Q Gifer

 




Free Animated GIF Creator

 

 

 

Its popularity with web developers has decreased drastically in favor of PNG files, but this does not mean that overall its usage is declining. On the contrary, according to some voices the format reached an all-time high thanks to the animated feature.

And indeed, the Web is crawling with these entertainment nibbles and some websites have entire sections that rely on animated GIFs.

There are sufficient tools available to come up with funny, animated GIF images, but few offer the flexibility and ease of use to create slightly more complicated projects in a short amount of time.

QGifer is a new instrument that has been created specifically for authoring animated images from video files. It is currently in beta stage of development, but it already looks like a very promising solution.

The application is free of charge and the developer also makes available a portable version, which does not require installation, so you can simply launch the executable to access the program and its options.

The interface is concise and the functions are laid out within easy reach. Most of the application screen is reserved for showing the video (supports AVI, MP4, MPG and OGV files), an area which also doubles as a previewer.

In the left hand part of the main window, there is a toolbox with various functions for tweaking up various aspects of the project. This includes adjusting the resolution, manually setting the first and last frame of the GIF, making some color corrections or defining the margins.

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However, most of these tweaks can be operated straight from the video window, which some users might find more comfortable.

Under “Filters” section, there are the knobs for correcting the hue, saturation and brightness of the image. You can enable the changes to be reflected in the preview area immediately, but this will impact on how the sliders are dragged. The alternative is to make the change and then enable the result preview.

This menu also provides the possibility to add a blur effect to the picture (median blur).

Filters and effects aside, the most important aspect in the application is defining the frames that make the project. These can be easily selected from the toolbar, in the upper part of the interface, or you can define an area by dragging the sliders under the seek bar. Another method is to input the values manually in the “Output properties” panel.

QGifer is not limited to just outputting a loop of frames; it also provides the means to make the result a bit more elaborate and customize it with text and images (PN, BMP, JPG).

Pictures can be resized and moved anywhere in the window while text benefits from a few more customization options that allow you to define its color, the tint of the border, font size and type as well as the frames it should be visible in.

The context menu for the text box sports options referring to its position and size in relation to the frames ahead or behind. Furthermore, you can choose to interpolate it and decide on the key points.

It may take a while to be able to manipulate the inserted objects the way you want to, but it should not be too difficult.


Power users can access all the functions in the program through keyboard shortcuts. There is a hotkey for almost all actions, from selecting the first and last frame, playing and pausing the video or navigating to any of the menus in the toolbox to saving the project and exiting the application.

QGifer also packs a function that relies on third-party software. This is the optimization procedure, which requires ImageMagick to be installed on the system in order to be carried out.

Unless you already have it, when launching the GIF optimizer, an error message will pop out alerting of the missing requirements. However, there is no link to download said program or any hint that might lead to retrieving it.

Despite being in beta stage of development, QGifer did not show signs of malfunctioning. It can be easily managed by the average and even beginner user. If you already know the result you want to reach, the actual effort poured into achieving it is minor.