame count is next — every frame you remove is a whole image's worth of bytes saved.
Mixed sizes are handled
A GIF has one canvas size for every frame, so images of different shapes have to be reconciled. Each frame is scaled to fit and centred on a white background rather than stretched, so a portrait photo among landscapes stays the right shape instead of being squashed.
Where GIF still makes sense
For anything long or detailed, a video file is smaller and looks better. GIF earns its place for short loops that need to play automatically and inline, everywhere, with no player and no controls — which is exactly what a two-second demo or a before-and-after comparison needs.
Questions people ask
How many images can I use?
There is no fixed limit, but every frame adds to the file size. Under about twenty keeps things manageable.
Why is my GIF so large?
GIF has no compression between frames. Reduce the output width first — it has the biggest effect — then remove frames you don't need.
Can I change the order?
You can remove any frame you don't want. Frames play in the order the files were added, so select them in the order you want.