GIF stands for Graphics Interchange Formats, GIF files are Raster image file formats, with their use on the internet becoming more popular than ever before. As the saying goes, “a picture alone can mean a thousand words”, and their significance, are the very reason GIF files are found all over the internet today. Let us take a closer look at their origin to better understand these files.

When the GIF File was first published?

CompuServe published the first most popular GIF, of a dancing baby in 1987 and this was during the early days of the Internet. Since then GIF file formats have fully developed and become much easier to design. GIF 87a had an updated version released in 1989 known as GIF 89a. Version 89a is almost identical to 87a, as they both enable a series of animated images to be saved as a file. Version 87a encompasses transparent backgrounds support and image metadata as well as supports animation delays. Nearly all GIF files use version 89a.

What are GIF image files?

A GIF image is a file that contains a Bitmap visual motion picture. Typically, these are found on millions upon millions of websites, social media sites and image pages obtained in images, banners and icons. The duration of a motion image can vary from 10 to a maximum 15 seconds. Additionally, the GIF image file may display motionless pictures with minimal temporary movements. GIFs maintain their good quality, unlike JPEG format files. A GIF image file is palette based and with the ability to utilise 256 colours in total. Individuals still extensively utilise animated images, surprisingly, with the available 256 colours.

Making of GIF format files

If you go to the basics, you will come to know that a GIF is made of several images blocks and Medias. You can use them and make a beautiful GIF which is having a full-colour effect.   As every image block needs a personal colour table, GIF files can become huge, when holding a number of image blocks, resulting in the limitation of effective full-colour GIF images. GIF images have become popular as they are simple and easy to make. Before recent times, complicated programs and software were used to make the files. Many websites will now permit you to make the images speedily and with ease. There are many programs that have been developed to make the images on numerous platforms on websites. One can only search and choose a website and tool that is appropriate for them. Naturally, the programs will come with step-by-step instructions, which make the whole process effortless.

The popularity of GIF files

Centuries ago, motionless pictures were the order of the day. The introduction of animated GIF images changed that era. Videos were the sole means of watching animated images with some movement. Video technology had its shortcomings as the files were often too big to share from one computer to another and with a considerable time required to upload images for viewing. The technical feature to watch preferred sections of the video was not available to viewers. Unreliable internet connections and limited data hindered the file uploading procedure. Of course, this has become a thing of the past with the never-ending advancement in technology. GIFs gained their significance following a wide coverage of unsuccessful motion picture movies on the internet.

People took to selecting small eye-catching short clips timely avoiding the viewing of an entire movie. This triggered GIF file frenzy on the internet. File sharing and saving on the computer was a much more straightforward task, due to the size of images. Some individuals took this exciting opportunity to market by sharing extensively on the internet, with many reaping recognition and rewards. Individuals simply search and download popular GIF images on the internet today, without fuss. Image clips of musicians, athletes, presenters and other famous personalities, taken from motion pictures, televisions shows and games are shared on the World Wide Web. This has promoted not only famous personalities but transformed some regular users into internet celebrities.

Conclusion:

Animated GIF images are one of the best discoveries for the internet users who wanted to view animated images effortlessly and within a short space of time. The younger generation of particular mention may today find it difficult to communicate with peers in the absence of GIF. It is true to say the younger generation prefer a more suitable, speedy and convenient way to effectively communicate with one another. The ideal mix of picture incorporating video that fully captures their attention and imagination in a short period of time becomes much more desirable. Based on these factors, GIF files have garnered much popularity.

We support a wide variety of conversions from and to a GIF format, our most popular GIF conversion types include GIF to MP4, MP4 to GIF, GIF to BMP and many more.

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