Before you create a gif, you need to open your input video.
You can do this using Cmd + O, or press the 'Select' button in the 'Input video' box.
You need to specify where your gif starts and where it ends. This can be done using the 'Start' and 'End' buttons in the player controls.
Move to where your selection is in the video, either by playing it or by dragging the progress slider to the correct location in the movie, and click 'Start' to mark the start of your selection, then move along to the end and click 'End'
Your selection will be marked above the progress slider.
To play the selection, click on the 'Play Selection' button and playback will be restricted only to the selected portion until the 'Play Selection' button is clicked again or you drag the progress slider outside the selection.
By default, the gif will auto generate in the preview pane every time you make a change to the settings.
If you wish to turn autorefresh off, you can do this from the preferences window.
You can click on the refresh button at any time to regenerate the preview gif.
Once the gif has been generated, the approximate output file size will be displayed in the lower right
corner.
This is useful if you're uploading to a site which has a size limit on animated gifs.
If you find that the gif is larger in size than what you require, you can choose to
Use cropping to select only the portion of your frame that you wish to focus on.
Clicking the crop button will enable you to select a cropping area on your frame. With cropping enabled, simply click and drag over the video to select the area to be included in the gif.
If the area is set incorrectly, simply click and drag again to select a new area.
Clicking the crop button again will disable cropping
Puppetry provides you the option of configuring various gif settings so that the generated gif can be modified to your liking.
The output size setting allows you to specify the resolution of your gif.
While it is recommended that you use the slider to adjust the output size, you can enter a size directly in the width or height areas as well.
Please note that the final gif generated may be a few pixels smaller than the output size you set.
Similarly the frame rate and speed of the gif file can be modified using the sliders, or by directly entering a value in the text fields.
By default you can speed up the gif by upto six times or slow down the speed by half using the slider.
To slow down the gif to a custom speed you can enter it directly, however in case of slowing down, care needs to be taken to enter the speed properly.
For example, if you need to slow down the video to 1/4th its original speed, enter 0.25 in the speed text field instead of 1/4
Slowing down the gif may modify the frame rate to the maximum possible value and the time taken to generate the preview may take longer.
Lastly, looping settings allow you to specify the number of times the gif will loop.
'Reverse and loop' will reverse your animation after it runs. This may be useful in many cases to ensure that the gif loops smoothly.
Puppetry automatically generates new gifs as per default settings to specify the frame rate, speed and maximum resolution.
If you find yourself modifying the settings often, you may find it useful to modify these defaults in the preferences window as per your liking.
If you would like help with any topic not covered here, feel free to contact us at [email protected]