If you’ve used the internet lately, you have almost certainly come across a “GIF” – a sound-free, infinitely-looping video or set of images. GIFs have become increasingly popular in pop culture, but they are useful for more than just creating viral memes (although, they are pretty fun for that purpose too!). GIFs are a great way to add eye-catching movement to a social media post, or to add personality to a blog post on your website. GIFs are also a unique and efficient way to demonstrate a process or set of instructions within your eLearning module.

Whether you’re hoping to increase your GIF usage on your social media platforms, within your website, or to spice up your eLearning courses, a customized GIF is a fun way to show off your company’s personality.

There are numerous ways to create a gif, but today, I’m going to demonstrate my favorite way – using Photoshop – that is simple, quick, and totally customizable. I’ve written out the instructions below, as well as created a short instructional video documenting the process!

1. Create a video

First, create or locate the video that you would like to use as the source of your GIF. If you are creating your video from scratch, you can use any video editing software that you would like – I create many of GAAP Dynamics’ videos in Camtasia, but you can use Premiere Pro, Vyond, or whichever software with which you’re most comfortable. Try to keep your video short and sweet – since the best part of a GIF is watching it loop, lengthy videos will lose their punch. I suggest keeping it to about 5-7 seconds. When exporting your video, remember that you don’t need to include sound!

2. Open Photoshop

Time to convert your video! Open Photoshop, and choose File-Import-Video frames to layers. Then select the video that you’ve created in Step 1. From this window, you can choose to import the entire video, or you can cut it down to certain frames (this step is helpful if you’re using a video that’s been provided to you by someone else that you need to cut down). Click “Okay,” and you should see that all your frames will be added into the Layers panel.

3. Save your GIF

Next, choose File-Export-Save for Web. In the dropdown menu at the top right of the pop-up window, choose “GIF.” Under the “Animations” section, make sure that in the “Looping Options” dropdown menu, “Forever” is selected, as this will make sure your GIF animates properly. Click “Save,” and you are finished!

About GAAP Dynamics  

We’re a DIFFERENT type of accounting training firm. We don’t think of training as a “tick the box” exercise, but rather an opportunity to empower your people to help them make the right decisions at the right time. Whether it’s U.S. GAAP training, IFRS training, or audit training, we’ve helped thousands of professionals since 2001. Our clients include some of the largest accounting firms and companies in the world. As lifelong learners, we believe training is important. As CPAs, we believe great training is vital to doing your job well and maintaining the public trust. We want to help you understand complex accounting matters and we believe you deserve the best training in the world, regardless of whether you work for a large, multinational company or a small, regional accounting firm. We passionately create high-quality training that we would want to take. This means it is accurate, relevant, engaging, visually appealing, and fun. That’s our brand promise. Want to learn more about how GAAP Dynamics can help you? Let’s talk!

Disclaimer  

This post is published to spread the love of GAAP and provided for informational purposes only. Although we are CPAs and have made every effort to ensure the factual accuracy of the post as of the date it was published, we are not responsible for your ultimate compliance with accounting or auditing standards and you agree not to hold us responsible for such. In addition, we take no responsibility for updating old posts, but may do so from time to time.