Decreasing file sizes of gifs

[Evan]

So I've been working on an animated gif, but when I exported it, the file size came out to about 4 MB.
Not really surprising once you see the gif because it's about 150 frames.
But I was wondering if anyone knew any special settings for decreasing the file size of a gif to meet Tapastic's 2MB size limit.

[sparky1505]

oh wow, 150 frames? i think you should consider splitting it into parts. (Ive made gifs for tapastic and it was 15 frames and i had to split it into 3 different gifs to get it to fit) what about your pixel dimensions? have you made sure the width is below the 900 something limit? also you can try scaling it down more (either the pixel width/height or resolution/pixels per inch if youre having it by inches). just some suggestions.

[Evan]

I already split it into 2 parts from 300 frames, the pixel dimensions were 700x900, but resizing sounds like a good idea.

[apurviance]

What program are you using to make the GIFs?

Here are a couple of GIF features that you might be able to use to your advantage:

• The compression uses run length encoding (RLE). So, areas of solid color compress best. Avoid gradients and using the dither option.
• The frame rate is variable. Unlike video, every GIF frame can last as long as you need on screen without increasing the file size. One frame can hold for 2 seconds while others can be 1/30th of a second.
• I believe only changes from frame-to-frame are updated. So small changes on the screen compress better than full action.
• If all else fails try making the image size smaller.

Hope some of this proves useful.
Here's an example GIF I made that goes on and on and on....
It's only 623kb.

[Evan]

I use GIMP.
Thank you for the information.