Saving Documents/GIF Animations

Saving Documents

Bannershop GIF Animator provides Save Document command located in File menu. This command is used to save animation in .BSD format. Unlike Save Animation command Save Document preserves all formatting and design information.

Saving GIF Animations

To export the animation to GIF format use Save GIF Animation commands located in File menu. GIF format is limited to 256 colors. If the total number of colors exceeds 256 - color optimization must be used. Additional GIF Save Options dialog lets you specify GIF export options before saving the file:

Palette Options

By using these options you can specify how many distinct colors do you want in your output file. As a general rule the less colors you specify the smaller GIF file will be produced. However the number of colors must be balanced to avoid remarkable picture quality degradation.

Exact Palette option is available only if the total number of colors in the output file doesn't exceed 256 colors. Otherwise this options is inactive. If you select this option all existing colors will be saved and no color optimization will be performed.

Reduce to option lets you reduce the total number of colors in the GIF file.

Transparency

You can save transparent animation if you select Transparent check box. Background color is the color that gets replaced by transparency index. Default background color is the first frame background color. You can change it by clicking Select Color... button.

Web Optimization

Frame Optimization is available only if you are saving GIF animation. This option has no meaning if you are saving one frame and it is disabled. This check box is used to enable advanced file size optimization. Bannershop will optimize all animation frames by using several algorithms to reduce GIF file size. For example the optimization algorithm can exclude repetitive sections of the animation on consecutive frames.
If you uncheck this box all frames will be saved as full size unoptimized GIF images.

Frame Optimization can greatly reduce your GIF size. Depending on the animation design the reduction may reach up to 90% of unoptimized size.