Making GIFs in GIMP (2025)
I'm jumping off of @dalishious's Gaming GIF Tutorial (2025) post, which helped me immensely with my own gif making journey. If you have access to Photoshop, consider using their tutorial instead of mine! Mine will cover what to do if you only have access to GIMP.
STEP ONE: Video Capture
Follow Dalishious' tutorial if you want to know the best tools to use & how to get cool camera angles in cutscenes.
I personally don't do anything fancy. I use the video capture tool available through NVIDIA overlay and just record cutscenes as they play.
STEP TWO: Capturing Your Frames
Download PotPlayer so that you can use its Consecutive Image Capturer feature.
Open your video through PotPlayer and hit CTRL + G to open the tool. A few things to note before you begin:
Storage: create a new folder where you want the images to be saved. I like to make subfolders too if I'm making multiple gifs at the same time.
Numbers to Capture: How many images this tool will capture before automatically stopping. I like to make it a high number and cut excess photos manually
Every # Frame: I usually go 1-2 depending on the game. If you make this number too high, the gif won't be as smooth
Capturing your frames:
Go to the part of the video you want to capture. I like to start a little ahead of what I want, to ensure I get everything. Hit Start on the Image Capturer tool and then hit Play on the video. Once you have what you want, hit Pause on the video, and then hit Stop on the tool.
Next, go to where you saved the frames and cut any of the excess. I personally like to have 50 frames/gif, but will give myself leeway of +30/-30 depending on the scene. If you're making several gifs at the same time, move these frames to their subfolder before capturing your next frames.
STEP THREE: Editing in GIMP
Opening them in GIMP:
Once you have all your frames, you're ready to open them in GIMP!
Click File -> Open as Layers... -> go to where you saved your frames and select them all
If you're making more than one gif, click File -> New... -> repeat the same steps as above. Repeat until all your gifs have their own tabs.
Cropping:
You don't have to, but I like to crop all my scenes, usually by making the width and/or length a multiple of 10.
If I'm making more than one gif of the same scene, I also like to note the Position and will use the same position on all the others. It keeps your subject squarely in the center of frame, and makes it look better when clicking from one gif to the next.
If you're unsure whether your crop job will look good, you can always test to see what your gif will look like by clicking Filters -> Animation -> Playback... (note that it may take a while for this to load depending on how big your gif will be. Don't panic if it looks like GIMP has stopped working!). Hit play on the top left to see how the gif will run.
Once you're satisfied, it's time to....
Recolour:
My favourite bit! Time to go crazy!
Right click anywhere on your screen to see the Colors menu:
I'm not going to outline my own recolour process in detail. Not because it's my Super Secret Sauce, but because I do something different each time I make my gifs.
Some good tips, though, are:
Color Balance is your friend. Especially if you want to get rid of excess colours on your gif (i.e. if it's washed out in too much green, red, etc.)
Saturation can really make a gif pop
Curves for making the gif brighter
Exposure: I like to increase the black level a bit, and then add another layer where I decrease the black level. It helps make the gif size smaller because it makes all almost-blacks black, and also just makes the gifs look cooler imo. Below is an example of what I'm trying to convey:
Original -> Black Level Up -> Black Level Down
Okay. Here's the not so fun part....
Every time you make a change to the colour, you have to make that change to every frame underneath. Your recolour only affects one layer at a time.
You have to go down all the frames pressing CTRL + F to add each recolour to each frame. If anyone has a better way to do this, please please tell me!
If you have lots of frames, lots of recolours, and/or lots of gifs, this step will take a while.
Adding Subtitles or Additional Layers
I hate making subtitles, so I can't help you with the best font to use (if someone could tell me what the best font is, please do!). But if you want to brave those waters, click Layers -> New Layer...
Add your subtitles/gradient/whatever you want to the layer. Edit that layer as you see fit. Some tips for subtitles is to add a drop shadow and black outline to the words.
Once finished, you then use CTRL + Shift + D to duplicate the layer. Duplicate enough layers to cover each frame. They should be sitting above each respective frame.
I've changed my keybindings for this part. I used this site to learn GIMP keybindings & how to change them.
You need to Merge Visible Layers. Click on the layer you created and use CTRL + M (I changed this keybinding to numb. pad 2). Merge the rest of the layers that you created.
Sharpen
You're almost done!
Go to Filters -> Enhance -> Sharpen (Unsharp Mask) and just play around with Radius & Amount until it looks good. It's okay to over-sharpen a bit, because the gif might lose some quality after you upload it.
Same with recolours, you have to CTRL + F each frame.
Before sharpen -> After sharpen
Saving your GIF
Now all you need to do is click Image -> Scale Image and make the width 540px. Tumblr won't allow gifs any larger than that (if this has been updated, pls tell me lol)
Next, click File -> Export As... -> name your file (I usually just number mine..) but use the extension .webp ->
Yes folks, you've heard it here. I've been lying to you this whole time. We're not making gifs. We're making dreaded WEBPs. Oh the horror! (you can save them as .gif but the quality will be shit. I warned you.)
After renaming, click Export. A little popup will appear. Click As Animation and change the delay between frames.
For DA:V, if I've captured every 2nd frame from Potplayer, I like to have my delay be 80 milliseconds. It slows my gif down a bit, but it remains smooth enough. Nice for catching small details.
And that's it! You've made your not-gif(s)!
@maagisterpavus and @in-the-drowning-deep have expressed interest in something like this, so I'm tagging the two of you to ensure you see this!