[Gimp] How to Create a Gif & Watermark Text.

When you surf the net specially social media web, I’m sure you will see lot of gif and meme on your feed. Create a meme is easier than create a gif. Gif is a sequences of still images that play in loop. You can use SMPlayer to have a collection of still images/frames of your video file. But, if you on Ubuntu, you can extract them using Ffmpeg.

Now, let’s get started. Access the folder that already saves your screenshot frames and open the first file with gimp.

And on Gimp open the rest of screenshot by click File —> Open as Layers. Select the file image #02, #03, #04, etc. Now, your layers are suppose to open in ascending order. Otherwise your gif will play backwards instead. If they are not in ascending order, you can fix it by go to Layer —> Stack —> Reverse Layer Order.

The layers dialog window should be like this:

Next, you can use filter, coloring, resize, etc, to make your gif look better and compatible (mostly upload size) for the web. For now I’m just wanna make it black and white. Select the top layer on layers dialog and go to Image —> Mode —> Grayscale. And then go to Colors —> Brightness and Contrast. Set the value of both property, as you can see I set mine to 58 & 64. Click + sign to save its setting, so it will easier for you to apply it to the rest of the layers.

Repeat the step to all layers. You can turn off the eye icon on layer above to see the changes you make on current layer. To preview your gif, click Filters —> Animation —> Playback. Press play button, see how the gif playing. You also can preview the speed and framerate.

How to Add Watermark Text on Gif [Gimp]

Now, we will try to add text as watermark on your gif so nobody try to steal it. Select top layer and create a text layer and type something for your watermark, place it in the center of image. Make the opacity to 20. Active the text layer, right click and choose Layer to Image Size. Move the new text layer to above file image #01 and then duplicate it and move the duplication layer above file image #2. Repeat the same process until you reach the top of layer list. It should be like this:

Select the top list of text layer, right click and choose Merge Down. We want to unite it with the scene image. Repeat to all other images layer. If you happy with the result, time to export it as gif. But first, go to Image —> Mode —> Indexed, and set the change like picture below, click convert:

To export it, click File —> Export As, choose the extension file .gif, click Export. Follow my setting for the gif from picture below. Remember though, the higher the miliseconds value, the slower the gif playing.

I know this How to Create a Gif (And Add Text) with Gimp tutorial can be confusing sometimes. If you stuck, leave comment below so I can help. Cheers…

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