gif compression

need to make a file as small as possible

[thecyke]

I'm trying to build a great looking small animation (gif) and want the filesize to be as small as humanly possible , if not smaller!

Can anyone recommend any tips/tricks or great software?

I've tried gif construction set, and psp8's animation shop. Both are good, but I need better :)

Is there any good compression software that can take me further?

[Jon_King]

As korkus2000 pointed out to me some time ago the possible compression of a gif animation is small, meaning no matter what you do considering other options like Flash the end file size will likely be greater than you want.

Large file sizes are inherent to the gif animation format because all data for each frame is kept whereas with other methods pixels that are the same from frame to frame have only one instance thereby reducing file size...

[thecyke]

really? interesting...ok so what other methods/file types could i use?

(thanks!)

[R1chard]

Presumably you've already reduced the color palette and the number of frames as much as possible? I think some animators can detect redundancy in a pixel, and this can be used to replace large areas with transparency (which is featureless and compresses more). Look on gamani for a free tool.

Of course, for non-animated images, I always use PNG because it's smaller and higher quality...

[Jon_King]

Flash will probably yield the smallest file.

[DanA]

I would try the GIMP 2
There's a gif optimisation tool, sometimes 50% less than psp

[hostbreak]

i think besides all other stuff you guys must give a change to Adobe ImageReady.. really impressive, resolution wise & size wise coz in gif formate size of animated file does matter alot!

[webcreativz]

Not to forget! Adobe Photoshop can give you the best results too...

[directrix]

I find Advanced GIF Compressor from Creabit Development very effective.

[benihana]

Not to forget! Adobe Photoshop can give you the best results to

photoshop doesnt do animation.

Fortunately, as someone mentioned above, it comes with the excellent imageready. which gives very fine control over each frame.