This post is in continuation to my earlier post about creating GIFs.This post is about exporting food stop Motion Videos for social media.

Exporting stop motion videos or GIFs is simple and straightforward and there are a few ways one can do it:

1. Use free or paid applications like Animoto, Giphy or Dragonframe to create GIFS . There are several other free applications as well but these three in particular produce better quality animation. Dragonframe is the most sophisticated of all & used for high quality stop motion animation by professionals
2. High quality GIFs can also be created using Adobe Photoshop once you have shot and edited the images you need as explained in this post

So, below are the steps for exporting (food) Stop Motion videos for social media via Photoshop:

This is one of the easiest ways to create and export stop motion videos or GIFs especially if you already have an Adobe suite and you do not want to add more paid applications to your cost. And if you do not have the suite you can download a free 7 day trial version for Photoshop here.  So, let’s begin :

1. The first step is to create a folder on your computer with the final edited images which you would be using for your stop motion
2. Then open Photoshop and click on File > Scripts > Load Files into Stack
3. Then click on browse and holding down the Shift Key select all the files you need for the GIF and click Open 
4. Click OK and all the files will be imported in a Single Layered File on the right side of the Photoshop window. These “layers” will eventually become the frames of your stop motion
5. Go to Window > Timeline which opens the Timeline panel . Then click on the arrow button in the middle of the Timeline panel and select Create Frame Animation. Click on the button to create a new frame animation
6. Go to the menu icon from the upper right corner of the Timeline panel and click Make Frames From Layers.This converts all the layers in the Layers panel into individual frames in your animation
7. Click the Play button at the bottom of the Timeline panel to preview your animation . At this point you can also change the time for each frame as desired. I typically keep it at 0.2 seconds. Click Reverse Frames from the Timeline Panel if your animation is playing in reverse 
8. Click the repeat menu from the bottom of the Timeline panel and select Forever. This will create a looping animation

Exporting the Animation as GIF

1. Go to File > Export > Save for Web (Legacy) and select 256 from the Colors dropdown menu, change the width and height under Image Size based on the online platform you would be using the GIF for . Typically 2000 pixels works across various platforms. Then select Forever from the Looping Options menu
2. Preview the GIF from the bottom left corner of the Export window
3. Click Save and select a destination for your animated GIF and done! You are all set !

Pro Tip- Recommended for creating GIFs for Instagram

If you are like me and create your GIFs primarily for Instagram then you need to follow an additional step- make your GIF “insta-friendly!”

Yes, unfortunately Instagram so far doesn’t allow standard GIF formats so your GIF needs to be converted using a software that makes it compatible. I use GIF Maker. All you need to do is Airdrop the GIF to your phone, open the GIF Maker application, import your GIF, convert and export to your phone and share! This is recommended if your GF is not 3 seconds long

There is another (and quicker) way to do it too- exporting your GIF as a video. This means you follow all steps until Step 6 and then repeat your frames (press shift and select all frames one by one and click on the little square box with a plus sign in it on the bottom left of the window) till the complete frame is at least 3 seconds long (for example: at least 10 frames of 0.3 seconds each or 15 frames of 0.2 seconds each like in the below example).

Then you export the frames as Video- File > Export > Render Video

Adjust the Size to 2000X2000 or lower if desired and save

Airdrop to your phone and share away :))

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