Creating an animated email holiday card using after effects - file size too large

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
December 18, 2020
2 replies
632 views

Hello!

I have created an animated holiday card in after effects.

I was hoping to export it as a GIF in Media Encoder but the file size is too large no matter what I do - lowered the frame rate - lowered the quality - shortened the video. It would never fit in an email or even an email attachment. When I get it small enough to fit in the email you can't read the words.

I tried saving it as a movie and exporting it as a GIF in photoshop but it won't let me create a GIF that is bigger than 600 px. It just says error if it is too large.

Should I drop the GIF entirely and just make a .mov that the company can link to their website from an email?

Open to any suggestions - I'm at a loss

This topic has been closed for replies.

Kyle Hamrick

Community Expert

Gif is a pretty outdated and inefficient format, but apparently we're just going to keep using it forever. 😐

In addition to the options within Adobe tools (I second Roland's suggestion to try Photoshop), there are some web-based gif exporters like EZGif that can also do a good job of compressing.

That said, a lot of people run into trouble with gifs because they're trying to cram 10 pounds of ... stuff into a (30 year old) 5-pound bag. The format has serious limitations, and there will always be compromises to get it to a usable size for email. If you can't get it crunched far enough, a nice clickable thumbnail that links to a hosted video is probably the alternative you should pitch.

R

rosej54974376Author

Participant

Thank you!

I ended up suggesting just doing the video too. I'm still having issues with the text.

I changed my after effects composition to match the size of youtube and vimeo videos and used media encoder to create a video. The text from after effects is still so pixelated and my client is upset about it. I've tried everything to get it not pixelated from changing the resolution, blurring the text, sharpening it, removing the animation from it, making it bolder and bigger, changing the font - nothing works.

Any suggestions?

Kyle Hamrick

Community Expert

Are you able to post any of these exports, or even your project file? It's hard to make specific suggestions without more context.

Roland Kahlenberg

Legend

Photoshop outputd GIF at HD1080 and possibly higher resolutions too.
Select, File>Export>Save for Web (Legacy)

Let us know if this helps.

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