It is one of the oldest technologies on the Web, and at the same time, one of the most popular. The animated GIF holds a privileged place among social networks, and its users constantly look for new tools to create them quickly and easily. That search brings us to the doors of Instagiffer, an excellent software with the ability to use YouTube videos as a source for our GIF files.
I think not a single day goes by without me running into an animated GIF on the Web. I imagine I could avoid them if I decided to, but in a normal session three or four always show up. Some are products of chance, while others have considerable effort behind them. Anyone trying to get started in creating animated GIFs will surely look for a simple tool, preferably free, but the truth is that not many good quality ones are out there. One we can consider an exception is Instagiffer, compatible with Windows and OS X.
How to use Instagiffer
Its greatest advantage is that it uses videos stored on YouTube as its original source. The process begins by pasting the video's URL in the top part of the interface and clicking Load Video. Then we specify the start time, the duration of the animated GIF in seconds, the number of frames per second, the final frame size, and the quality. Instagiffer can insert additional effects like black and white, sepia, and edge emphasis, but it also provides support for text, loops, and creating GIFs from what appears on our screen (capture).
A note on GIF quality
It is important to remember that an animated GIF is not meant to imitate the quality of the original video, simply because there is no compression or encoding of any sort, so an animated GIF with "too many details" could take up tens of megabytes. If the file is too large, Instagiffer will show warnings regarding the maximum size allowed by certain social networks (for example, Tumblr) and portals like Imgur. Instagiffer has no dependencies, and there is even a portable edition.
