Welcome to gamani GIF Movie Gear and its User Guide. Hopefully, this document will answer any questions you have about using this product to its fullest. Just getting started? You might want to check out the Tutorial. Enjoy!

| Basics Terminology Starting Program Layout Loading Frames Previewing the Animation Saving Managing Frames Selecting a Frame Deleting a Frame Adding Frames Insert Frame Pasting Drag & Drop Insertion Conflicts Sizing Conflict Palette Conflict Reordering Frames Copying Frames to an Image Editor Frame Properties Making Global Changes Picking the Transparency Index Moving and Cropping Frames Rotating Frames Editing Image Pixels LiveEdit Animation Properties Editing Timing Cropping the Animation Resizing the Animation | Setting Preferences 24-Bit Color and Alpha Channels Reducing (Optimizing) File Size File Size Tracking Color (Palette) Reduction Optimization Reducing Frame Count Other Reduction Thoughts Additional Functions Undo/Redo Editing Palettes Unoptimizing Blending with Another Animation Importing Photoshop PSD Files Editing Comments Generating HTML Code Associating GIF Files Saving to Various Formats Changing the View Download Time Copyright, Licensing, Trademarks, Warranty, Etc. Registration Contacting Us Technical Support Feedback Updates

Basics
GIF Movie Gear is a tool for building GIF animations. A GIF animation is nothing more than an ordered list of separate GIF images, much like a slide show, with instructions on how long to delay between images. The original GIF 89a specification was extended by adding the ability to loop, paving the way for animation on the World Wide Web that is simple to build and quick to download. The end result is what looks like a plain old GIF file (i.e. "filename.gif") but actually contains a small animation. An animation is inserted into an HTML page using an <IMG> tag, just like a "normal" GIF.
Terminology
First, some notes on terminology used in this document. A frame is a single image in an animation. An ordinary bitmap image becomes a frame once it is inserted into an animation. An animation refers to the collection of frames, complete with all related timing and color instructions. A GIF animation defines a screen size which is the rectangle in which the animation is visible. Individual frames are clipped to this screen. A frame's delay is the amount of time that the animation pauses after displaying the frame and before displaying the next frame; the delay is the primary method of controlling the flow of the animation. A palette is a collection of colors that is used to define a frame. GIF animations can contain two different kinds of palettes: a global palette that applies to all the frames in an animation and a local palette that controls the colors of a single frame. The GIF format definition limits palettes to 256 colors.

Starting
When GIF Movie Gear starts and following a FIle>Restart, the following dialog-like starting helper is displayed:
Shown are the two most common actions used to start working with GMG: Open File and Insert Frames. Clicking on either button will open the corresponding dialog and is equivalent to choosing the command from the menu or toolbar. Similarly, choosing Tutorial will bring up the tutorial. The helper dialog can be completely ignored: the toolbar and menus are fully accessible, and the main window is ready for drag&drop operations. If this dialog is annoying, it can be made to disappear by going to Edit>Preferences>General and checking the Hide "To Start" dialog checkbox.
Program Layout
Below is a screen shot of GIF Movie Gear displaying the gamanim.gif animation. The sample file is located in the help folder of GIF Movie Gear's installation location.
The window contains four main parts: the menu bar, two toolbars, the animation view, and the status bar. The menu bar contains all of the program's commands. The top toolbar contains a subset of those commands in a quickly accessible format, and the lower toolbar contains "shortcuts" to the frame and animation properties. The status bar displays, well, status information about the animation.
The most interesting area, of course, is the main window area. The animation's frames are displayed as a collection of filmstrips that can be oriented either horizontally or vertically. Each strip is shown as a raised bar with "sprockets" along one side (on the left for vertical strips and on the top for horizontal strips) and contains as many frames as can fit in that direction in the window. Multiple strips are then displayed next to each other and scroll to show more strips (in the above example, if the window was smaller, the strips would scroll horizontally). The frames are ordered starting from the top left of the window, follow along the current strip, and then continue on the next strip. When viewed in a Web browser, the animation displayed above looks like:
GIF Movie Gear's toolbars contain some nonstandard buttons. Holding the mouse cursor over any one of the buttons will display a ToolTip window identifying the function of that button. Below is a brief summary of what the buttons do with links to more information in this document.
The upper toolbar contains buttons for file management, clipboard operations, viewing controls, and global functions. Specifically, from left to right:

| File Open | Open an existing animation or image file.
| Insert Frame | Insert a new frame (or frames) into animation.
| File Save | Save current file; file name is requested if necessary.
| Restart | Start with an empty project/animation.
| Cut | Cut currently selected frame(s).
| Copy | Copy currently selected frame(s).
| Paste | Paste contents of clipboard (clipboard must contain a frame to add to animation).
| Delete | Delete the currently selected frame(s).
| Undo | Undo last action.
| Redo | Redo last undone action.
| Show Animation Preview | Shows animation preview window.
| Stop Animation Preview | Closes animation preview window (if open).
| Edit Timing | Make changes to the animation's timing
| Optimize Animation |
| Unoptimize Animation |
| Zoom In | Increase current zoom; cannot exceed 100%.
| Zoom Out | Decrease current zoom; cannot zoom below 20% magnification.
| View Actual Size | Set zoom to 100%.
| Show/Hide FrameTips | Toggle the viewing of FrameTips.
| Help | Brings up this document.

The lower toolbar contains information and settings for the currently selected frame and for the animation as a whole. From left to right:

| Frame Properties | Displays current frame's property page.
| Frame identifier | Identifies frame by number and by its source file. This is also a dropdown that allows selection of other frames in the animation.
| Delay | In 1/100ths of a second.
| Removal Method | Leave Alone, Restore Background, or Restore Previous
| Toggle Transparency |
| Transparency Index | Pick a transparency index
| Has Local Palette | Uncheck to remove local palette
| Edit Local Palette | (Enabled only when local palette present)
| Has 24-Bit Color Data | Uncheck to remove 24-Bit Color Data
| Animation Properties | Displays animation's property page.
| Number of Iterations | 0 means continuous loop
| Edit global palette |

The status information displayed on the bottom of the window consists of (left to right):
- the current selection and total number of frames in the animation
- the dimensions of the animation (width x height)
- the total running time of a single loop of the animation
- the file size of the GIF animation and its theoretical download time
- the current zoom setting

Loading Frames and Animations
Choose Open from the File menu to open an image or animation file, either the GIF format or other supported formats. Additionally, more than one file can be opened at once; all of the opened files are automatically concatenated into a single animation. Using the multiple-open feature is the quickest way to go from individual images to an animation. For alternative ways to add frames to an animation, see Adding Frames below. This version of GIF Movie Gear can also read other graphics formats in addition to GIF: AVI (Video for Windows), BMP (Windows Bitmap Format), JPG (JPEG Format), PSD (Photoshop PSD Format), PNG (Portable Network Graphics), ANI (Windows animated cursors), ICO (Windows icons), CUR (Windows cursors), and Filmstrips. Any of these formats can also be opened using the File>Import From menu item.
Previewing the Animation
Hit the Play button on the toolbar or choose the View>Animation Preview menu item to see a preview of the animation. This brings up a new window that plays the animation:

| The main part of the window shows the animation playing. Immediately below are the Play and Stop buttons, a slider bar to track the animation, and an indicator of the current frame being shown. Buttons on the bottom row allow you to (left to right) Go To First, Step Backward, Step Forward, and Go To Last. The slider can be dragged to the desired frame location in the animation. To the right of the frame number is the Edit Timing button. It enables the timing editor for quick and easy tweaking of the animation's timing. The preview window can be resized to be bigger or smaller, the animation itself can be zoomed in or out at any time (magnifying glass buttons). The background color of the animation window can be changed using the button that looks like a small screen. The color of the "screen" is the currently selected background color (in the picture at left, the color is white). Setting the background color is useful for seeing how an animation will look when played on a Web page with a given background color. The animation can be played either continuously or by looping only the defined number of iterations, the way a Web browser would play it; the desired setting can be chosen in the Preferences dialog. To close the animation preview window, either click on the 'x' at the upper right of the window, hit the Stop button on the main window toolbar, or uncheck the View>Animation Preview menu item. Notice that the animation window can continue playing as the animation is being edited and changed. This means that changes can be viewed in the preview as they are made. This is especially useful for fine-tuning the delay settings.

To view only a part of an animation, use View>Animation of Selected Frames. This will show the animation preview dialog but will only animate the currently selected frame(s).

Saving
There are several options for saving your work:
File>Save (also button on toolbar): Save using original file name/type of the opened file. If there is no file name (frames inserted/pasted/dropped into an empty project), the Save As dialog will prompt you for a name. Similarly, if the original file's format is no longer compatible (for example, opening a JPEG file then inserting additional frames will result in a multi-image project that is not supported by the JPEG format), the Save As dialog will be invoked.
File>Save As: Save your work, specifying a name and a file format with options. Below the standard File Name entry is a Save as Type drop-down used to pick the saved file format. Selecting a file type will (for many cases) also bring up format-specific choices for the saving operation.
File>Save GIF Animation As: Save a GIF animation. This is identical to Save As with a file type of GIF.

Managing Frames
Frames can be selected, inserted, deleted, and moved around. Most of the functions are found in the the toolbar.
Selecting a Frame
To select a frame, click on it with the mouse using the left mouse button. Clicking on a frame with the right mouse button also selects the frame and additionally brings up a context menu allowing you to view more information about the frame. Double-clicking on a frame with the left mouse button selects the frame and automatically invokes the frame's Frame Properties dialog box. The currently selected frame is highlighted with a red rectangle and its frame number is show in the lower left part of the status bar. For example, in the screen shot shown above, the 6th frame is selected.
More than one frame at a time can be selected at a time. When more than one frame is selected ("multiple selection"), invoking any of the frame-specific functions will affect all of the selected frames. To select more than one frame, start by selecting a single frame then use the standard Windows multiple-selection shortcuts of Ctrl+click and Shift+click to add to the selection. Ctrl+click on a frame adds that frame to the selected list (or removes it if the frame is previously selected) and Shift+click on a frame adds all of the frames between the last frame frame selected and the clicked one to the selected list. Two menu items also help with selection: Edit>Select All and Edit>Invert Selection (select all currently unselected frames and unselect all the currently selected one).
At times it may be more convenient to select a frame from a list of frame numbers. To do this, use the dropdown combo-box located on the lower toolbar. The frames are listed in their current order with "#nn" indicating the current frame position and more descriptive text identifying the source file of the frame. The dropdown box does not support multiple-selection.
To deselect a frame, either select another frame or click on the window background where there are no frames (so that no frames are selected).
Deleting a Frame
To delete a frame, it must first be selected. Once selected, the frame can either be permanently deleted using the Edit>Delete menu item or by hitting the Del key on the keyboard. The frame can also be cut and placed in the keyboard using the Edit>Cut menu item or the Ctrl-X keyboard shortcut. The clipboard can then be used to paste the frame back into GIF Movie Gear with its animation information intact or into another application as a single bitmap image.
Adding Frames
Frames may be inserted into an animation using several methods, but first, a note about insertion. The insertion point of an animation is defined as follows: if a frame is currently selected, the inserted frame(s) is(are) placed before the currently selected frame. If no frames are selected, the inserted frame(s) is(are) placed at the very end of the animation. The exception to this rule involves files that are drag&dropped directly into GIF Movie Gear; more on that below. Insertions can take several forms:

> Insert Frame
> The File>Insert Frame menu item (or corresponding toolbar button) can be used to open one or more image files and insert these new frames into the current animation or to build a new animation if there is no existing animation. It brings up the standard File Open dialog. Select the file or files that you wish to insert and hit OK.
> Pasting
> Two types of objects can be pasted into GIF Movie Gear using the Windows clipboard: Device Independent Bitmaps cut or copied from another application and frames that were cut or copied from within GIF Movie Gear. In either case, the inserted image is placed immediately preceding the currently selected frame or at the end of the animation if no frame is currently selected.
> Drag & Drop
> GIF files can be dragged from the Windows Explorer and dropped directly into GIF Movie Gear. The effect is the same as using the File>Insert Frame menu item, the only difference being that using Drag&Drop, the insertion location depends on where exactly the files are dropped. If the files are between two frames, that's where the new frame(s) will be inserted. If the file is dropped in an area beyond the existing frames, the new frame(s) will be inserted at the end of the animation.

Insertion Conflicts
When a frame is inserted into an existing animation, there are a few issues that might need resolving to ensure that the final animation is displayed optimally. The two issues involve the frame's size and the frame's palette.

> Sizing Conflict
> There is a sizing conflict if the current animation's dimensions are smaller than those of the frame being inserted. Canceling at this point cancels the entire insertion. There are two choices presented in the conflict dialog:

> - Clip the inserted frame to fit within the animation. Note that the original frame is not physically clipped; instead, it is only effectively clipped by the size of the final animation. To minimize the storage required for the frame, it is recommended that the animation be optimized before saving.
> - Enlarge the dimensions of the animation to accommodate the inserted frame. As of version 1.0, the extra space added to the animation by this operation is not "filled in" with anything. In order to keep the animation working nicely, the first image might need to be enlarged to fill in the background for the subsequent frames in the animation.

> Logistically, if a certain setting is deemed to be the appropriate one for every conflict encountered, that setting can be made into the default preference for the operation. Checking the box at the bottom of the dialog will result in the dialog not coming up again.

> Palette Conflict and Conversion
> Unfortunately, the GIF file format limits the number of colors that can be used in an image to 256 colors. The actual number of colors that can be displayed on a given display and how those colors are displayed vary with the application used to view the image. To make a long story short, it is usually a good idea to make sure that all of the frames in a GIF animation use the same global palette for specifying colors.
> When a frame is inserted into an animation (or a local palette is removed), that frame's palette needs to be reconciled with the current global palette. If the two are identical, the reconciliation is easy. If they are not, however, the resulting palette conflict needs to be resolved. GIF Movie Gear offers several options (not all are available at all times). A default behavior can be set in the Preferences dialog. There are the choices:

> - Use a self-adapting global palette
>   All of the frames (including the new ones) in the animation are analyzed for color use and a new adaptive palette is built that best represents all of the colors in the animation. This new palette becomes the global palette, and all the frames are mapped to it. This is the recommended option for most cases.
>   The maximum number of colors that will be used in the adaptive palette can be specified in advance to keep the color complexity under control. However, it is recommended that palette reduction be performed on the finished animation instead of during the building process.
> - Merge with global palette
>   The new palette is mapped to the global palette, taking up unused spots when available and mapping to the nearest color once all 256 spots are used up. In scenarios where the palettes are small or very similar, a merge is hardly, if at all, noticeable.
> - Map to current global palette
>   The new palette's colors are mapped to the current global palette without changing the global palette.
> - Map to Web "Color Cube" Palette
>   This predefined palette of 216 colors contains a fair representation of the color spectrum. It is the palette used by most browsers to display images on a 256-color display and therefore essentially guarantees that the animation will be viewed as is during Web browsing. With this as the new global palette, all of the frames in the animation will be remapped.
>   While using this "non-dithering" palette has been highly touted recently, that fanfare mostly applies to image creation and is not as meaningful in animation building, where pre-existing images need to be mapped to a limited palette. When existing images are inserted into an animation, mapping to this palette only serves to degrade image quality by forcing them to dither when there might not be a need (ie if the image palette merges cleanly with the current palette). As a result, users with hi-color displays end up looking at low-quality dithered images when they could have looked at a full-color image instead. This is, however, just this author's opinion.
> - Map to fixed palette
>   The new palette's colors are mapped to a fixed, predefined palette. The Load button is used to load/define the fixed palette, which can be loaded from a PAL palette file or derived from any indexed image format. The Edit button opens the current fixed palette for further editing/viewing.
> - Use a Local Palette
>   The frame's palette is used as its local palette in the animation. This means that the inserted frame(s) will have its(their) own palette for display. Using a local palette preserves color information, but it often makes the resulting file larger and less optimizable.

> Dithering is the next decision. Once a palette is selected, the frame can be mapped to that palette either with or without dithering. Dithering is a process of displaying colors not directly available on an output device -- in this case in a destination palette -- by intermixing other colors. The result is an image that appears to contain all the colors. Dithered image look better (sometimes) than identical ones that were not dithered, but they do not compress as well when the animation is saved, resulting in increased file size.
> "Hi-Color" Images (also known as "24-Bit Color" or "16-Bit Color" or "True Color") are images containing more than 256 colors (for example, a 24-Bit AVI or a JPEG image). These images need to be mapped down to 256 colors (also known as "8-Bit Color") in order to be added into a GIF animation. All of the above options can be used, with the adaptive palette option being the recommended one. In cases where there is no existing global palette to map to, an adaptive palette is used for the hi-color image; there is a special maximum number of colors setting for this case.
> Sadly, if a palette conflict exists, this means that some or all of the images will have to be somewhat compromised for the common good. The conclusion: it is best to avoid palette conflicts altogether by using your image editing software to save all of the GIFs that will become frames using the same palette.
> Logistically, if a certain combination of settings is deemed to be the appropriate one for every conflict encountered, those settings can be made into the default Preferences for the operation. Checking the box at the bottom of the dialog will result in the dialog not coming up again.

Reordering Frames
Frames can be reordered within an animation using a number of techniques. The simplest is to select a frame, and keeping the mouse button pressed, to drag the frame to its intended position. When a frame is being dragged, the cursor changes to the multi-arrow move cursor and the "drop spot" for the frame is illustrated with an "insertion bar." You cannot drag a frame outside of the GIF Movie Gear application.
The other way to move a frame is to use cut&paste: Select the frame, cut it (see Deleting a Frame) and then pasting it in the desired position (see Pasting).
To completely reverse the frame order of the animation (1 --> 10 becomes 10 --> 1), use the Animation>Rearrange Frames>Reverse Order menu item.
For a "ping pong" effect so that the animation plays to the end and then reverses and goes back to the beginning (1.2.3.4.5 becomes 1.2.3.4.5.4.3.2.1), use the Animation>Rearrange Frames>Ping Pong menu item.
Copying Frames to an Image Editor
Once a frame has been inserted into an animation, most image editors can no longer edit that frame from within the GIF file. To transfer a frame to an image editor, select the frame and copy it to the clipboard using either the Edit>Copy menu item, the Copy toolbar button, or the Ctrl-C keyboard shortcut. This places a copy of the image in the clipboard that can then be pasted into an image editor. To return the frame to the animation, either save it to a GIF file in the image editor and use Insert Frame or copy it to the clipboard in the image editor and paste it into GIF Movie Gear.

Frame Properties
A frame's properties, or settings, can be viewed and edited by using either its property sheet or the toolbar. Once a frame is selected, its properties are visible on the lower toolbar. The property sheet dialog can be activated in three ways: 1) select the frame and choose the Frame>Properties menu item, 2) right-click on the frame and choose Frame Properties from the context menu, or 3) select the frame and hit the Frame Properties button on the toolbar. (Note: The properties can be set for all of the frames at once using the Global Frame Properties dialog.) The dialog contains a comprehensive collection of settings, but the most important settings can also be conveniently viewed and set directly from the toolbar. A frame's properties tell a lot about the frame:

| Name | The source file of the frame. (In the current version, this information is not maintained once the animation is saved.)
| Width & Height | The size of the image represented by the frame. This is not accessible from the toolbar and is not editable in the dialog. A frame can be easily cropped using the Move/Crop Frame dialog.
| Offsets | The offset from the upper left corner of the animation "screen" to the upper left corner of the frame's image. This is not accessible from the toolbar. The offset can be visually set using the Move/Crop Frame dialog.
| Transparency | The GIF format allows an image to specify one color index to be treated as transparent. Transparency is toggled on or off using the checkbox in the dialog or the button on the toolbar. Turning the transparency on also requires picking the transparent color index. Both the dialog and the toolbar offer the ability to pick the transparency color index at any time by clicking the appropriate button.
| Interlacing | Is the image to be stored interlaced? Interlacing is a method for storing a GIF image so that it can be displayed progressively as it is downloaded; it does not significantly affect the size of the GIF file and depending on the displaying browser may be ignored for all but the first image in an animation. This flag be toggled on or off in either the dialog or the toolbar. Warning: Both Microsoft and Netscape browsers sometimes do not handle interlacing properly in an animation, showing black horizontal stripes during playback. It's a good idea to avoid interlacing within an animation. Note: GIF Movie Gear will, by default, remove all interlacing before saving out a GIF animation. To over-ride this function, use Edit>Preferences>General and check "Allow Interlacing in an Animation."
| Local Palette | The frame has a local palette (or not). If present, the local palette may be viewed using the Show... button. The use of a local palette can be eliminated by unchecking the box (or button on the toolbar); note however that this operation may require handling a palette conflict. A local palette cannot be added to a frame after the frame's initial insertion into the animation.
| Delay | The delay (in 1/100ths of a second) following the displaying of the frame before the next frame is shown. The frame's delay can also be set in the Edit Timing dialog.
| Removal Method | There are four choices for how an image is removed before the next frame is drawn. Three are actually meaningful: do nothing (i.e. simply draw the next frame on top of the current one, represented by "Leave alone" and by default "No disposal method"), replace the background behind the current frame before drawing the next one (represented by "Restore background"), and restore the animation to the state it was at before the current frame was drawn ("Restore previous"). All four choices and presented in the dialog for completeness with the GIF 89a specification. The toolbar choices are limited to the three meaningful choices. Warning: Netscape Navigator does not properly handle the "Restore previous" option. Most animations can be built using only "Leave Alone". The advantages of sticking with this removal method include simplified design/management of the animation and the possibility of effective optimization. For animations with a transparent background, the "Restore background" removal method should be used.

Making Global Changes
Sometimes it might be desirable to change a frame property for all of the frames at once. This can be done by selecting the Frame>Global Properties menu item. The resulting dialog looks quite similar to the Frame Properties dialog with the one notable exception being that it reflects and affects all of the frames in the animation. When this dialog shows a definitive setting (a number in a number fields, a fully-checked box for a checkbox), this indicates that all of the frames in the animation possess the same setting. If, however, the dialog shows an indeterminate setting (a blank for a number or a gray-checked box for a checkbox), this means that not all the frames share the exact same setting. Subsequently selecting a definite setting will affect all of the frames.

Picking the Transparent Index
A frame's transparency color is selected in the Pick Transparent Index dialog (accessed from either the toolbar or from the Properties dialog). The transparency dialog presents two ways to select the index: 1) click on one of the colors in the color table (on the left) or 2) click on any pixel within the image (on the right). When a new index is selected, the image on the right flashes the affected pixels and then displays them as transparent. Use the zoom buttons to pinpoint pixels in your frame, and use the settable background color to see what the frame will look like against a target background color.
There are three types of transparency picking variations available: one color, add a color, and subtract a color. The GIF format allows for only a single color to be the transparent color, but GIF Movie Gear allows you to make several colors transparent by using the Add Transparent Color picker tool. Just keep picking more colors. So if, for example, your animation has an anti-aliased edge with several similar but not identical shades of a color, you can make all the shades be transparent, not just one. The effect of choosing multiple transparent colors is that all of the colors are mapped to a single color, which is then made transparent. This does mean a loss of color information. Note also that this is a nice way to cause several color to map to a single color: make all the desired colors "transparent", then turn off the transparency and set that one color to the desired hue. The effect is the same as re-mapping the colors to the one.
To help you determine exactly which color is under the cursor, check the "Show Information" box at the bottom of the dialog. This will cause an informative tooltip window to appear next to the cursor when it is over a valid color.
To turn off transparency, uncheck the toolbar button or the checkbox in the Properties dialog.

Moving and Cropping Frames
To move a frame within the animation's screen or to crop a frame down in size, select the Frame>Move/Crop menu item (this menu item is also accessible via the frame's context (right click) menu). These bring up a dialog that lets you manipulate the location and size of the frame's rectangle. The frame's current size and offset are identified by a black, dashed-line rectangle with small crop handles on the corners and edges while the animation screen is shown as a solid blue rectangle. To move the frame, simply click inside this rectangle and start dragging. The alignment buttons in the upper right corner allow an easy way to align a frame within the screen. To crop the frame, click on the appropriate handle and start dragging. Exact values can also be set using the edit controls on the right side.
To view what the frame will look like cropped, check the Show Frame Cropped checkbox. When unchecked, the cropping rectangle is shown on top of an uncropped frame. If this functionality is used on a display capable of more than 256 colors, you can "ghost" the next, previous, and/or first frame to help with inter-frame alignment by checking the appropriate boxes.

Rotating Frames
Frames can be flipped and rotated in place using the Frame>Rotate menu item (also found on the frame's context (right click) menu). Only rotations in 90 degree increments are supported at the present time. In the cases where a 90 degree rotation requires the animation screen size to grow (picture rotating a horizontal landscape to be vertical: the frame's height would then exceed the animation screen height), the current Sizing Conflict settings are used to decide if the frame gets clipped or the animation screen size grows.
All the frames in the animation can be rotated at once using the Animation>Rotate menu item. The options are the same as rotating a single frame, the only difference being that every frame in the animation is rotated.

Resizing Frames
A single frame can be resized using the Frame>Resize menu item (also found on the frame's context (right click) menu). More detailed about resizing options are found in the Resize Animation section.

Editing Image Pixels
An extremely rudimentary pixel editor is included in GMG for performing simple image clean-up. To invoke this editor, use Frame>Edit Pixels after selecting a frame or use the frame's right-click menu. In the Edit Pixels dialog, the drawing tools, all two of them, are located below the lower left corner of the image: a pencil for drawing single pixels and a bucket for filling areas of one color with another color. The eyedropper is used to select a color from the image. Very standard image editor stuff. To draw with the transparent color (if the frame has one), look for the color with "T" inside it.
The functionality of the pixel editor is obviously very limited. For more serious editing of images, use LiveEdit, described below.

LiveEdit
To edit a frame directly in an image editor, without resorting to copy&paste, use Frame>LiveEdit. The selected frame is opened in the chosen image editor, where it can be modified "live". Every time the image is saved in the image editor, the change is updated in GMG. The image editor will be working with a temporary copy of the frame, so the saving should be a File>Save, not a save to the original file name.
After the initial use, the LiveEdit image editor can be changed in the Edit>Preferences>General dialog.
If the image editor to be used is Adobe Photoshop, a LiveEdit session on the whole animation at once as a layered Photoshop project can be started using Animation>LiveEdit.

Animation Properties
The "Animation Properties" dialog is invoked by either choosing the Animation>Properties menu item, by right-clicking in the GIF Movie Gear window and choosing Animation Properties from the context menu, or by clicking on the Animation Properties button on the toolbar. At least one frame must be present for this dialog to be available. These settings affect the animation as a whole. The lower toolbar offers direct access for setting the number of iterations and for showing the global palette.

| Name | The name of the GIF file. This value can be changed by using the File>Save GIF Animation As menu item.
| Width & Height | The width and height of the animation. This rectangles defines the size of the animation "screen" (the term used in the GIF specification). All frames are clipped to this rectangle. Changing these values may affect the final look of the animation by either clipping it or by leaving parts of the rectangle undrawn (if is sized larger than the largest frame). These values can also be changed by either cropping (cutting out corners) or resizing (scaling the contents) the animation.
| Auto Size | Calculates the size of the animation so that it completely encompasses all of the current frames.
| Global Palette | A global palette is present (or not). If one exists (recommended), the Show... button displays the palette.
| Number of Frames | Number of frames in the animation. This value is for reference purposes only.
| Enable Animation | Adds looping information to the GIF file. When disabled, the animation is played exactly once. See more information below.
| Number of Iterations | The number of times that the animation loop should be played. 0 indicates a continuous loop. Note: the animation preview can be made to play the animation either this number of times or as a continuous loop. The desired setting can be chosen in the Preferences dialog.
| GIF Bk Color | This setting is offered for the sake of technical completeness. Click on the color button to select a different color from the global palette. The color defined as the GIF file's "background color". This is a technical leftover from the original GIF specification and is not used by any Web browsers during playback. This is not to be confused with the "Restore to Background Color" removal method (yes, they sound the same thing, but today the removal method means to restore to the browser's background, not the GIF's). It also should not be confused with the "Show Background As" option in various preview dialogs (that is used to preview what the animation will look like in a browser). It is usually a good bet to just leave this setting as is. When unoptimizing an animation that does not have a "full" first frame, this color is used to "fill in" the empty spaces.

Editing Timing
An animation's timing is controlled by the delays used for displaying each frame. More delay means more time which means a slower animation. Similarly less delay means a faster animation. GIF Movie Gear offers several ways in which to control these delays. After selecting a frame, its delay can be edited directly in the lower toolbar. Similarly it can be set in the frame's Frame Properties. The delay for all the frames can be set at one time in the Global Frame Properties dialog. And lastly the delays can be tweaked directly in the Preview window by using the Edit Timing dialog extension.
The Edit Timing extension can be brought up in several ways: clicking on the timing button on the upper toolbar, selecting the Animation>Edit Timing menu item, and lastly by clicking on the timing button in the Preview window. The result is an extension at the bottom of the Preview window (enabled and disabled with the button in the preview window) which provides easy access to the delays while viewing the animation preview.

| There are several ways to tweak the timing in this dialog extension. Probably the easiest is by typing in a new delay value for a give frame. The currently previewing frame is shown with the delay after it (standard setting also available in Frame Properties and on the toolbar) as well as the delay preceding it. All values are in 1/100th of a second. The arrows on either side of the delays will advance or reverse the animation preview and settings by one frame. The other method is by making a global change to the delays of all the frames. This is an easy way to speed up or slow down the entire animation in a few short steps: 1) Choose an operation from the dropdown: =sets all the frame delays to the given value. +Add the given value to each frame's delay. -Subtract the given value from each frame's delay. ×Multiply each frame's delay by the given value. ÷Divide each frame's delay by the given value. 2) Enter the value appropriate to the chosen operation (the value does not need to be an integer! Floating point values, with a decimal point, can be use and are very handy for multiplication). 3) Press the button with the green arrow to execute the operation. To speed up the animation, either subtract a set amount of time from each frame's delay or divide every delay by a set amount (for example, ÷2 will make the animation run twice as fast). To slow down an animation, either add time to each frame's delay or use multiplication (for example, ×2 will make the animation twice as slow.) The button to the right of the green arrow is the Reset button (grayed in the image at left), which will undo any changes made during the current Edit Timing session.

Cropping the Animation
The animation can be cropped (made smaller by "cutting off" corners or edges) by using the Animation>Crop menu item. Crop the animation by using the cropping handles on the corners and edges of the dashed rectangle defining the animation. The frame displayed in this dialog can be selected by selecting that frame in the main view before invoking the dialog; no selection means that the first frame is shown for reference. For exact control, the cropping rectangle can also be set by manually entering numerical values on the right side of the dialog.
The Show As Cropped checkbox controls how the cropping is shown: either the rectangle on top of the full size or as physically cropped to the rectangle. The First/Previous/Next checkbox control the ghosting of other frames for reference. The Auto button provides easy automatic cropping to the smallest size possible without cropping any frames.

Resizing the Animation
The entire animation can be resized (made bigger or smaller by scaling) by using the Animation>Resize menu item. The destination size is specified either by pixel dimensions or by percentage. The resizing method can also be chosen:
Nearest Neighbor resizing involves no re-sampling (no new colors are added) but because of this, the resized animation might look somewhat "pixelated" when enlarged and will lose detail when reduced in size.
Bicubic resizing, on the other hand, uses re-sampling to improve the quality of the resizing. Intermediate colors are added when necessary in an attempt to maintain detail. Bicubic is usually the better choice for any animation that includes lots of detail like fine text or photographic material. The only drawback is that the added colors tend to add complexity to the frames, reducing the effectiveness of compression and optimization efforts.
As an example of how the two methods differ, look at a section of two pixels "red.white". When these two pixels need to be resized to cover three pixels, the Nearest Neighbor method will generate "red.red.white" and the Bicubic method will generate "red.pink.white".
NOTE: each resizing of an electronic images loses information, regardless of the methods used. It is always a good idea to avoid resizing an already-resized image.

Setting Preferences
There are several program preferences that can be used to customize the way GIF Movie Gear builds animations. These are accessed by selecting the Edit>Preferences menu item. The dialog is broken up into several tabbed sheets, as follows:
Use. Allows an easy way to configure palette and color settings for working on GIF animations (256 color) and Windows XP icons (24-Bit Color, local palettes, and a few other tweaks). The Other setting indicates that the customized, non-default settings are being used.
General. Contains an assortment of settings:
Undo: How many levels of Undo should be maintained (more means more memory use)?
Preview: Should the preview window be shown automatically when an animation is opened? Should the preview play in a continuous loop or respect the animation's iteration count? Should the preview be shown full-screen or in a window?
LiveEdit: Select the image editor to use for LiveEdit of frames.
Miscellaneous: Should the To Start dialog be shown at startup/restart? Should Edit with GIF Movie Gear be added to the context menu of all GIF files? Should interlacing be automatically removed before an animation is saved?
Palettes. This sheet allows you to define a default behavior for handling palette conflicts.
Animation. The top part controls the default timing and looping settings that are to be used when an animation is being built. The default delay is applied to any added frames that do not already contain timing information. The default iteration count is used when an animation is built from scratch and does not already have looping information. The lower half of this sheet defines the default behavior for resolving sizing conflicts when adding frames.
Export. Defines settings used for various export operations:
Maintain 24-Bit Color: If checked, GMG will maintain the 24-Bit Color data (and possibly 8-Bit Alpha channel) of any imported images for export to file types that support this format (PSD, PNG, AVI, JPEG, BMP, ICO, CUR, ANI, etc.). Find out more about this option below.
Automatic Transparency: When loading an 8-Bit Color image that does not already contain transparency information, make the specified color the transparent color.
GIF Signature. Allows you to specify a signature comment, a special comment that will be automatically inserted into a GIF animation when it is saved. This is an easy way to automatically add a copyright notice or other author identification to any GIF animation you create. Note that the signature comment is not inserted into the animation until the animation is saved, so it will not appear in the comment list until after the first time the animation is saved.
AVI Fixed Frame Rate: Allows a specification of a fixed frame rate to use when saving AVI files. By default, GMG calculates a frames-per-second value that corresponds to the actual delays in the animation, but this option allows using a fixed rate to use, regardless of the actual animation timing. This value is a full decimal number (for example, 29.97 for NTSC frame rate). Note that GMG cannot guarantee a perfect match between frame delays and the fixed rate, so some rounding of the timing may be necessary.
JPEG Quality: Specify the aggressiveness of compression used for saving JPEG files. More compression will result in a smaller file with reduced image quality, and conversely, less compression will have better image quality with a larger file size.
PSD Layer Masks: If checked, layered Photoshop PSD files are saved with a Layer Mask based on the transparency in addition to the standard RGBA channels.
FrameTips. Defines what information is to be displayed using FrameTips. FrameTips make it easy to get information about a frame quickly without having to select it first. When FrameTips are enabled and the cursor is held over a given frame, an informational box displays the selected properties for that frame. To alter any of these properties, select the frame and use the Frame>Properties menu item or the toolbar.

24-Bit Color and Alpha Channels
While the GIF format only supports 256 colors for each frame, also known as "8-Bit Color", other formats, such as JPEG, PSD, AVI, PNG, ICO, BMP, and CUR can support 24-Bit Color, also known as "true color", where each frame can contain 16.7million different colors. Some of these formats also have support for "Alpha Channel transparency", which provides for 256 shades of transparency (vs. GIF's minimal transparent-or-opaque). The term "32-Bit Color" is often used to describe an image that has 24-Bit Color as well as an (8-Bit) Alpha Channel.
By default, GMG maps all 24-Bit Color images down to GIF's 8-Bit Color, but by going to Edit>Preferences>Export and checking the Maintain 24-Bit Color data option, GMG will use the 24-Bit Color data (if present) for saving out to any format that supports it. When this option is enabled, the main view as well as the Animation Preview shows the frames with the 24-Bit Color. When such a frame is selected, the Properties toolbar shows the appropriate button checked. If this button (or the corresponding checkbox in the Frame Properties dialog is unchecked, the 24-Bit Color data is discarded and only the 8-Bit Color data is used to show and save the frame.
Some functions in GMG are designed to only work with 8-Bit Color data. These include: Edit Transparency, Animation Optimize, Animation Unoptimize, and Reduce Colors. The use of these functions will necessitate that any 24-Bit Color data be discarded first.

Reducing (Optimizing) File Size
One of the unchanging guidelines of producing digital graphics is that "smaller is better." Perhaps nowhere is this more true than when creating images for the World Wide Web. The smaller the file size, the faster the download and display, and that makes for an audience that is happy and involved rather than bored and waiting for the download. Since animations are usually larger than standalone images, their size is even more of an issue. The big dilemma facing anyone designing graphics is how to keep the file size small without sacrificing the quality of the graphics themselves.
As a quick example of what optimization can do, here is a look at the previously mentioned "gamani balloon" animation before and after optimization:

before: 14,925 bytes | after: 7,779 bytes
The size difference is 7146 bytes for a file size reduction of 48%. Optimization steps were: 1) Reduce Colors to 32 2) Optimize with inter-frame transparency

Before starting the process of file size reduction, it helps to understand how GIF files store images. The GIF format uses technique known as LZW Compression to reduce the size of the images. Roughly speaking, the way this compression scheme works is that it searches an image for recurring patterns, replacing each recurring pattern with a special code that takes up less space than the uncompressed pattern. The more recurring patterns are found, the smaller the resulting file. The most drastic example would be a image that is all white; because it consists of essentially one pattern, it compresses very well. On the other end of the scale would be a photographic image with lots of colors and detail; it does not contain many repeating patterns and as a result compresses poorly. The moral of the story is that if you can get away with less detail in your frames (where less detail means more recurring patterns), they will compress better. More on that below.
GIF Movie Gear has several ways of helping you reduce the file size:

File Size Tracking
GIF Movie Gear keeps you appraised of the size of the animation on the status bar. While this does not actively change the size of the file, it does regularly update as changes (for example, deleting or adding a frame) are made to the animation. Keep an eye on it as you edit your animation. Note: the file size value is updated using a thread that runs in the background, allowing you to keep working instead of waiting for the calculation; while it is calculating, the file size field says "Calculating..."

Color Reduction
A first line of attack for reducing file size of GIF images and animations is palette reduction. Selecting the Animation>Reduce Colors menu item or the corresponding toolbar button brings up GIF Movie Gear's palette reduction dialog. On the left is the animation with its current palette and on the right is the animation with a reduced palette. With this side-by-side comparison, you can determine how much color loss is acceptable for how much file size savings. The animation file size is displayed below both versions to allow you to gauge the savings. In the center of the dialog are located animation preview controls similar to those found in the Animation Preview window that allow you to advance to a particular frame or watch the animation play back in real time. The level of palette reduction is controlled by the combobox -- how many colors do you want to have? -- and the dithering checkbox. Every time a setting is changed, the right animation is rebuilt and its file size recalculated to reflect the new settings (the file size calculation is performed in the background, allowing you to manipulate the animation concurrently; if the size isn't there, wait a bit for the calculation to finish).
Why does palette reduction affect the file size? In a nutshell, the fewer the colors in an image, the better it will compress (dithering throws a wrench into this, but more on that later), and when all the frames compress better, an animation file can shrink significantly in size. Unfortunately, as colors are taken away, the image quality tends to degrade. The goal with palette reduction is to find a balance between effective compression and image quality. Conveniently the human eye is very good at compensating for lack of color depth. Some quick experimentation will show you that most 256-color images can be reduced to 64 colors or less without noticeably degrading in quality. With moving images (ie animations), even fewer colors are needed to keep the animation looking good. The key is to experiment: lower the number of colors until just before the loss of quality becomes intolerable.
Dithering adds a bit of complication into the palette reduction process. Specifically, dithering sometimes enhances the image quality when there are fewer colors to choose from, but it also usually hurts the file size (it is not uncommon to have a 256-color image actually grow in size when reduced and dithered to 128 colors, for example). Again, it's a matter of experimentation: turn dithering on and off with the various reduced palette settings to determine a good compromise between file size and image quality.
The Lock Colors button brings up a dialog in which any number of colors can be locked during the palette reduction process to ensure they do not change. For example, if the animation a pre-defined corporate color which precisely matches the HTML page's background, locking that color will ensure that even with greatly reduced palette that color will be exactly the same.

Optimization
Selecting the Animation>Optimize menu item or the corresponding toolbar button brings up the Optimization dialog. The tools in this dialog work on the animation in fairly automated ways to try to reduce the file size. The operations are broken up into two separate pieces, palette shrinking and frame reduction. The right side of the dialog tracks the file size before and after optimization. Note: As you experiment with the different options, keep an eye on the file size values; it is possible that in some cases certain operations can cause the file size to increase and should therefore not be used. Remember that the ultimate goal is a smaller file.
Palette shrinking refers to the process of compacting a palette by removing unused colors. This differs from palette reduction, where colors are mapped to a smaller subset of colors and does not affect image quality. Depending on the specifics of the animation, shrinking palettes may result in a modest file size reduction (by eliminating unused colors, the palette gets smaller and hence takes up less room; there may also be minor gains in compression) or in no change at all. (You can track which colors are being used in the Edit Palette dialog.)
Removing local palettes (when they exist) can reduce file size by both saving on palette storage and by making frame reduction more likely. Removing local palette may affect the frame images, so three options are offered:

create a global adaptive palette | (Recommended) The colors of all the frames are analyzed and a new global palette that best captures all the colors is built. All frames are then remapped to this new palettes. Preferences for the adaptive palette are set in Edit>Preferences under the Palettes tab.
only remove with a clean merge | A local palette will not be removed unless it can be removed (mapped to the currently global palettes without altering the frame image.
map to global | Each local palette is mapped to the global palette, possibly requiring the frame's image to be remapped to a new set of colors.

Frame reduction takes advantage of image data that is repeated between frames. By eliminating this repeated image data, frames can be made smaller and more compressible. The first step of frame reduction is to clip each frame to the smallest rectangle that is needed to maintain the animation. This rectangle contains all the changes between the previous frame and this frame. The next step is to look for pixels that duplicate the pixels in the previous frame; these pixels can then be made transparent, the goal being to reduce pixel noise and improve compression. Because of the vagaries of LZW Compression, both of these techniques are not always effective at reducing the file size: keep your eye on the file size and don't choose any options that inadvertently increase it. Lastly, frames that are exact duplicates of the previous frame can be eliminated altogether.
Some animations optimize better than others. Because frame reduction looks at how the frames are shown during animation playback, the removal method of each frame must be taken into account. Both "Restore Background" and "Restore Previous" removals mean that the next frame does not depend on the previous frame, thereby eliminating the possibility of frame reduction (no shared information = no repeated data). The "Leave Alone" removal method is the one that makes frame reduction useful. Also, any frames that have a local palette cannot be reduced in relation to other frames due to palette incompatibilities, so removing local palettes can also help with frame reduction.
Note: Frame reduction is dependent on the current frame ordering. After any frame reduction operation, the animation is no longer as editable as it was before. Reordering, inserting, deleting, or editing frames may break the animation. It is a good idea to save the animation in a non-optimized form if you intend to edit it in the future. Unoptimizing can often restore the animation to an editable state, but it is not always an exact inverse of optimization.

Reducing Frame Count
GIF Movie Gear has the ability to automatically reduce the frame count by removing every nth frame. This type of "thinning" is effective for reducing the size of animations that have more intermediate steps than are needed for smoothness. For example, a 30-frames-per-second video can usually maintain its integrity if every other or every 2nd frame is removed. Frame count reduction is accessible using the Animation>Thin (Reduce Frame Count) menu item. Of course, the same thinning effect can be achieved by manually removing every other frame, but that can get rather tedious in a long animation.

Other Reduction Thoughts
There are other ways to reduce an animation's file size that can be done manually or while designing the individual frames. Here are some thoughts:

- Remove comment blocks. Comments are stored in a GIF file as text strings, one byte per character and a 3 bytes for a header. Realistically, the gains to be had by removing comments are quite small, but it is probably a good idea to keep your comments down to a minimum. Writing a lengthy tome about the animation using comments is going to make the file size grow.
- Turn off interlacing on all the frames. Usually (though not always), a GIF image compresses smaller when it is not interlaced. Sometimes the size difference is significant, but usually it is on a few bytes. Still, since GIF animation playback in today's browsers does not display the interlacing anyway, there is no good reason to keep it.
- Avoid dithering. The more an image is dithered, the worse it will compress (usually). If at all possible -- this depends on the images and their palettes -- avoid dithering when at all possible.
- Try to minimize the number of frames used. The fewer the frames, the smaller the file. This approach, of course, has to be balanced with the reality that you need enough frames to get the desired animation effect in the first place. But if, for example, you are building a "text fade" animation that will run fairly quickly, ask yourself if 20 intermediate frames are really necessary if perhaps 5 will do the trick and still look good.
- Know the limits of the GIF format. For example, a slide show of large photographic images is not an ideal candidate for GIF animation. First of all, GIF's 256-color limit will greatly hurt the image quality. Next, the individual frames won't compress well nor will inter-frame optimization be of much use. The resulting GIF file will be big and bloated. For this type of animation, perhaps other options should be considered, like AVI or QuickTime or maybe an inline script in HTML using JPEG images.

Additional Functions
GIF Movie Gear offers a host of other functions that might prove to be useful when working with animations.

Undo/Redo
There are times when you may change your mind about a certain action. That's where the Edit>Undo menu item comes in handy. The menu item shows you what the last action was and lets you undo it to get back to where you were. Actions that are undone can also be "redone" using Edit>Redo. You can control the number of levels in the undo stack using the Preferences dialog; more levels means that more memory is used by the program. Saving the animation "flushes" the undo stack.

Editing Palettes
Both global palettes and local palette are viewed and edited with the same dialog. To edit the global palette, select the Animation>Edit Global Palette menu item, click the button (the last one) on the second toolbar, or select Edit... next to the palette entry in the Animation Properties dialog. Similarly the local palette of the currently selected frame is edit by selecting the Frame>Edit Local Palette menu item, by clicking the appropriate button on the toolbar, or via the Frame Properties dialog (these are only enabled if the frame has a local palettes).
The dialog consists of two parts: the color table on the left and a frame on the right. The frame shown is the currently selected frame or, if no frame is selected, the first frame in the animation. To find out more about a given color, hold the cursor over the desired color in either the color table or the frame. An attached "tooltip" window will show the color's data. Clicking on the color will select it for editing in the lower left portion of the dialog. The frame image can be zoomed in and out to facilitate in picking a single pixel.
To change a color in a palette, select it and then set new Red, Green, and Blue values using the edit controls near the bottom of the dialog or click on the big color button to invoke the standard Windows color picker. The color changes in the color table and the frame. Hit OK to make the color changes. Note that changing colors in the global palette affects all frames using that palette.
The dialog can also display the colors in the palette that are actually being used by one or more frames when "Show Colors in Use" is checked. An in-use color is shown with a small contrasting color square in the middle. During optimization, GIF Movie Gear can automatically eliminate all unused colors, thereby reducing the size of the palette and its memory, using the Shrink Palettes option.

Unoptimizing
Occasionally it might be useful to force all the frames to be "full size" with no offsets or transparency, just as they would be viewed when the animation is being played. To accomplish this, select the Animation>Unoptimize menu item. This function performs the opposite of the optimization operation: it "fills in" every frame to show the full view of the animation. This operation is useful for editing a frame after an optimization. Note that regardless of its name, unoptimization does not necessarily restore the animation to its original state following an optimization operation.

Blending with Another Animation
The File>Blend With menu item lets you combine two animations, frame by frame.
Two possible uses of animation blending include (letter animations courtesy of www.animationfactory.com):
blended with to get by placing one animation next to the other.
blended with a transparent background to get by placing one on top of the other.
Positioning of the second animation in relation to the first one is adjusted by either dragging the animation with the mouse (just click and drag) or numerically using the Offset settings. Any extra space added to the final, blended animation is filled in with the first animation's "GIF Bk Color" which is controlled in the Animation Properties dialog.
Synchronization between the two animations can be done based either on frame count or on timing. The frame-count method is straightforward: frame 1 from animation A is blended with frame 1 from animation B, frame 2A with frame 2B, and so on. The timing method relies on the delays in the two animations: imaging animation A with 3 frames (A1, A2, A3) with delays 10, 20, 30 and animation B with 2 frames (B1, B2) with delays 20, 40. The blended animation will look like A1+B1 delay 10, A2+B1 delay 10, A2+B2 delay 10, A3+B2 delay 30. Thinking of the delays as representing a constant time-line from 0 to the total animation time, frames are combined (and delayed) so that the two animations line up in time. The appropriate method to use depends on the two animations and how they relate to each other in timing and frame count.
For both synchronization methods, there is an option of looping the shorter animation to complete the blend or of having the longer animation remain as is for the latter part that does not overlap the shorter animation.

Importing Photoshop PSD Files
GIF Movie Gear makes converting layered Adobe Photoshop PSD files into animations quick and easy. PSD files can be opened using either File>Insert, File>Open, or File>Import From. If the file was created using multiple layers, these layers can be converted directly into animation frames. NOTE: layered PSD files use 24-Bit Color with an Alpha channel: read the section on 24-Bit Color for what this means in GMG. Four distinct importing methods are available:
Single Composite Image. All the layers are composited together to make a single image.
Blend with Composite Image. Each layer is blended with a composite of all the previous layers to form a new frame.
Blend with Background Layer. Each layer is blended with the Background Layer to form a new frame.
No Blending: each Layer is a frame.
Each of these can be combined with an option, Keep Background Transparency, which maintains any transparency information in the layers. The final option, Size Each Frame to Match PSD Canvas, will make each frame "full sized" to the size of the canvas. Both of these options are most interesting for the No Blending option and using Photoshop to build standalone, transparent-background frames.
The last three options are the more interesting ones for animation. The easiest way to see the difference is with an example. All of the animations below were created from the same Photoshop file. The file consists of six layers. The Background layer is a solid purple. The other five frames consist of yellow text spelling "gear" in various fonts and at various locations. The ways of viewing this collection of layers is either as a cumulative series (left animation) or collection of individual images (right animation). In the left case, each layer is blended with a "running" composite of all previous layers (in Photoshop terms, the layers are turned on one at a time and a snapshot is taken). In the right case, each layer only blends with the purple background (in Photoshop terms, the Background Layer is always visible, and each layer is made visible one at a time to make the snapshots).

Blend Each Layer with Composite Image | Blend Each Layer with Background Layer

The third option, No Blending, is very similar to blending with the background for this example, minus the blending part. When the transparency is kept and the removal method is set to "Background Color" and the all-purple background layer is removed, the resulting animation can be seen below. This might not be the best example, but if transparency in the layers is important, this option is usually the right one.

For reference, the original PSD file used for all of the above animations is included as geardemo.psd.

Generating HTML Code
To facilitate the adding of a GIF animation to an HTML page, GIF Movie Gear can generate the <IMG> code that corresponds to the current animation. To add an animation to an HTML page, simply choose the File>HTML menu item and copy the generated HTML. GIF Movie Gear automatically adds the width= and height= attributes and allows you to make the image into a link, to add a text description (alt= tag), and to add a border.

Editing Comments
The GIF89a format allows for several types of data beyond the basics of animation frames. While GIF Movie Gear does not provide full editing support for these structures, it does provide the ability to edit GIF comments. These comments are located within the GIF file and can contain information such as copyright notices or contact information. The comments are only displayed by specialized applications, such as GIF Movie Gear, and are not accessible from most image editor/viewers or Web browsers.
To edit a GIF's comments, choose the Animation>GIF Comments menu item. The dialog box contains a list of the current comments located in the file. Multi-line comments are shown with "..." following the first line. To edit a comment or view all the lines of a multi-line comment, select the comment, and click the Edit button. Double-clicking on a comment also opens the comment editor.
To remove a comment block, select it and click the Remove button or hit the Del key.
To add a new comment, use the Add button. The comment can then be entered in the comment editor. The comment is inserted preceding the currently selected comment or at the end of the comment list if no comment is selected.
Additionally, you can define a Signature Comment, a special comment that will be automatically inserted into an animation when it is saved. This is an easy way to automatically add a copyright notice or other author identification to any animation you create. To define/view the signature comment, select the Edit>Preferences menu item and click on the Export tab. Note that the signature comment is not inserted into the animation until the animation is saved, so it will not appear in the comment list until after the first time the animation is saved.

Associating GIF Files
Windows95/98/NT/2000/ME/XP allows certain "associations" to be made with various file types. These associations permit basic Windows functionality like making a double-click on a *.htm file cause your favorite Web browser to load that file. Various associations for a given file type can be seen by right-clicking on the file in the Windows Explorer and looking at the top portion of the resulting "context menu". To simplify the loading of GIF files with GIF Movie Gear, there is an option to have "Edit with GIF Movie Gear" added to all GIF files' context menu. This association can be enabled in the Preferences dialog.
Some applications pursue file associations aggressively and set themselves up as the default opener of a given file type or types. Since GIF Movie Gear is not an image editor in the traditional sense, it was decided that its association possibilities would be more subtle than that. Hence the special "Edit with GIF Movie Gear" association verb. If you would like to have GIF Movie Gear be your default opener of GIF files, please use the built-in Windows File Type Association editor, found in the View>Options menu item of the Windows Explorer.

Saving to Various Formats
GIF Movie Gear allows the saving of image and animation data to a variety of format types. All saving/exporting is done using File>Save As. In this dialog, which looks like an ordinary File Save dialog, there is a Save as Type drop-down used to pick the saved file format. Many of the file formats also have additional options which will appear after the type is selected. Here is an overview of the file format types and settings.

> GIF Animation/Images (.GIF)
> This is the default file format for GMG. Variations include
> Animation: all the frames are saved into a single animation.
> Individual Images: either all or only the selected frames are saved into their own non-animating GIF file. The destination folder is based on the main dialog display and the file name(s) are specified in the bottom of the dialog.
> Filmstrip: all of the images are concatenated into a single "filmstrip" and saved to a non-animating GIF file. Filmstrips can be opened and turned back into an animation by using the File>Import From>Filmstrip menu item. After reading the filmstrip, GMG shows the strip and lets you specify how to break it up into individual frames of an animation.

> AVI Animation (.AVI)
> The animation is saved in the AVI format (this format is also know as the Video for Windows format). Unfortunately, GIF animation and AVI are two very different approaches to storing animation that do not always translate well from one to the other. Exported AVI files can grow to be very large.
> An AVI can be saved with a variety of different compression schemes. The choices are: no compression, where the frames are put in the AVI stream "as is"; RLE8 compression, which uses a run-length-encoding scheme that is especially effective with simple low-color-use images and repeating frames (as one is likely to find with simple GIF animations with long delays); Video 1 (CRAM) compression, which is one the default compressions supported by Microsoft; and (Advanced) select your own compression, which brings up a Windows system dialog for choosing an installed compression codec.
> If the animation contains 24-Bit Color data in any frame, the AVI will be saved using 24-Bit Color.
> The AVI format does not support transparency, local palettes, or non-full frames. If the current animation includes any of these, GMG will show an error message and offer to make the export work. Hitting the Fix button will automatically fix the animation to allow its saving to AVI. After saving, these changes can be undone using Edit>Undo.
> Because of limitations in the AVI format, "sparse" GIF animations (i.e. those with long but irregular pauses) cannot be saved as sparsely. With AVI, the animation needs to be a movie running at x-frames-per-second, and it is designed to handle (for example) a 3 second pause by repeating the paused frame for every frame-rate interval in between. So the files can get rather big. GIF Movie Gear finds the largest possible frame-rate for the animation, but depending on the animation, this may not help. Also, because AVI does not understand "pause until end," GIF Movie Gear may insert an additional copy of the final frame to make the delay work out properly.
> A fixed frame rate (for example, 30-frames-per-second) can be specified in Edit>Preferences>Export. When speficied, the delays in the animation will be mapped to the nearest fixed delay.
> Note that animations exported to AVI will not necessarily read back into GIF Movie Gear as the exact same animation due to a variety of factors including lossy compression and automatic key-framing. It is a good idea to maintain the animation as a GIF file if any further editing is expected.

> Macromedia Flash (.SWF)
> The animation is saved as a Flash animation. If the animation contains 24-Bit Color data in any frame, the animation will be saved using 24-Bit Color; otherwise 8-Bit Color is used. Due to limitations of the Flash player, if an animation is heavily optimized, it may not play cleanly (visible drop-out and holes and chunky playback speed) in the "High Quality" mode of the Flash player; using "Low Quality" playback will fix this problem.

> Bitmap Images (.BMP or .DIB)
> Individual frames (selected or all or a filmstrip) are saved to the Windows Bitmap format, also known as BMP or DIB. If the frame(s) contain 24-Bit Color data, they are saved as 24-Bit BMPs. If the frame(s) also contain an alpha channel, they are saved as 32-Bit BMPs (useful for Windows toolbars). Otherwise, the frame(s) are saved as 8-Bit BMPs with no transparency.

> JPEG Images (.JPG)
> Individual frames (selected or all or a filmstrip) are saved using the JPEG image format. The level of JPEG compression used can be set using Edit>Preferences>Export. More compression results in a smaller file but greater loss of image quality (JPEG, unlike other supported formats, uses a lossy compression).

> Photoshop PSD Image (.PSD)
> The animation is saved as a layered Photoshop PSD file, each frame becoming a single layer in the final image. When available, 24-Bit Color and Alpha Channel information will be preserved in the PSD file. Transparency information can be saved either as an Alpha Channel (by default) or as a Layer Mask (by checking the option in Edit>Preferences>Export).

> PNG Images (.PNG)
> Individual frames (selected or all or a filmstrip) are saved to the PNG image format. This format supports 8-Bit Color with or without transparency as well as 24-Bit Color with or without an Alpha Channel. The frame(s) are saved using the highest available color resolution (24-Bit Color if available, otherwise 8-Bit Color).

> Windows Icon (.ICO)
> The individual frames are saved as the varying resolutions and sizes of a Windows icon. An icon file contains one or more instances of an icon, each instance having a different size or color resolution. In order to build icons for Windows XP and later, be sure to turn on 24-Bit Color support before importing any full-color, full-transparency images. More information about icons and GIF Movie Gear can be found online here.

> Windows Cursor (.CUR)
> The lower part of the dialog allows the specifying of a cursor hotspot (for example, the tip of an arrow cursor) by clicking at the desired location.

> Windows Animated Cursor (.ANI)
> An animated cursor is an animation stored in a special format. Just like with the .CUR format, a cursor hotspot is specified in the lower part of the dialog. The hotspot cannot change from one frame to the next.

Changing the View
The way that the animation's frames and other data are displayed on the screen can be altered in several ways:

FrameTips
FrameTips allow you to quickly view data about a frame by simply hovering the cursor over the frame. The specific properties to be shown are chosen in Edit>Preferences>FrameTips dialog. This feature can be toggled on/off using the button on the toolbar, the corresponding menu item (View>Show FrameTips), or in the FrameTips preference dialog.

Orientation
First, the orientation of the filmstrips can be changed from horizontal to vertical or vice versa using the View>Orientation menu item. The Default orientation uses a vertical filmstrip when the frame size is wider than it is tall; otherwise, horizontal strips are used.

Zoom
Changing the zoom setting also alters the way the animation data is viewed. The toolbar offers buttons for zooming in, zooming out, or viewing at actual size (100% zoom). The View>Zoom menu item presents the zoom choices available. Note that zooming only affects the viewing of the animation frames and does not actually change the animation. Zooming abilities are provided to allow all of the frames of animation to be viewed at once in those cases where they cannot fit into the window at full size.

Transparency
Another view customization involves choosing how transparency is displayed. The View>Transparency As menu item offers three choices:
1. Window Background: "see" the window through where the frame is transparent
2. Color in frame: show the transparent color as defined in the palette
3. Custom Color: choose a color to represent transparency
The latter choice can easily make transparency stand out, which can be useful for tracking transparency. Mostly, however, these settings are a matter of personal choice.

Download Time
The status bar at the bottom of the main window tracks the theoretical download time of the animation at a given connection speed. (Please realize that this is a theoretical value based on an ideal conditions that rarely or ever exist in reality. It is only meant as a reference value.) The View>Download Time menu item controls which of the standard modem speeds are used for calculated the shown value. Conveniently the download times for each of the available speeds is shown directly in the menu.

Copyright, Licensing, Trademarks, Warranty, Etc.
This software product is copyright (c) 1996-2004 gamani productions. All rights reserved. All title and copyrights in and to the software product (including but not limited to any images, animations, and text incorporated into the software product) are owned by gamani productions. The software product is protected by copyright laws and international treaty provisions. Therefore, you must treat the software product like any other copyrighted material.
Once the user registers this software, the user is restricted to the use of a single copy on only a single personal computer or workstation which is not used as a server. The user is restricted from modifying or copying the software, except that the user may make one copy solely for backup or archival purposes.
Movie Gear is a trademark of gamani productions.
The Graphics Interchange Format© (GIF) is the Copyright property of CompuServe Incorporated. GIF(sm) is a Service Mark of CompuServe Incorporated.
The compression technology used in the GIF file format covered by a patent owned by Unisys Corporation. This software is licensed under U.S. Patent No. 4,558,302 and foreign counterparts. Note that the Unisys patent applies to software which reads and writes GIF files, not to the GIF files themselves.
This software is based in part on the work of the Independent JPEG Group.
Windows, Video for Windows, and Internet Explorer are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation.
Netscape Navigator is a trademark of Netscape Communications Corporation.
Photoshop is a trademark of Adobe Systems, Inc.
Disclaimer of Warranty
THIS SOFTWARE AND THE ACCOMPANYING FILES ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" AND WITHOUT WARRANTIES AS TO PERFORMANCE OF MERCHANTABILITY OR ANY OTHER WARRANTIES WHETHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED. Because of the various hardware and software environments into which this software may be put, NO WARRANTY OF FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE IS OFFERED.
Good data processing procedure dictates that any program be thoroughly tested with non-critical data before relying on it. The user must assume the entire risk of using the program. ANY LIABILITY OF THE SELLER WILL BE LIMITED EXCLUSIVELY TO PRODUCT REPLACEMENT OR REFUND OF PURCHASE PRICE.

Registration
GIF Movie Gear is distributed as a fully-functional trial program that expires 30 days after first use. Information about ordering a registered, non-expiring copy of GIF Movie Gear is found here.

Contacting Us
Technical Support
Please email technical support issues to gamtech@gamani.com. Include your registration number in the email to ensure a prompt response. Registered users will get priority.
Feedback
We are always striving to make our products better. If you have any bugs to report or features and improvements to suggest, please email them to gamtech@gamani.com.

Updates
To find out about the latest updates to GIF Movie Gear and (possibly) other tools being developed by gamani productions, visit us at http://www.moviegear.com.

Copyright (c) 1997-2004 gamani productions. All rights reserved.
GIF(sm) is a Service Mark of CompuServe Incorporated.