Converting AVI From Vegas Movie Studio to GIF

[pone44]

What is the best way to convert an AVI created in Vegas Movie Studio 15 Platinum into GIF format? The source AVI is non-standard at 1240x400 and I am going to reduce this down to a GIF at 248x80. So I need:

1) An application that read in the AVI produced as output from Vegas

2) An application that can greatly reduce the frame size of the original AVI when rendering to GIF, without creating artifacts.

3) A high quality GIF output.

[smrpix]

You need to bring your file into photo editing software such as photoshop or gimp. There are a number of helpful tutorials available on YouTube.

[pone44]

Photoshop will edit the GIF, but I am looking to create the GIF from the AVI. That's a render function of some animation or movie editing package, typically.

[poisondeathray]

Photoshop will edit the GIF, but I am looking to create the GIF from the AVI. That's a render function of some animation or movie editing package, typically.

Photoshop can open some types of AVI and export GIF . (and you can open any type of video in Photoshop by frameserving with avisynth or vapoursynth with avfs)

To export in CC versions you have to file=>export=> save for web (legacy)

2) An application that can greatly reduce the frame size of the original AVI when rendering to GIF, without creating artifacts.

3) A high quality GIF output.

If you mean reduce the dimensions, you can do that in photoshop , the GIF export has various options to resize

But you will always create artifacts with GIF . It only supports 256 color palette. It's never really "high quality." There are various ways to optimize GIF's but one common issue is "banding" . People apply various dithering techniques to combat that, but it will make the GIF filesize larger . There are various techniques to reduce GIF filesize as well, but it's always a tradeoff .

Other options to photoshop include virtualdub/vdub2 , ffmpeg . The "highest quality" (a bit of an oxymoron) GIF output in my experience is generated from gifski . But the GIFs are just massive in filesize. It doesn't accept AVI, only image sequence, and is commandline only . But you can export a PNG sequence from vegas or use vdub2 to convert to a PNG sequence
https://github.com/ImageOptim/gifski

[jagabo]

VirtualDub has a built in GIF export but it uses a fixed palette which looks bad on smooth gradients:



Here's a simple ffmpeg script that produces an animated gif with error diffusion from a video file:

"C:\Program Files\ffmpeg\bin\ffmpeg" -i %1 -vf palettegen %1.palette.png
"C:\Program Files\ffmpeg\bin\ffmpeg" -i %1 -i %1.palette.png -lavfi paletteuse %1.gif
del %1.palette.png

Be sure to modify the path to ffmpeg.exe to match where it is on your system. Then drag/drop a video file onto the batch file.



Both images were made from a small 24 bit RGB AVI file.

[budwzr]

You don't want to use GIF as a render format unless it is short. The color space is very limited.

[pone44]

You don't want to use GIF as a render format unless it is short. The color space is very limited.

I am creating online emoticons, and GIF is the only supported format on the systems I am using.

So, again, I am trying to find the least worst way of moving from an AVI output from Sony Movie Studio 15 Platinum to a 256-color GIF with reduced dimensions.

Photoshop is fine for editing the final GIF. I have to believe there is a single application in which I can:

1) Import my AVI with 1240x400 irregular dimensions

2) Render that as a 248x80 GIF with 256 colors

Maybe a better workflow would be to render my AVI with 248x80 dimensions and then just convert that to GIF?

[jagabo]

ffmpeg can resize on the fly:

"C:\Program Files\ffmpeg\bin\ffmpeg" -i %1 -vf palettegen %1.palette.png
"C:\Program Files\ffmpeg\bin\ffmpeg" -i %1 -i %1.palette.png -s 248:80 -lavfi paletteuse %1.gif
del %1.palette.png

[poisondeathray]

Photoshop is fine for editing the final GIF. I have to believe there is a single application in which I can:

1) Import my AVI with 1240x400 irregular dimensions

2) Render that as a 248x80 GIF with 256 colors

Maybe a better workflow would be to render my AVI with 248x80 dimensions and then just convert that to GIF?

Photoshop.

If I was forced to use 1 application in this scenario, it would be photoshop because it has the most options in terms of different types of resizing, denoising, color correction, editing, and it's easy to change gif timing (different frame delays). Also, you can preview the results "live" - e.g if you don't like a certain type of dither, or didn't like a specific palette, or maybe you wanted a sharper resize - you can change it and preview the results before exporting

Different types of resizing algorithms can produce different results. If your emoticon was sharp, chances are you don't need a sharper downscaling algorithm, you would just increase the risk of ringing and edge artifacts. In that case you'd probably want a smoother, softer resize. If you are exporting out of vegas movie studio, chances are you don't have any resizing options

You have to decide what is more important to you, and base your tradeoffs on those parameters (e.g. is small filesize more important? etc...) If your emoticons were more cartoonish and simple, then dithering usually isn't as important. But complex emoticons can look like 3d renders with many gradients

[pone44]

Photoshop is fine for editing the final GIF. I have to believe there is a single application in which I can:

1) Import my AVI with 1240x400 irregular dimensions

2) Render that as a 248x80 GIF with 256 colors

Maybe a better workflow would be to render my AVI with 248x80 dimensions and then just convert that to GIF?

Photoshop.

If I was forced to use 1 application in this scenario, it would be photoshop because it has the most options in terms of different types of resizing, denoising, color correction, editing, and it's easy to change gif timing (different frame delays). Also, you can preview the results "live" - e.g if you don't like a certain type of dither, or didn't like a specific palette, or maybe you wanted a sharper resize - you can change it and preview the results before exporting

Different types of resizing algorithms can produce different results. If your emoticon was sharp, chances are you don't need a sharper downscaling algorithm, you would just increase the risk of ringing and edge artifacts. In that case you'd probably want a smoother, softer resize. If you are exporting out of vegas movie studio, chances are you don't have any resizing options

You have to decide what is more important to you, and base your tradeoffs on those parameters (e.g. is small filesize more important? etc...) If your emoticons were more cartoonish and simple, then dithering usually isn't as important. But complex emoticons can look like 3d renders with many gradients

I am still confused. How am I supposed to import an MP4 or AVI movie into Photoshop? I am using Photoshop Elements 13, and at least that version does not appear to support either AVI or MP4.

[poisondeathray]

I am still confused. How am I supposed to import an MP4 or AVI movie into Photoshop? I am using Photoshop Elements 13, and at least that version does not appear to support either AVI or MP4.

PS Elements might not support it importing video, not sure

In PS, it's file => import video frames as layers