Ok, so I was trying to find a decent way to create gif files to upload some moving pics, but it is proving to be more difficult than I had anticipated. I do traditional animation which means I use a lot of paper and a low amount of tech. I need a gif creator that allows me to import my own pics without slapping a huge watermark across the center. Are there any decent free programs out there or am I gonna have to invest in something like FlipBook Lite 6?

sournote said:
Ok, so I was trying to find a decent way to create gif files to upload some moving pics, but it is proving to be more difficult than I had anticipated. I do traditional animation which means I use a lot of paper and a low amount of tech. I need a gif creator that allows me to import my own pics without slapping a huge watermark across the center. Are there any decent free programs out there or am I gonna have to invest in something like FlipBook Lite 6?

For simple animations I use Greenfish Icon Editor Pro (it's free), supports large images (but gets kinda slow when loading them). You'll have to scan/photograph your drawings, though, and import them there, set frame durations, etc. It's a bit of work but gets it done :)

I've also heard that the GIMP does that, but I have no experience with it.

i use this
http://www.ezimba.com/index-ln.html
there is few restrictions: you have limited frame amount and you cant use too big images but its perfect for simple short animations. just hit the "click to load image" button to upload the first frame and then just choose the frame animation option and upload rest of the frames. you can choose the speed and loop amount.

I use Animation Shop included with Paint Shop Pro(Before they were bought by Adobe)

I use Windows Movie Maker and the go to a GIF making website

If you just want to string together a series of same-size frames, displaying each frame for the same duration, you can do that with (GIMP and GIMP-GAP), which amounts to a video editor. When you are ready to export, you use 'frames to image', and export the image it generates using the standard GIMP export dialog.

Or if you are comfortable with the commandline, get familiar with gifsicle . It can be very very simple, eg

gifsicle a.gif b.gif c.gif d.gif > anim.gif

to string 4 frames into an animation. The only caveat is that the input files must already be GIFs.

EDIT: why are spaces being stripped out after commas in my post? why was this fixed when I added this message? Very weird

furballs_dc said:
I use Animation Shop included with Paint Shop Pro(Before they were bought by Adobe)

That reminds me... Adobe started offering CS2 last year without an online activation requirement. Should be here, but I can't remember the account I made specifically for this to verify it now. I never installed it either, but I assume it has something useful for the desired animating. It's not supposed to be free, but not exactly piracy either, nor security circumvention for that matter. Here's a random discussion on the particulars.