What is GIF format

GIF – General Description

GIF, full name as Graphics Interchange Format, is an image file format commonly used on the web. This picture format was firstly released in 1987 by a software developer Steve Wilhite. In the past 20+ years, the GIF trend has seldom known and used until today we can find GIF almost everywhere, for example, as a new way to express emotions, plays a very important role in telling stories and displays more content as video ads can do. There is no doubt that GIF images and social media have become a couple indeed.

Why the animated GIF become hot on the web today?

There are three basic reasons that can explain it. The combination between pictures and videos makes images incredibly appealing. Regular images in JPG and PNG format always show static content which we can quickly get the point and move to another one. But the GIF shows something different. It adds a mini video with no sound in a picture that can be watched for seconds from start to end automatically. Besides, a GIF file takes a specific technique to reduce the file size without discarding the visual quality. Flash formats make videos far smaller in size than that of videos in ordinary formats. This is a universally acknowledged fact. And GIF format makes video content contained in an image true. With regards to news that does not need audio, animated photos are more favored. And its wide support and portability makes it easily spreads and transfers on the web.

Filename extension: .gif

Category: lossless bitmap image format

Standard: 87a and 89a (developed in 1987 and 1989 respectively)

Developer: CompuServe

What can you use GIF pictures for?

• Makes your conversion or communication with friends in social networks lifelike.
• Creates animated instruction or demonstration instead of a textual aid.
• Presents auto-play ads of your products on the web without embedded Google ads.
• Makes your hilarious emojis with filmed humorous videos or funny clips from movies.
• Enhance illustration of your product release to help customers see things in a better way.
• Frees up disk space for storing other important files in a device.

What are differences between JPG, PNG and GIF?

There are a great number of image types around. When we google some beautiful images, they are mostly likely to be JPG or PNG types. GIF format has not been as popular as JPG and PNG before. But as many social networks add supports to GIF and its own proprieties over other static images, GIF is becoming increasingly popular. Considering some of us may be confused with these three image types, we can get a little hint from below comparison.

JPG: JPG has become the de facto standard image of the internet. Photographers use it as the standard for taking photos. It uses lossy compression method for digital images. You’ll find there is a noticeable loss of quality when you zoom in on a JPG image. This is because it compresses image data by reducing sections image to blocks of pixels. And unfortunately once the original image information is lost, it cannot be restored.

PNG: PNG is a lossless image format. The compression method doesn’t degrade the quality of the image. A PNG image will always looks as sharp as the original one even you enlarge the image. Also, PNG format supports the best capacity for transparency in browser, which JPG and GIF doesn’t possess.

GIF: GIF format is not an ideal choice for modern photography and image storage, though it also uses lossless data compression technique to reduce size. When a GIF image is at a small size with very limited color tables, it is smaller than that of a JPG image. But when it is at an ordinary size, JPG can create a smaller image. GIF supports transparency and animation.

How can we create GIF images?

i

Make GIF from video – Comedy movies bring us a lot of fun and laughter. Funny animated GIF emoticons can also help us get a lot of joy. They are short and express different emotions with varied expressions and actions. Sometimes they are exaggerated and sometimes hilarious. When you use them in your conversation, you friends and you can have a relaxed chat atmosphere.

ii

Convert MOV to GIF – I should say if you are on a mac, the choices are far fewer than on a PC to create a GIF file. Mac is a closed system. The most supported video format is MOV. Creating GIF images from MOV movies is a method to try.

iii

Convert MP4 to GIF – MP4 is the most widely-used file format for encoding movies. Online and desktop applications that support you to create GIF pictures from MP4 are diverse if you spend time digging them out from the internet. Top applications are listed in this post that you can refer to.