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After importing your GIF to Photoshop, you can look at the animation frame-by-frame. Remember: The more frames you use in your GIF, the bigger the file size. If taking the layers down to every other frame isn’t enough, Evan noted that having Photoshop only pick up one out of every 4 frames is still a good place to start. This option will take every other frame to create layers, which reduces file size. Optimize your file size by limiting layers to every 2 frames. This is a handy tool, but it can lead to a runaway GIF file size if you aren’t careful. Photoshop will convert your video frames to layers when you select File > Import > Video Frames to Layers. When turning a video into a GIF, import every other frame to a layer A monochrome overlay gives the GIF an on-brand tint and limits the number of different colors the GIF needs to process. Overlay colors to limit the color palette in photographsĪnother way to bring down the file size when you need to use a photo or video is to overlay a single color on the GIF. Instead of the entire image being a GIF, you can significantly decrease the file size by leaving all non-moving sections as images. If there’s no way around using a photograph, then you should isolate the animated portion. Subtle changes in a photograph are more cumbersome to load than multiple animated frames for an illustration that tells a story. Did you spot the subtle movement in this GIF from Marvel? It uses a lot of colors, so the impact on file size is huge.Īnother benefit of simply-colored illustrations is that you can incorporate more movement and animation with a smaller file size footprint. Illustrations will have more solid-color components than a photo or video, which typically makes them less heavy. In the same way that processing more colors in a fade transition increases GIF file size, so too do the complex colors in photographs. Use illustrations over photos when possible This way, you get interesting movement without bogging down the file with more color transitions from a fade. Not a fan of cut transitions? Evan suggests using a “translate” transition, where one frame slides over the previous image. If you choose a fade effect over a simple cut transition, your GIF file is 7.8 times larger. The example below shows how significant the impact of a fade transition is on file size. Fades involve more frames, more colors, and thus come with larger file sizes. If your animation involves transitions, stick to “cuts” over “fades.” Whereas cuts jump right from one visual to the next, fades take their time to deliver the same message. Stick to simpler (AKA faster) transitions Here’s the top ten tips for keeping GIF sizes small: 1. Plus, when it comes to finetuning your GIF in Photoshop and processing it for use in email, there are additional tricks you can utilize to stop your GIFs from becoming too heavy. Once you have an idea for your GIF, there are some design choices you can make to keep sizes in check. Reducing GIF file size starts on the drawing board. Focus on file size optimization throughout the GIF creation process Here at Litmus, we’re trying to keep GIFs under 1 MB to guarantee speedy load times and to not eat up too much of our readers’ data should they open our email on mobile while on the go.

At 5 MB, a subscriber will probably only have to wait a few seconds for images to load. But what’s the maximum file size that’s acceptable for a GIF? Evan advises keeping files under 5 MB. In general, the smaller your GIF is the faster it loads in your emails-and the shorter your load times, the better the experience is for your subscribers. That’s why keeping GIF file sizes small is one of the key challenges email marketers have to master if they want to use the power of animated GIFs in their email campaigns. Both of these can leave subscribers frustrated, which jeopardizes all your hard work and impacts your campaigns’ performance. Large GIFs lead to slow email loading or downloads that eat up a subscriber’s phone data plan. Here’s what we learned from his Litmus Live presentation, “Creating Animations That Delight and Help Subscribers.” Tiny but mighty: Why keeping GIF file sizes low is so crucial So what’s an email marketer to do? Evan Diaz, the Lead Designer at Lucky Red Pixel, has the answers. It’s easy for a GIF file size to grow to bloated, behemoth proportions that interfere with email load times. GIFs are all of these things, and marketers and customers alike love these fun email additions.

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