How animated GIFs work: palettes, frames and file size

The difference a color palette makes

Moyoutil's GIF encoder creates a palette of up to 256 colors from each frame and maps pixels to their color indices. In scenes with a lot of color variation, such as photos, the colors may appear clumped or the gradation may look stair-like. It does not offer dithering or professional color correction features.

Typical video encoders can also leverage similarities between frames, so a GIF of the same scene may be larger than an MP4 or WebM. GIFs do not have audio tracks. If sound is important or your scene is long and complex, compare ways to share it as a video.

gifenc encoder documentation

Adjusting length, FPS, and pixel size together

If you subtract 5 seconds into 10 frames per second, that's about 50 frames. Increasing the FPS captures more movement, but also increases the number of frames and the amount of work required. Because GIF latency is recorded in fixed time units, there may be rounding differences between the selected FPS and the actual playback interval.

Moyoutil processes up to 10 seconds and 150 frames, and the long side is up to 640px. Find the screen at each point in the source, encode it sequentially, and set the result to be played repeatedly. The basic order of capacity adjustment is to reduce length, size, and FPS and compare the results. The number of frames visible on screen alone does not provide an accurate estimate of the final file size.

Frequently Asked Questions