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offtotheraces
Participant
April 24, 2012
Answered

Gifs export slow no matter the frame rate

  • April 24, 2012
  • 16 replies
  • 197832 views

Hi,

I have Photoshop CS5 Extended, running on Mac OS X Snow Leopard. I use photoshop to make gifs, either from video frames > layers or from importing screenshots into a stack. When I make the gifs, I set the frame delay in the animation panel to whatever I want - mostly 0.04, 0.06 and 0.1 and when I play it, it works exactly how I want it to, running at the speed set.

But when I go to Save for Web and Devices, the preview of the gif is slow and doesn't play at the same rate as what I set. No matter what I do to the frame rate - set it to no delay, convert it to a timeline gif, the gif doesn't run faster in the Save for Web window. When I upload it to a website, again the gif plays at the same slow rate shown in the Save for Web window.

This problem doesn't happen when I import a video to layers and set it to skip every two frames (or more). But even if I make a gif with very few frames (either from importing from a video with no skipping or from importing screenshots), it still runs very slow.

Other friends who make gifs via the same method as I do don't encounter this problem. I even opened a .psd from a friend of a gif with a frame rate of 0.06 and when I went to Save for Web, it still played very slow but for my friend, they managed to export the gif and have it play at the intended speed in their photoshop (also CS5).

So how can I make the change the setting for the frame rate in Save for Web and Devices because I assume it must be an issue within that panel?

Thanks so much.

    Correct answer JDBEC

    Gifs on Photoshop are better quality and way less heavier than those made on After Effect.

    In case people still wonder why their gif is still slow while using photoshop :

    First you are doing it wrong : you are not setting the framerate but you are setting the delay time for each frame.

    You can stil get the result you want but its way more complicated.

    The method since Photoshop cc2015 (at least)

    When you click on Window > Timeline you are working with the "Frame Animation"

    Once you are done with the animation of your gif you must convert it to "Video Timeline" (click on the lower left corner tab, in your Frame Animation window, just next to the loop setting (once, 3 times, forever).

    Then click on the tab to the right corner of the timeline : the timeline setting. Click next on "Set Timeline Frame Rate..."

    Lower the framerate to get your animation faster, and higher is you want is faster.

    Hope it will help.

    16 replies

    D
    darksidegirl
    Participating Frequently
    July 7, 2021

    This doesn't work. Setting the fps in the timeline doesn't change the speed, it just adds or skips frames inbetween but plays at the same speed, smoother or less smooth. When you export it, it looks more stuttering or smoother but looks the same.

      T
      trainofthought
      Participating Frequently
      November 23, 2021

      This exact same thing happened to me. Changing frame rate removes frames for me which is insane. Did you ever find a solution?

      jaloha22
      jaloha22
      Participating Frequently
      December 9, 2020

      Dear lord, this thread was painful to read. Thank you pedants of the world.

      PS-- I found the solution based comments helpful about .03 etc. I also found that if you are on a mac (no matter if it is a beefy juiced up on RAM and specs galore) the gif won't preview in Finder the same as if you open in your browser. It will look slow in the Finder and normal in the browser from my experience for whatever that is worth. 

        quiclee1
        quiclee1
        Participant
        November 21, 2017

        Hi,

        I downloaded one twitter gif and tried to play on photoshop but its not working.

        J
        JDBECCorrect answer
        Participant
        March 18, 2017

        Gifs on Photoshop are better quality and way less heavier than those made on After Effect.

        In case people still wonder why their gif is still slow while using photoshop :

        First you are doing it wrong : you are not setting the framerate but you are setting the delay time for each frame.

        You can stil get the result you want but its way more complicated.

        The method since Photoshop cc2015 (at least)

        When you click on Window > Timeline you are working with the "Frame Animation"

        Once you are done with the animation of your gif you must convert it to "Video Timeline" (click on the lower left corner tab, in your Frame Animation window, just next to the loop setting (once, 3 times, forever).

        Then click on the tab to the right corner of the timeline : the timeline setting. Click next on "Set Timeline Frame Rate..."

        Lower the framerate to get your animation faster, and higher is you want is faster.

        Hope it will help.

          H
          Hristov
          Participant
          April 28, 2017

          JDBEC BIG thank you. Would hug you if you were here !

          V
          VanceMellen
          Participant
          February 9, 2017

          I've been using After Effects to export a video at the size/frame rate CLOSE to what I would animate. For example, I like to export my video at 10 frames per second. I then import the video (converting it into frames in the TIMELINE of PS) as noted above and often only bring in EVERY other frame too upon importing into PS.

          I use EXPORT FOR WEB and tweak those settings quite a lot (using the preview button too). Have to keep these GIFs VERY small for TUMBLR, Twitter, Google+ so the viewer will get in and out quickly. They will be choppy, BUT the will get shared. I try to keep my files under 500 kb. I also find that PS does NOT allow control of the frames (i.e. .02/frame or delay for 4 seconds, etc. ) = just doesn't work/carry over when loaded onto a website. Runs too fast for me often. See my samples here: Mellenhead Productions, Affordable Animations and Digital Videos

          Oh, yes... and one other thing: I have learned to better control playback by making sure that when I export the final .GIF out of PS that I turn on EXPORT IMAGES +HTML. Somehow this embeds the .HTML and allows me to better control the frame rate of my playback, even allowing a long pause of ONE FRAME (i.e. 5 seconds long). Much more power on how fast/slow my .GIF is playing back.

          K
          Kovo0112
          Participant
          November 25, 2016

          I had the same problem so I was experimenting with importing/exporting videos. So I find out that the delay of the frames needs to be same to run the gif smooth and fast

          C
          Corrado Speroni
          Participant
          April 3, 2016

          The correct delay value depends on the original framerate of the video sequence. For example, if the original video framerate is 25 fps, each frame has a delay of 1/25=0.04 sec.

          So 0.04 is the correct setting for the delay in the Photoshop timeline, and the final gif will look exactly as the original video sequence. For a 30fps video, the correct value is 1/30=0.0333.. so 0.03.

          With a value too low, 0.01 or 0, the value is ignored and the final gif will use the standard framerate of 10-12 fps.

            E
            eviltypo
            Participant
            August 3, 2016

            I just want to say this problem has plagued me for a very long time and now, thanks to your response, I finally know what to do. So thanks for that! Hope it helps some others too.

            J
            jlkjdsssg
            Participant
            February 3, 2016

            Messes around with Photoshop as well and setting a value of 0.02 (for every frame i want to play "instant") worked for me - 0.01 didn't and the animation was slowed down again.

            Can't say I investigated this toroughly in different programs browsers etc but for me it worked with the preview of Xnview.

            Johanna Lgh
            Johanna Lgh
            Participant
            December 12, 2015

            Hey offtotheraces

            I have an issue similar to yours but it's not completely the same. My issue is that in the "Save for web..." window gifs indeed play slow (they are very jumpy and unsmooth), but the saved and uploaded versions of the gifs play normally, at the framerate I've set in Photoshop.

            To be able to view my gif the right way before I save it, I click on the 'Preview' option in the bottom left corner of the Save for web screen.

            Hope this helps

            K
            King Hebes
            Participating Frequently
            December 14, 2014

            I'm also experiencing this laggy playback in safari from gifs. I'm on an i7 iMac so my hardware is not an issue. I am trying to make high quality gifs, which I'm realizing now is futile since it only supports 256 colors. I'm very surprised there is not a new animated standard that supports high quality image looping. Ive been working on a large image, 3000x4000 pixels and the file is about 90mb. I think that has something to do with it. I did a 60% size reduction and playback was smoother. Though with the size reduction a delay of 0.1 plays back muuuuuch smoother than a delay of 0.05. The .05 delay is glitchy and not even close to a smooth transition where the .1 is. The problem is I would like it to play faster than a .1 delay. I can try even further size reduction, though it seems to lose even more quality upon reducing size, which is also the opposite of what I would like. The delay and file size play hand in hand here it seems. Why doesn't adobe produce a high quality gif alternative? The future is now, adapt to the people

            sinious
            sinious
            Legend
            December 16, 2014

            You can do what you want but you need to adapt yourself to how things work. If you don't want to use Flash to do what you want which is entirely capable of that, then you can use video (since interactivity clearly isn't a concern here) or HTML5 Canvas. GIF is not a good approach for what you're doing.

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