Making Gifs – Whew!!

Its been an interesting learning curve…

I had a vision – I wanted to make my photos come alive and then I wanted to upload to my blog.  Like most things I have a vision about – in my head its easy – in reality – not so much.

I have to say that its been quite a ‘mare’ (kiwi for nightmare) in that, I do not always have the most technically minded brain.  Unlike Techno Man, it is not pre wired to just understand all the ‘geek’ speak out there.  You name it, I have tried it tonight.  You would think making a Gif would be simple.  Well, it may be simple for those of you out there born to techie things like a duck is born to water OR if you have all the fancy pants gear and programmes that makes it an easy road.  Me – not so much.

I have tried a number of programmes.  I am Mac based.  That should make it easier.  Nope.

I downloaded one programme that the virtual world claims to be fabulous.  I am sure it is – but this lappy won’t allow it to run because it wasn’t from the Mac Store.  (If you ask me I think thats a bit snobbish..)  Sigh.  There goes time I wont get back in a hurry.

I won’t tell you how long I have fluffed around researching and fiddling around with iMovie.  You might laugh at my endeavours.  All for zip I might add.  What I created was rubbish and nothing like a Gif.

It is at this point that Techno Man came into the lounge asking me what on earth I was listening to on Utube – he briefly listens to the tutorial I am trying to learn from (that was being led by a very young techno geek) – hears the obvious frustrations in my voice – and offers to make it for me.

Hmmmm.

If looks could turn things to stone – he would have been frozen on the spot.  I appreciate he is trying to help – but actually – I NEED to do this for myself.

Discovering that I have to use something from the Mac Store actually made life a little easier in the end.  Oh how I wish I had realised this from the start – do you not love how the universe likes you to learn the hard way!

So, I downloaded a relatively cost effective (cue for cheap) Gif programme.  It was easy to use and pretty intuitive.  Yay.

The next issue came to uploading it to Blogger.  Not so much a ‘yay’, and much more of a ‘here we go again’.   After some research, and much trial and error – I made it.  I now know more about HTML and 3rd party hosting than I ever thought I would ever need to know.

This blogging business is quite fascinating.

I really don’t want to bore you for much longer.  Suffice to say, I got there.

Is it using the ‘flashiest’ software in the world?  Nope.

Is it something that will now take me a long time to do next time?  Nope.  (This is important – I am a very busy person and I do not have the time to waste making little animations – no matter how captivating it may seem)

Is it something you can do at home if you too are not very techie minded?  Yes.

Tune in later for the ‘Principally Mused How To for the Not So Techie Minded’.   Frankly people, If I can do it – you can.  It will be a goal of mine to see if I can make far more complex ones and attach all the fancy pants music to it – but that will be another day.

NB:  I know both Gifs are not very posh, but given the learning that has taken place to get the idea of putting my photos to animation – I am quite proud of myself.  I wonder if I will look back on this one day and roll my eyes!!  Well, to future me – remember, a journey starts with a single step – and this was my single step!!

On the Pacific Pearl