Gifs export slow no matter the frame rate

[offtotheraces]

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.

[Guest]

The GIF animation settings in Photoshop are only guidelines. Actual playback speed will depend on the distinct hardware/software of each user. Those that choose to create animations with such a fast framerate (0.04 second delay) are often misusing the GIF format when they should really use a video format.

[offtotheraces]

Okay, but I have really good hardware specs and a good internet connection so images download fast, so I have no idea why this happens to me. I keep deleting my Save for Web preferences but nothing changes. I just don't understand why the gif runs in photoshop but when I go to save it, the frame rate makes no difference to the preview in the Save for Web window and what I eventually save. Surely there must be an issue if the Save for Web plugin ignores the framerate I set, no matter what I set it as.

And animations with a fast framerate are very popular on a website called tumblr, where pretty much every user makes gifs of such a rate so while I appreciate that it's not the best use of the GIF format, it's something I'd like to figure out how to do.

[Guest]

offtotheraces wrote:

Okay, but I have really good hardware specs...

That means nothing if the GIF is poorly designed/optimized. GIF is simply not a format that was intended to render great changes between frames.

Would you care to share what you are producing?

[offtotheraces]

Here is what I'm making and how it looks when I save it:

http://i.imgur.com/SF8fz.gif

It's not that slow but it's definitely running at less than normal speed. In photoshop it's set at a 0.04 delay and runs much faster. It has 24 frames and is 965 kb.

For reference, here is another gif that someone else made that is set at a 0.06 delay. It runs much smoother and at a normal speed and has 22 frames. It's 995 kb.

http://i.imgur.com/nErRo.gif

No matter what I used, whether I import a video into photoshop or import screenshots, the preview is slower than it should be. It doesn't matter what video I use or what method.

[offtotheraces]

I don't understand what you mean? I made the first gif - I made screencaps of a video, imported them into photoshop, transformed the layers into a frame animation, set the frame delay, cropped and resized the image and added some adjustments. They are both supposed to loop like that, all I want to know is how to fix my settings so that gifs play at a smooth, normal speed.

It's not converting video, this is a new way of using gifs to make 'animated pictures' of tv shows and movies that's popular on websites such as tumblr and in general. It's very common and not a video conversion method. I just want to know if there is a setting in photoshop that is interfering with my frame delays settings and not letting them save at the intended speed.

[Guest]

If you are opening a video file and saving GIF, you are converting video.

[Personal attacks removed]

If your friends were successful, ask them to tell you how they did it.

[Removed personal, inaccurate insults]

Message was edited by: sinious

[offtotheraces]

I'm not really opening a video, I'm taking screencaps of it to save as a gif but I see your point.

I'm 18 and the point is that this is a very popular way of displaying video. It's not meant to be an actual video, like I said, it's a 'moving picture'. It's like a dynamic picture that you can upload onto image (ie not video) websites and they are all over the internet. If you go here: http://fuckyeahgameofthrones.tumblr.com/ you can see lots of examples of how gifs from videos are used to create art.

And it is a photoshop problem because something in my settings is wrong and not allowing me to save my gifs at the frame rate I want. While I understand that GIFs weren't intended to be used how I want to use them, this is a use for gifs that has evolved recently and is incredibly common. From the examples I have provided, gifs are clearly capable of doing what I am trying to do with them. And again, while technically this method can be called video conversion, that's not what it is seen as. It's seen as a dynamic picture and it's meant to be soundless and small.

And I have, I did exactly the steps they told me to do. There is just something going wrong at the final stage that I can't, nor they can't figure out.

[Mylenium]

Sorry, but you are completely missing Marian's points. This is by no means a Photoshop problem. All you files play smooth as butter on my system - that is 3.5 year old core7i. If they don't on your end, then there's something wrong with your "rendering device" a.k.a. your browser and its drawing refresh. Anyway, as Marian already pointed out, there is no way to enforce anything. The possible playback performance is completely dependent on on how it is interpreted and handled by the browser plus some issues like the number of colors in the palette, which dithering methods are used and even the frame duration may figure in, but again, it's completely out of your control. Sure, there is some problem somewhere in your case, but Photoshop? I think that's unlikely. It's more likely that you have misconfigured your browser or some other stuff is running (browser plug-ins, JavaScript) that eat up all performance and casue refresh delays in teh browser window....

Mylenium

[Guest]

Marian, are you serious? "Abusing the gif format"?

Converting video to gif is extremely popular and has a legitimate use. If you want to display an instantly playing, looping section of a specific piece of video to illustrate a point or to reference a quote from TV or film, I can't think of better format to use.

I think the question "how old are you," would be better asked of yourself. It is no longer wasteful to display 1mb+ animated gifs on webpages thanks to broadband speeds. 10 years ago I would have agreed with you, not now. The use of such animated gifs has exploded over the last few years and I personally think they are a valuble contribution to the Internet. The "history or intent" of any format does not limit it's useage in new and interesting ways, a cursory look at the history of any media will tell you that.

[pwillener]

This topic is almost 1 year old, and Marian is no longer an active member of these forums.

[sinious]

As mentioned, no video is converted here, screen captures are stacked into an animated GIF.

To clear another thing up, each GIF frame is exactly like a keyframe. There is no spatinal compression thus drastic changes between frames are irrelevant. Every single pixel can change and it makes no performance difference.

GIF animations are extremely useful and rampant as avatars for a multitude of uses, mostly in forums and profiles.

"Save for Web" was always a plugin for Photoshop. There is no guarantee if you do not directly export from Photoshop (not use a plugin) that "Photoshop settings" will be maintained. Do not use "Save for Web" and you should get better results. Although both images (after downloaded) play at very fast framerates for me. Update your browser and video card drivers if you aren't seeing the same.

No more personal attacks necessary here.

[theSchtickla]

OK, I'll add to this. I too find photoshop's GIF export framerate pretty crappy. I've been trying to create a loading circle GIF, and the speed from PS just isnt right. And its not a limitation of the GIF format. The best results I have achieved are from Flash, exporting the movie as an aminated GIF. This give amazing speeds and correct framerates. Problem is, you dont get all the good compression settings that you do in PS.

Here is the file exported from photoshop

http://imgur.com/L5ZKjEz,ulZ9ssN#1

Here is the file exported from Flash

http://imgur.com/L5ZKjEz,ulZ9ssN#0

As you can see, you get amazing speed from Flash, but you dont' have good color palette options...

So, I think the issue is with PS, because if Flash can do it, there's no reason PS can't....

[theSchtickla]

OK, I have worked it out!

To get photoshop to deliver much better framerates....

- Select all the frames in the Timeline window

- Right click on a frame image, and select "Do not dispose" from the dropdown.

This has given me much faster results.

[sinious]

Thanks for your extra tips.

I believe the last GIF animation I made was from Fireworks. I don't even know if it still supports that editing mode but you're right that the GIF animation format supports quite a few interval changes. I never examined the actual bytes exported previously but if I told a specific frame to hold for 10 seconds the file size was identical if I did not delay it at all. Essentially that told me the format supports encoding an actual delay per frame rather than the software stacking 10 seconds worth of the same frame (which would increase file size). So you should be able to achieve any frame rate you desire, especially varying rates.

[Lukeh Scotney]

Old post but thought I'd add in that I know exactly what offtotheraces was talking about. I have a brand new Macbook and exporting a timeline with 0.0secs between frame still caused a slow laggy kind of animation and it is no way my specs. Yes crappy computers struggles to render but GIFs don't need a power house to run.

Thanks to the tips from theSchtickla the GIF exported a lot smoother and how I intended it. So just my 2 pence so people know there is an answer in this thread and not a misunderstanding

[G-Dubb]

Anyone still looking into this "speed issue", I have something that helped me.

As theSchtickla said above:

- Select all the frames in the Timeline window

- Right click on a frame image, and select "Do not dispose" from the dropdown.

But also:

- Set the delay to ".03"

I have not idea why this delay renders faster than a delay of "no delay", but it does...and its remarkably faster across whatever viewer or browser I look at it in.

I believe this would have "fixed" any of the issues of the original post in this thread.

[alexandrafarmer]

A very simple looping rotating arrow .GIF set at "No Delay" is fast in photoshop but slow when dropped in Chrome or IE.

I tried "Do not dispose" with a "0.3" delay it in Photoshop CC 2014 and it does not work but 0.03 did.

[sinious]

Just a tid bit here but I want to be clear that "No Delay" does not mean the delay is literally set at 0.00.

Think about it.

A delay of 0.00 means the animation would instantaneously happen, and if in a loop, indefinitely. Almost the equivalent of unleashing an infinite loop in code that just brings that applications process to an inevitable halt (asking you to kill the task). It just makes no practical sense on modern systems.

We learned a very long time ago not to base the speed of things like games on the average performance of computers since there is no way to predict how fast computers will be 10 years from now (Moore's law aside, we're not just scaling anymore).

So to be really clear, when it says "No Delay", there should be some nominal delay in there. It was probably labeled as such instead of 0.00 so people wouldn't even consider setting a 0.00 delay. Again, because it makes no sense.

Always set a delay value above 0.

[rbniland]

You are importing the video frames to layers at an "every 2 frames" level. Just bring it in as every 3 or 4 frames and it will speed up.

[sinious]

While faster, that will lead to less FPS and a jagged animation. You can have it be faster yet retain the FPS which is the best option.

[King Hebes]

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]

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.

[Johanna Lgh]

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

[jlkjdsssg]

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.