ImageMagick gif 101

ImageMagick is a classic image editor with a very popular command line interface. ImageMagick is used in many web applications. It is easily automated and has binding in many languages.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ImageMagick

Basics

In the gif editor, there is a zip export button. Use it to get a zipped folder. In the terminal, navigate to the downloaded path and extract the zip:

unzip images.zip

Now you should have all the images in the folder (image-0000.png, image-0001.png, ...).

To make a gif from the png images:

convert image-*.png anim.gif

For stacked png, on Linux, you can split the result like this:

convert image.png -crop 540x540 +repage image-%04d.png

And then make gifs:

convert image-*.png anim.gif

Dithering

Dithering allows to reduce the image size by reducing the amount of colors:

convert image-*.png +dither -colors 5  anim.gif

Ordered dither produces nice patterns

2x2:

convert -ordered-dither 2x2 image-*.png -colors 5 anim.gif

4x4:

convert -ordered-dither 4x4 image-*.png -colors 5 anim.gif

Layers optimize

Sometimes, imagemagick can optimize the gif when some parts do not move a log:

convert image-*.png -layers optimize anim.gif

You can combine this with color reduction or dithering. Ex:

convert image-*.png -ordered-dither 4x4 -layers optimize -colors 5 anim.gif

Checking the size

The smaller the better load time, so check your gif's size:

du -h anim.gif

Viewing your gif

Gnome (Eye of gnome):

eog anim.gif

XFCE:

ristretto anim.gif

KDE:

# There is surely something, but I don't know it