This tutorial shows how to create a basic gif animation. An animation is just a series of still pictures played back at a controlled rate, just like a movie.Each image is shown for a period of time that you control. All images in the animation must have a name when they are loaded in Gif Animator. The one to the right I made in about 1/2 hour last spring. It consists of 11 images, and I repeated the last two images a total of three times in order to get the flashing effect.

We're going to animate the stills we created for the Northern lights. Open Ulead's Gif Animator 4 and select the Animation Wizard. Click the ADD IMAGE button and browse to the folder where you saved your images.

The above images in order are snoman1,2,3,and 4.

The above images in order are snoman5,6,and 7.

I always click on the images in reverse order, (highest number first) because then the program will display them in correct order (no longer necessary with GA5 and above, so be sure to upgrade). After you have highlighted all the frames, click on OPEN. When all of the frames have been selected, click the Next button. On the next screen, leave source type as Text Oriented - click Next. Leave the delay time on default for now. You may change it later if you wish.

Now that you've opened all your images, you can click on the preview tab to check the results. If you're happy with the order of the animation, click on optimize. When you're happy with the file size, save it. If not, there is a back arrow that you can use to go back and reoptimize using fewer colors.