Animated GIF Max Size

J
Posted By
jaywalkersunite
Jun 8, 2007
Views
660
Replies
6
Status
Closed
I’m trying to create an animated GIF of 29 photos (through the windshield of a car going down a road).
I have put them into layers in Photoshop Elements 5.0, first on top and last on bottom. They are at an 800×600 resolution.
It tells me that the file is too large to create to animate. Even when it is down to .01% of the resolution, it still is too large.

Does anyone know why?

Is there a better file format to do this in?

I don’t want to download a new piece of software.
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J
Joel
Jun 8, 2007
"Erik H." wrote:

I’m trying to create an animated GIF of 29 photos (through the windshield of a car going down a road).
I have put them into layers in Photoshop Elements 5.0, first on top and last on bottom. They are at an 800×600 resolution.
It tells me that the file is too large to create to animate. Even when it is down to .01% of the resolution, it still is too large.
Does anyone know why?

Is there a better file format to do this in?

I don’t want to download a new piece of software.

I don’t use Element and never created animated GIF using Photoshop to know if there is any limitation. But I was creating lot of animated GIF way back many years ago (8-10 years or so) and I didn’t noticed any limitation (if my memory serves me I think I did few with 20-30+ frames).

I belive Element is telling you that 29 of the 800×600 (especially 256 color GIF) will be a HUGE file (or your system may not have enough disk space to process it). My advice is DO NOT do 29 frames of full 800×600

– You don’t see (or very rare) 800×600 animated GIF (especially 20-30+ frames in 256 colors) because it will be a very large file.

– And if you really want to go for 29 frames of 800×600 then you may not want to have all 29 frames at full 800×600. This is what you need to do.

– Only the 1st frame is a full 800×600 resolution

– All others are smallest as possible, or you only need the animate areas (they can be some pixels). This way you can keep the size little larger than a single 800×600 (single 800×600 is still pretty big).

I am not so sure if Photoshop is capable of doing what I suggest above, or you may need something similar to Ulead GIF Animator (it was one I used years ago). I know several GIF Animators works pretty similar to Ulead GIF Animator, but I am not so sure about Photoshop (or at least the older one I looked at years ago).
K
KatWoman
Jun 8, 2007
"Erik H." wrote in message
I’m trying to create an animated GIF of 29 photos (through the windshield of a car going down a road).
I have put them into layers in Photoshop Elements 5.0, first on top and last on bottom. They are at an 800×600 resolution.
It tells me that the file is too large to create to animate. Even when it is down to .01% of the resolution, it still is too large.
Does anyone know why?

Is there a better file format to do this in?

I don’t want to download a new piece of software.

800×600 isn’t a resolution it is the image size
go to file >>>image size make sure it’s at 72 or 96 resolution and make the image size smaller too
no one makes gifs that huge, they will be unusable on internet and most likely look crappy if you are using photos, due to restrictions of gif formats
N
nomail
Jun 8, 2007
KatWoman wrote:

"Erik H." wrote in message
I’m trying to create an animated GIF of 29 photos (through the windshield of a car going down a road).
I have put them into layers in Photoshop Elements 5.0, first on top and last on bottom. They are at an 800×600 resolution.
It tells me that the file is too large to create to animate. Even when it is down to .01% of the resolution, it still is too large.
Does anyone know why?

Is there a better file format to do this in?

I don’t want to download a new piece of software.

800×600 isn’t a resolution it is the image size
go to file >>>image size make sure it’s at 72 or 96 resolution and make the image size smaller too

No, it won’t make the image size smaller, unless you check the ‘Resample Image’ checkbox and that means you are resizing the image to a smaller size in pixels. Resolution has nothing to do with this, and GIF doesn’t even support resolution. It’s the image size that matters here and clearly 29 images of 600 x 800 pixels means you’ll end up with a huge file size, because you would have 29 frames of 600 x 800 = 480.000 pixels per frame. That’s a file size of more than 13 MB uncompressed! You either have to use much smaller images, or a lot less frames.

—
Johan W. Elzenga johan<<at>>johanfoto.nl Editor / Photographer http://www.johanfoto.com
J
jaywalkersunite
Jun 9, 2007
Perhaps I should clarify exactly what I am attempting:

I had a Intervalometer-equipped digital camera set up in a vehicle shooting out through the windshield. Every minute (for ~20 minutes) it took a photo. The only thing changing in the series of photos is what you can see through the windshield, a little more than half the frame. (I have posted the first pix at:
http://jaywalkersunite.googlepages.com/IMG_2181Medium.JPG/IM G_2181Medium-full.jpg). The way I understand it, an animated GIF only resamples the parts of an image that changes. So really, the actual resolution needed for the GIF is about 800×350 (after the initial pix is loaded).

Even when (in the "save for web" section I have it down to literally less than 10 pixels, it is still too large. The xxx kb @ xx.x kbps is down almost to zero.

Does anyone know the max size that Photoshop elements 5 can handle for animated GIFs?
J
jaywalkersunite
Jun 9, 2007
Perhaps I should clarify exactly what I am attempting:

I had a Intervalometer-equipped digital camera set up in a vehicle shooting out through the windshield. Every minute (for ~20 minutes) it took a photo. The only thing changing in the series of photos is what you can see through the windshield, a little more than half the frame. (I have posted the first pix at:
http://jaywalkersunite.googlepages.com/IMG_2181Medium.JPG/IM G_2181Medium-full.jpg). The way I understand it, an animated GIF only resamples the parts of an image that changes. So really, the actual resolution needed for the GIF is about 800×350 (after the initial pix is loaded).

Even when (in the "save for web" section I have it down to literally less than 10 pixels, it is still too large. The xxx kb @ xx.x kbps is down almost to zero.

Does anyone know the max size that Photoshop elements 5 can handle for animated GIFs?
N
nomail
Jun 9, 2007
Erik H. wrote:

I had a Intervalometer-equipped digital camera set up in a vehicle shooting out through the windshield. Every minute (for ~20 minutes) it took a photo. The only thing changing in the series of photos is what you can see through the windshield, a little more than half the frame. (I have posted the first pix at:
http://jaywalkersunite.googlepages.com/IMG_2181Medium.JPG/IM G_2181Medium-f ull.jpg). The way I understand it, an animated GIF only resamples the parts of an image that changes. So really, the actual resolution needed for the GIF is about 800×350 (after the initial pix is loaded).

That is still 800 x 350 x 29 frames = 8 MB uncompressed. I don’t know what the maximum size is for PE5, but it’s clear you don’t want that kind of file on the internet. Can’t you use a video format?

—
Johan W. Elzenga johan<<at>>johanfoto.nl Editor / Photographer http://www.johanfoto.com

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