How do i make GIF images look good?

Question

They always come out crappy and weard. How do i make it look good?

Answer 1

GIF images usually look crappy because the color table being used is too "restrictive." This means that image doesn't have enough colors to choose from to render the image properly.

This kind of reduction keeps files sizes very small and was important before high speed internet access was available, but not so much anymore. If you use an adaptive or perceptual color table, and allow for as many colors as possible, this should improve the quality of your image.

Answer 2

What tools are you using to make your .gif files? Are you using something like Photoshop? If so, you might consider getting some training in Photoshop at a local community college (or work thru some of the Photoshop tutorial books that you can order from Amazon.com).

You also might consider using .png rather than .gif. .jpg files are "lossy" (in compressing the image, they've given up some of the data) so they are smaller. .gif files aren't lossy, so they are bigger. .png is not lossy but has better compression than .gif, so it has the best of both worlds (small size, not lossy).

Answer 3

Designed with photoshop, save for the web, (imageready), and set parameters to "adaptive" map and NO-DITHER:
This will give you images with transparent background without the crapp!
(i.e. a text only, no background, no-dither, will come clean. Leave the dither, and there are littles dots floating around)