GIF Animator 5.0

Other products by Ulead

Product Details

Product Manual [2.05mb PDF]

• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B00005JYBZ
• Item model number: A38-450-111
• Date first available at Amazon.com: May 10, 2002
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #10,790 in Software (See Bestsellers in Software)

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  Software > Graphics > Animation

• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Amazon.com Review

Animated GIFs are the best way to catch someone's eye on the Web without slowing your page down to a crawl. Ulead's GIF Animator is a great tool to create these attention-grabbing designs.

While you can make an animated GIF using almost any graphics program, the features you need are often hidden away in a full image editing package. Because GIF Animator is designed just for working with animations, the tools are easy to find and use. The interface is easy to work, as it provides a filmstrip view of all the frames in your animation. You'll also see a list of all the objects across all the frames, so you can work across multiple frames, overlaying one object on another. From the main window, you can edit the images, produce intermediate frames automatically by tweening from one image to another, optimize the color palette to make the file smaller, and preview the final animation.

A simple set of editing tools lets you paint, erase, and add text. Excellent integration with programs like PhotoImpact, Photoshop, and Paint Shop Pro means you can work with layers in an image as objects inside GIF Animator, or update your images in another package and automatically see the changes in GIF Animator. There's a set of special effects and transitions, but you can also use Photoshop plug-ins and filters. You can work with video files as well as still images, and import and export a range of formats including Flash.

This is the latest version of a classic utility that's packed with features but still easy to use. If you need images that move, make them in GIF Animator. --Mary Branscombe

Amazon.com Product Description

Ulead GIF Animator 5 is the latest version of the popular tool for creating GIF animations for the Web. Version 5 cuts production time in half with simple drag-and-drop object-based editing, roundtrip auto-updating from external image editors, and tweening features. Banner text is even easier to make with more than 12 built-in movement effects that you can combine with special effects such as gradient and glow. Enhanced optimization and color palette management delivers the smallest file sizes. Output to video, standalone EXE, or Flash (SWF) formats makes it one of the most versatile animation tools.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's better than ever, October 1, 2001

By	Mark Turell (Santa Monica) - See all my reviews

I got GIF Animator 5 as an upgrade to version 4. Wow, what an improvement, Ulead! I love the fact that you can animate objects within the program and not have to toggle back and forth with my image editor. Plus, the way it links with my image editor is awesome. Thanks, Ulead, for adding true color palettes so I can get my files down to very managable sizes. I am going to put aside Image Ready for now and have a hey day with this one.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good! but must buy Add-in for transition and filter effects, January 21, 2004

By A Customer

I am not a pro at all. I just wanted to play around a build my own animated emoticons/smileys.
This product is good, but if you want transition and filering effects (i.e. effects on your animations, instead of just a looping sequence of pictures) you have to buy an Add-in software called "F/X for GIF Animator" by the same firm Unlead.

12 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars NEVER MIND the file size...., September 18, 2001

By	Evalind M. Krammer "michele" (Colorado, the new Silicon Valley) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Over and over again I tried to slice the file size of finished animation - to no avail.
Yes - if you only used a postage stamp size image you might get by with being able to use it on your website with a halfway decent loading time.
We tried to use the gif animator in our gallery on several occasions - guranted, with high quality images of max filesize 12kb each (can't go any lower if anyone is to see any quality at all) and the finished, so called improved file size still was larger than any website page can carry - unless you want to wait for the 30-45 seconds for that single instance to load - no one does, not even at the best websites. So, we have another 'wonderful' program dusting away on our shelves.