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Taylor5CD6
Participant
October 5, 2021
Answered

Exporting a transparent GIF w/ motion blur

  • October 5, 2021
  • 3 replies
  • 4558 views

I need to export a GIF that contains both a transparent b/g, and motion blur. I've created it in After Effects, rendered it using RGB + Alpha channels, exported it as an .mov file, and imported it into Photoshop.

 

The problem occurs when I then try to export the GIF from Photoshop. I select "Save for web (Legacy), and when I play the preview I see the motion blur has been removed. Instead there is a slight green halo around the clock hands as they spin. I also see that the colors have changed slightly. I turned off "Convert to sRGB" which helped a little, but it's still not 100% accurate to the original composition.

 

I cannot locate any settings to fix this, and haven't found a single resource online that addresses this specifically. Please help!

    Correct answer Mylenium

    There's nothing wrong. A GIF can have exactly one of its palette colors tagged as transparent and that's it. Ergo it's impossible to get any kind of motion blur or soft glows to properly translate to transparencies. It's a limitation of the format and has nothing to do with secret switches or tricks. You have to rethink your approach and either forego the blur, include the background with mutiple gradated colors or work your fingers off faking the effect manualyl with custom dithering patterns.

     

    Mylenium

    3 replies

    Dierenwinkel Doc
    Dierenwinkel Doc
    Inspiring
    March 13, 2023

    Just in general a tip, if you export more gif's from after effects try out "Gifgun" its a plugin thats for AE that allows you to export really nice gif's from there so no need to suffer and bring it to photoshop take 5 min to export.

     

    It saved me tons of time and its really cheap! This might seem like a commerical but at my company I recommended it and they bought it instantly xD

    They love it!

     

    Much love,

     

    Dierenwinkel

    ShiveringCactus
    Community Expert
    ShiveringCactusCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    October 6, 2021

    Mylenium is right about GIF files having limited colours to work with, and this will limit what you can do with motion blur. In your screenshot, you've got the GIF limited to 16 colours.  You can go up to 256.

    Does the image need to have a transparent background?  If not, you might be able to get back some blurring.

    I'm also curious about your workflow, this used to the be case AE->Photoshop, but AME now has a animated gif options.  And you might also want to try a service like Giphy with your video file - this takes a lot of the trial and error out of the process. 

    T
    Taylor5CD6Author
    Participant
    October 11, 2021

    @ShiveringCactus yes these do need transparent backgrounds. The motion blur isn't a requirement though, so I'll rework the comps to no longer need that.

    In regards to my workflow, here are the high-level points:

    • I am actually creating these for Giphy. But they are very brand specific, so I have to create them on my own, then add them to Giphy.
    • While AE does offer the Animated GIF export, it will not export a transparent b/g (eyes rolling). Only Photoshop can do that. So basically I create the comp in AE, am forced to render it as a .mov file, then in essence re-export it through Photoshop to retain the transparent b/g. It's stupid, but my only option.
    Mylenium
    MyleniumCorrect answer
    Legend
    October 6, 2021

    There's nothing wrong. A GIF can have exactly one of its palette colors tagged as transparent and that's it. Ergo it's impossible to get any kind of motion blur or soft glows to properly translate to transparencies. It's a limitation of the format and has nothing to do with secret switches or tricks. You have to rethink your approach and either forego the blur, include the background with mutiple gradated colors or work your fingers off faking the effect manualyl with custom dithering patterns.

     

    Mylenium

    T
    Taylor5CD6Author
    Participant
    October 11, 2021

    Thank you for enlightening me @Mylenium, though that is frustrating to know. I'll rework the compositions as that looks to be the simplest solution.  

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