Some images take our breath away. The photographer pours all their knowledge and instinct into that shot, capturing a "fragment of life" that could reach millions of eyes through social media and the web. Now, if a still image can do that, what effect would it have with a little movement? I'm not talking about looping videos, but something subtler, like an animated GIF. That's exactly what Plotagraph PRO offers: turning static images into animated GIFs.
The GIF format is about to turn thirty years old, but there's no sign it's going away. The computing world has tried to replace it several times, and although variants like .gifv or mp4 playback in browsers exist, the GIF persists, especially in its animated form. The simplest way to create an animated GIF is to take a portion of a video, reduce its resolution and frame count (to avoid ending up with an animated GIF that's impossible to distribute), and experiment until you get the desired result. But what if all we have is a single image—a JPG or PNG photo? The answer arrives through a new tool called Plotagraph PRO.
From a technical standpoint, Plotagraph PRO presents itself as an alternative to the Cinemagraph technique. The difference, according to the official Plotagraph PRO page, is that Cinemagraph is much more expensive and time-consuming, and is based on video. By using dozens of animation points and different masks on a single image, Plotagraph PRO manages to produce results very similar to a Cinemagraph, not to mention the ability to export the final work as animated GIFs at different speeds. The video shows Trey Ratcliff exploring Plotagraph PRO's main functions. I would have loved to embed the official tutorial, but it doesn't allow embedding.
The most important detail to make clear about Plotagraph PRO is that it isn't aimed at the general public; it positions itself as an application intended for professionals. Working in the cloud and adopting a fairly pricey subscription model, it's most likely that the average user stays away. How pricey? According to the available information, its "pre-launch offer" is $299 for 12 months of subscription and 10 GB of storage. Yes, despite its impressive results, let's say the number "isn't there".
