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GifCam - making Gifs just got super easy [v2 released]

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Deleted member 325805

Unconfirmed Member
Gifcam always randomly stops recording for me at frame 652, is there a reason for this?

Having the same problem, I'm trying to make some HD GIFs and it stops recording after a few seconds.
 

Voidguts

Member
I'm sure this is old news by now, but.. the flaw for me in this wonderful program has always been the file size.

http://www.gfycat.com/

since I've found this it cuts the size down around 50-75% most of the time. it sucks because I don't think you can embed them (?) but yeah, check it out.
 

Rootbeer

Banned
GifCam 4.5
http://blog.bahraniapps.com/gifcam/

Crop: with the nostalgic “Marching ants” selection effect.

gifcamcrop.gif


Hue And Saturation: Because saturation and shading of two colors generate “good quality looking” gif.

gifcamhueandsaturation.gif


Other Fixes and Changes:
-Fixing double extension “gif.gif” file name problem.
-Renaming “yoyo” option name to “add reverse frames” clearer function name.
-Removing “Add 0.1 Sec Delay” and “Remove 0.1 Sec Delay” options because the right click edit menu is getting bigger and adding delay can be done more practically by dragging delay label or from “keyboard input” window.
-Fixing dragging delay stops.
-Centering all windows to main GifCam window.
-Fixing power of 10 gif size in preview window.

Sorry, update is from Oct but nobody mentioned it.

Sadly still no .webm support but it's a great free program none the less! It has .avi support so .webm support should be a trivial addition. there are already comments asking for it to be added. hopefully someday.
 

Coreda

Member
Sadly still no .webm support but it's a great free program none the less!

Unless what I'm capturing is super compressible (not much movement, text on white background, etc) then I'll always use WebM for sharing captures. WebMCam is decent for this. Doesn't offer any effects, but does allow for setting custom quality and cutting frames.

tef1x2S.png


For GIFs I use ScreenToGIF, better compression and quality than GIFCam in my experience and has many nice post-editing features.

 
D

Deleted member 325805

Unconfirmed Member
I switched to GiffingTool, it's much better IMO.
 

Coreda

Member
What are the file sizes like with these?

ScreenToGIF's filesizes are highly dependent on the type of capture and can vary, but I've found it has better overall quality. Below are two simultaneous recordings compared.

ScreenToGIF ('0' Quality setting, 10 FPS, 3.13 MB):

BdurtDg.gif


GIFCam ('256 Color' Quality setting, 10 FPS, 2.46 MB):

FC9U4Dy.gif


I should correct my earlier post, GIFCam is often smaller in filesize but the quality is such that the difference is worth it (imo). In the first recording test of the same page above ScreenToGIF was slightly smaller, so it varies.

Haven't tested video clips with either as I'd never use a direct-to-GIF screen capture if I want excellent quality/filesize compression but instead use image editing tools + PotPlayer.
 

GraveHorizon

poop meter feature creep
Aw, you can crop GIFs now? That should really help with the black border I get around every Gifcam GIF (never did find an explanation for it).

EDIT: I bought my girlfriend Photoshop and therefore have access to qualify GIF-making. Is there any major benefit to using Photoshop over Gifcam if I'm just capturing a YouTube video for a GIF? I always dreamed of the day I could make GIFs like the big boys, but now that I can, the first option seems useful enough.
 

Coreda

Member
Is there any major benefit to using Photoshop over Gifcam if I'm just capturing a YouTube video for a GIF? I always dreamed of the day I could make GIFs like the big boys, but now that I can, the first option seems useful enough.

If the results and filesizes are good enough then it's up to you. It's more effort the manual way, but you do have more control over color, timing, text, and everything else an image editor allows - including layer masking, useful for isolating moving parts while keeping backgrounds static (helps with loops and compression).

Wanted to test GIFCam with video capture as I haven't since v1. Compared it to a clip from a 1080p downscaled Mad Max trailer shot, and it was surprisingly decent. Color optimization could be better though, and it lacks any way to alter frame timings.

GIFCam with Quantize setting. Captured over the PotPlayer window. 2.6MB, 28 frames, 688x277px.

yyYHV8m.gif


Custom settings (about 20 hand picked color palette alterations to smooth the sky, etc). Frames extracted using PotPlayer and edited via ImageReady. 2.64MB, 30 frames, 700x292px.

sQK9WR2.gif
 

cacildo

Member
I want a gif of George McFly dancing alone in the enchantment under the sea dance

Cans somebody willing to test the new gif cam make me one?
 

Coreda

Member
I switched to GiffingTool, it's much better IMO.

Just tried it. After beginning a screen capture pressing Esc didn't stop or close the invisible recording area, and clicking the tray icon multiple times did nothing. Not a good impression. Might be okay if you can it functioning.

Next tried importing a video from file. This opened correctly and while I'm not so hot on the interface the results were smoother than GIFCam, but there is ugly trailing in parts (the flying debris). The available quality settings are 'Low/Medium/High/Highest'. There's the ability to crop first then resize, but the UI doesn't make this particularly clear.

'Medium' setting. 29 Frames, 700x292, 1.97MB.

1Br7PL7.gif


'High' setting. 2.5MB. A subtle improvement from the Medium setting.

0fXQN3r.gif


For comparison also captured the clip using ScreenToGIF. 3.1MB. It's not optimized for video very well, which can add up to 1MB more than the alternatives depending on the source.

Qd5voiX.gif
 

Rootbeer

Banned
GifCam 5.0 released in May. I know many people are using alternative Gif apps now, but it's great that gifcam is under steady development still.

Customization:

gifcamcustomization.png


Window lets you save and customize:
– Three FPS options that appears on the “Rec” split button menu.
– Option for storing temporary frame on hard disk or memory.
– Customization GifCam memory usage limit (default is 1 GB).
– Setting GifCam window size.
– Option for always capturing mouse cursor.

Keep in mind :
– Higher fps means bigger gif file size.
– Using memory option is faster and more performance than using hard disk option.
– When increasing memory usage limit, make sure you have enough memory to use, if you haven’t your system may slow dawn and may crush.
– And finally it is recommended to use the default settings.

Profile:

gifcamprofile.gif


Profile window present frames size with bar chart and gives profile info of each frame:
the size of the frame in bytes, number of colors, and percentage of green screen.
Profile window is resizable, resize it for bigger bar chart.

Other fixes and changes:
- Drawing green screen and resizing frames are working well together now.
- Fixing the gif file size in the preview window.
- When saving, “Gif.gif” is the default file name.


I'm still bouncing around from gifcam, giffingtool and screentogif until I can decide on a true favorite ;) can never have enough tools in the arsenal.

If you're a ScreenToGif user, check out the version "2015" preview
 
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