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['Shippy]

Thanks for the suggestion.

I tried several applications listed in this thread, and found that the Microsoft gif animator listed on p. 3 and 4, is what I needed. I doesn't compress files and dither them horribly like Animation Shop.

It doesn't have all the whistles and bells. But, I can wait and purchase a shareware later if I think I need it.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Questions to anyone who makes animated avatars?

What program do you use?
Does it compress and save the images in good quality?
Do you save as a .gif or other format?

Since I already own Photoshop and its web utility (which makes animations among other things), ImageReady, I use ImageReady. Yes, it compresses images and lets you control what color palatte you use. I believe it's the number of colors that really pushes up the file size, assuming you're keeping it 80x80 - I can get good images from just 25 or 30 colors per frame, I don't need to have the whole 256, but in theory if I had 10 frames that looked very different from one another, I might want 25 different colors per frame, which means the palatte for the whole animation may actually be 250 colors or so - just not 250 in any given frame.

ImageReady also lets you choose different schemes for converting an image for the web, such as "Perceptual," "Selective" or "Adaptive." Even with the definitions from the frikken Photoshop manual, I still don't fully grasp the difference between these schemes. Something to do with how the eye perceives color. I generally just try out all three and see how well I like each result. I usually have a hard time telling any difference at all, but for what it's worth, I generally go with "Perceptual."

And yes, I use .gif for all my animated avatars.

 

['Shippy]

Thank you for the info. I have Photoshop 7 and Image ready at home. I didn't know I could use it to make animated gifs. I'll look for some tutorials at a few sites. If I find some good ones, I'll post links in this thread.

 

[IJD GAF]

I have a couple of things I've been wondering about:

1) I couldn't get those links to work above for Microsoft GIF animator. Anybody have any that work? This has a couple of subquestions:

- Do you have to register?
- Is it just a trial version?
- If you don't register, will it put a wierd symbol in the corner like so:

2) If Microsoft GIF animator does put a wierd symbol on stuff, could somebody recommend a GIF animator that doesn't, is free, and won't expire?

3) My GIF images are always real grainy. Some on this board look quite nice. How do you get a more polished effect?

 

[Technomage]

Posted by Three:

- Do you have to register?
- Is it just a trial version?
- If you don't register, will it put a wierd symbol in the corner like so:

2) If Microsoft GIF animator does put a wierd symbol on stuff, could somebody recommend a GIF animator that doesn't, is free, and won't expire?

3) My GIF images are always real grainy. Some on this board look quite nice. How do you get a more polished effect?

This link should work ok. And these tutorial links, here and here also should work.

As to your questions:

1) No, to all.
2) See answer 1.
3) Hard to say, as you may be doing things differently than everyone else. Try converting .jpg images to .gif before resizing them, if you're using .jpg's for your animation, that is. Also, try a different form of 8-bit conversion when converting .jpg's to .gif format, as you can get better looking results by using one method over another.

 

[cubbie]

I've never converted my .jpg pictures to .gif before I animate. (see my avatar). Free programs such as Microsoft gif animator just don't have enough options to optimize the gif animation like other programs do.

 

[BlazerBoy]

A lot of the links in this thread need fixing, but it would take me a week to get them all fixed, so I plan on sitting down this weekend and going through the whole thread to do so.

 

[Garak]

*Disclaimer: I am a total and utter moron when it comes to computers. Be warned.*

So i found this great pic of Garak, my namesake, after scouring the web. My old avatar got shut down, i got a message from the AutoAdmin telling me. A kind soul really helped me out with that avatar, and i am now looking for another kind soul to take pity on my uselessness.

The pic is here:
http://scifi.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fortunecity.com%2Ftattooine%2Fpratchett%2F87%2Findex.html

Click on "enter" and then "images" and it's the 4th one down on the right hand side, where Garak has the Jem'Hadar eyepiece on. Pretty sharp, eh? So i right clicked on it and did "save target" (thanks to Unicron for that) and now it doesnt come up at all when i click on my desktop, just get a new page with a red x. Am i saving it to the wrong place? What do i do now? Help this poor soul, please!

 

[Technomage]

Try right-clicking on the image, then 'Save picture as'.

That's what I did, and it saved it just fine.

 

[Technomage]

Oh, by the way, I saved it to my 'My Pictures' folder, which is the one that I store most of my images in. (I have others associated with various imaging software on my computer, but that one is the one I use most)

 

[Garak]

Thanks for the advice.
Ok, so i saved it to "My Pictures" now what do i do?

It comes up as BMP and not JPEG, does that matter?

 

[Technomage]

Posted by Garak:

It comes up as BMP and not JPEG, does that matter?

It's a .jpeg image, so it should have saved as such. Did you select the .jpeg extension on the 'Save as type' box, after you clicked 'Save Picture as'?

To use the image you need to upload it onto an image hosting site like Photobucket, and then copy and paste the url the site allocates to your image into your profile on this board.

 

['Shippy]

Another service to save avatars is http://xs.to/ .

I opened an account yesterday when Photobucket went down again. Photobucket is a good service, but my account and the accounts of others have been down a few times during the past 3 weeks.

Here's what I did:

- Near the upload file box is a browse button. I hit is and located my picture.

- Once I located the pic. I clicked on it and hit the open button.

- A new page came up called My Files and it showed the file I saved. Also, there was a user id # on that page. I wrote that down in case my browser looses the cookies which should automatically log me on each time I visit xs.to.

- I clicked on the link to the picture I uploaded. Then I highlighted the link in the address bar and copied and pasted that link into the box (in the my home section of TrekBBS) that asks for an avatar URL.

 

[Garak]

Posted by Technomage:

Posted by Garak:

It comes up as BMP and not JPEG, does that matter?

It's a .jpeg image, so it should have saved as such. Did you select the .jpeg extension on the 'Save as type' box, after you clicked 'Save Picture as'?

To use the image you need to upload it onto an image hosting site like Photobucket, and then copy and paste the url the site allocates to your image into your profile on this board.

SO i got my old avatar up and running, thanks for the help! I checked the "save as type" and it didnt give me the option of a Jpeg, just the Bmp. Is this normal? Sorry for the stupid questions, but you read my disclaimer i am sure.

 

[PointyHairedJedi]

Is it IE you're using? I seem to remember that happened to me sometimes too, though I'm not sure what the cause is.

Do you still get the same problem if you try from here?

Also, if you want an av version, I can make of of those for you too.

 

[Garak]

Thanks for the reply!

It still only gave me the BMP option, no jpeg. But then when i was replying to you i noticed that you had it under the jpeg format so i copy and pasted that into my profile, and it worked. Is that bad or the wrong way to do it? Man do i feel useless.

 

[Technomage]

Posted by Garak:

But then when i was replying to you i noticed that you had it under the jpeg format so i copy and pasted that into my profile, and it worked. Is that bad or the wrong way to do it? Man do i feel useless.

You're using his accounts bandwidth, so you really should put it on an account of your own. Unless he doesn't mind, of course.

He may also delete the image without realising you're using it, so it might pay to save that image to your picture folder.

 

[Garak]

Posted by Technomage:

Posted by Garak:

But then when i was replying to you i noticed that you had it under the jpeg format so i copy and pasted that into my profile, and it worked. Is that bad or the wrong way to do it? Man do i feel useless.

You're using his accounts bandwidth, so you really should put it on an account of your own. Unless he doesn't mind, of course.

He may also delete the image without realising you're using it, so it might pay to save that image to your picture folder.

I kind of figured that, how did he get it to jpeg format then?

 

[PointyHairedJedi]

Posted by Garak:
I kind of figured that, how did he get it to jpeg format then?

Well, that's how it should be saving it anyway, and like I said, I can't remember why it is IE won't allow you to save as anything other than a .bmp sometimes.

By the way, I've no objections to you using the image from my space, but it is generally considered polite to ask beforehand. Just so you know.

A slightly less squashed version, if you want to use it -

 

[Garak]

Posted by PointyHairedJedi:

Posted by Garak:
I kind of figured that, how did he get it to jpeg format then?

Well, that's how it should be saving it anyway, and like I said, I can't remember why it is IE won't allow you to save as anything other than a .bmp sometimes.

By the way, I've no objections to you using the image from my space, but it is generally considered polite to ask beforehand. Just so you know.

A slightly less squashed version, if you want to use it -

Sorry about that PointyHairedJedi , my nettiquete is just as poor as my computer skills, my bad. I tried right clicking on that pic up there and it just gives the the bmp option, again. Frustrating. Soooo......

Would that be alright i used that image from your space? You'd make this Cardassian very happy.