Tips and Tricks... ... on how to use Gifs!

Intro: (skip this if you are in a rush...)

It's true that these gifs are funny and really cute but some of you may think they are completely useless. Well, I used to think the same� I used to just collect them from the Internet and keep them in some forgotten folder. While building WebPages I understood they could build an interesting design by themselves but, ONLY, if they are correctly used. Here, you'll find those things you might need to consider while building your web page. Also, there are tips on how to use these gifs to personalise E-mails and your stuff (t-shirts, wallets, notebooks, letters and so on).

 

How to make your own gifs:

First you need to know what your gif is going to look like. So draw it on paper thinking of : shape, colour, movement, text and so on.

Then comes the computer work! I usually "draw" the gifs on pixel-based programs such as Photoshop or Corel Draw. I also use these to animate the gif. But there are other programs like Gif Animator and so that make this task easier. That's up to what you like to work with.

Open the program and set the size of the canvas (<--where you draw) in pixels.
Experiment with the dimensions so to see how big you want the gif to be and set the number of frames depending on the moves it's going to have...and start drawing!

To draw you need to zoom in into the canvas. The pixels appear to be very big squares. Use them to draw you gif. Change the colours following the design you did on paper.
Zoom out often to the real size of it (100%) to see exactly what it looks like.

Animated sequence: on another frame or layer draw the little alterations so to create the movement (Use the first layer as a template). If you don't know how to work on another frame use the help files of your program that always works for me :)

Remember to "mask" the background so it doesn't appear when you play the animation or when you publish it on the web.
Save it as a Gif file.
Play the sequence and see what it looks like!

There are lots of things to keep in mind while you draw. I'll add a couple of URL's where these are explained along with some tips.

Gifs on your Web Page: <--Coming Soon!

Gifs to personalise your stuff: <--Coming Soon!

 

Gifs on Your E-mails:

 

Those Cute Little gifs can be used on e-mails. It would be like sending a Greeting card completely personalised! Sometimes you wont have the time to write a loooong mail and some correspondents don't really like that�With a gif (or gifs) you'll add a personal touch that will make you more "present" in that "far-too-short" mail. It might as well cheer up your correspondent on Mondays, bad days or rainy days :).

You can also use them to: show your mood, and on special occasions like Christmas, Birthdays, and so on.

How to:

It doesn't take very long to upload them because their file size is usually very small. You can use them on almost all the mail composers on the web or offline.

Steps: Keep all your gifs in the same folder (so they are easy to find). -->On Programs like Outlook Express: Click on the "Insert" menu. Chose "Picture�" Browse to your Gifs Folder Chose the picture or animated gif you want to add. Press OK -->On mail composers like Yahoo! or Hotmail: Click on "Add/Delete Attachments"(<-- Yahoo!) or "Add/Edit Attachments"(<--Hotmail) Browse to your Gifs Folder Chose the picture or animated gif you want. And Click on "Attach File "

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Take Note of This:

Outlook Express allows you to place the gifs between words and sentences while other mail composers like Yahoo or Hotmail will add them at the end of the page.

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