Problem with GIF making :(

[gwacha]

Hey! I had this problem some time ago and hoped it would go away when I tried again next, but my GIFs are turning out really really grainy. I understand that GIFs aren't really a go to in the first place - but they were fine just some time ago and randomly started becoming barely legible. Before the question of "what did you change," I'll answer that right now and say nothing. At least I think I didn't, because I didn't touch my render settings other than my looping in the GIF exportation tab.

Here are some photos.

Here is screenshot of the original video.

Now in Photoshop, my current "save for web" tab looks like this.

But when I hit preview or rendered it, it all becomes super grainy and looks like this.

I noticed the icon stayed the same, for some reason. Also, a reminder - it wasn't always like this, and it wasn't gradual or slow! I had rendered this video a few times before and they all came out really nice, they just suddenly started turning out like that. Any help or advice would be appreciated ❤️

I've also changed around all the settings, some of them looked worse than before but none of them came even close to the quality I was getting before.

Thanks!

[Derek Cross]

Why have you chosen this format?

[gwacha]

What do you mean?

[Derek Cross]

There are a number of formats available – why did you choose GIF – it has some useful features but unless you have a specific need it's not the best format for artwork.

[gwacha]

Ah sorry I should've specified. I do need it in gif format (for a certain type of forums) - and I really want to use photoshop for it as it gets higher quality and more customization than online gif makers. I also am using the slice tool

[Derek Cross]

Will the forum not allow JPGs?

[gwacha]

They do. What I’m trying to upload is animated

[Derek Cross]

So you are using the Photoshop Timeline to create your Animated GIF; right?

[gwacha]

Well I’m way more expierenced in AE, so I make it in AE, export it as a.mov, then put it into photoshop to render as a gif

[headTrix Training]

If you want it to be animated that YES it has to be a GIF or PNG sequence. However GIF is an 8 bit format, which means the MAXIMUM colors is 256. I see your setting is at 64 colors, setting it to 256 is the best you can do. The GIF reduces file size by reducing the amount of colors in its color palette making it smaller in file size so that it can load quickly on the web.

If there are certain colors that you MUST have you can lock in colors in the color palette by either choosing them on the actual image with the dropper or by selecting the color in the color swatch. Its not going to magically make your image look great, but at least it can help maintaining the colors that are important, like a logo for example, or the color of your character, etc.

Hope this helps!

Cheers!
mark

[WILDCAT54]

GIF images are primarily used for animated images.

You should be saving in JPG format or PNG

[c.pfaffenbichler]

The screenshot seems to indicate the OP is exporting an animation indeed.

[gwacha]

Lol it’s animated.

[c.pfaffenbichler]

Why only 64 Colors?

Why »No Dither«?

[gwacha]

I've tried putting it to 256 colors. It still looks really grainy. It looks higher quality, but still not even close to what was being produced before and like 6x the file size

I've also tried all the options other than "No Dither." This is what I remember I was doing at the beginning so that's why I set it as that, hoping to replicate what I was getting before. In fact they all look the same which is worrying

[c.pfaffenbichler]

I've also tried all the options other than "No Dither."

If »Diffusion« and »No Dither« produce the same results:

What have you done for trouble-shooting so far?

Restoring Preferences after making sure all customized presets like Actions, Patterns, Brushes etc. have been saved might be a good starting point:

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/basic-trouble-shooting-steps.html