[NOTED] [GIFTIP] VirtualDub Color Depth

Also see:
http://insurgencymod.blogspot.com/2015/04/gif-tip-noted-virtualdub.html
http://insurgencymod.blogspot.com/2015/04/gif-tip-gif-like-boss-how-to-gif.html
http://insurgencymod.blogspot.nl/2015/04/gif-tip-gif-tools.html
http://insurgencymod.blogspot.nl/2015/04/gif-tip-virtualdub-subtitles.html

[NOTED] How To GIF (BACKUP)

Source: https://sites.google.com/site/howtogif/home

Fucking Google doesn't like big images, :(.

Also see:
http://insurgencymod.blogspot.com/2015/04/gif-tip-gif-like-boss-how-to-gif.html

[GIF TIP] Jasc Animation Shop Optimization

TLDR:

###

Optimized Median Cut
Less accurate (5 bit), Better weighting color importance.

Optimized Octree
More accurate (8 bit), Worse weighting color importance.

###

Error Diffusion
Reduces colors by a mmethond similar to "nearest Color", except it spreads out the inaccuracy in representing a pixel's color to the surrounding pixels. This method produces a natural looking image.

Nearest Color
Reduces colors by replacing a pixel's original color with the nearest matching color in the newly generated palette. This method roduces a high-contrast image.

Ordered Dither
Images may appear to be composed of cross-hatches and dots.

###

"Nearest" significantly smaller file size than "Error".

"Octree" quality slightly better than "Median".

"Ordered" is shitty quality, small file size.

"Octree" & "Nearest" is best.

###

From Jasc Animation Shop 3.11 HLP:

Use the Colors tab as described below.

· In the “Number of Colors” drop down box, choose the number of colors you want available in the animation. The current number of colors is displayed to the right of the drop down box. Note that one color number is reserved to utilize the Optimization Wizard’s ability to handle transparency; this is why the options are “3 colors” instead of 4, “7 colors” instead of 8, etc.

In the “Create palette by” area:

· Choose “Optimized Octree” to use an 8-bits per channel palette. This palette is not as good at weighting color importance as the Optimized Median Cut palette.

· Choose “Optimized Median Cut” to use a palette that uses occurrence of colors as weighting, and ranks these colors accordingly. It is accurate only to 5-bits per channel.

· Choose “Standard palette” to use a generic palette that contains a balanced number of colors.

· Choose “Browser palette” to a pre-defined, web-safe palette.

· Choose “Custom palette” and then click the Browse button to use a custom palette not listed here.

In the “Reduce colors by” area:

· Choose “Ordered Dithering” to reduce colors by adjusting adjacent pixels of different colors to give the illusion of a third color. It uses set patterns based on a known palette to adjust the pixels. This method can result in distinct patterns of light and dark areas.

· Choose “Error Diffusion” to reduce colors by a method similar to “Nearest color”, except that it spreads out the inaccuracy in representing a pixel’s color to the surrounding pixels. When it replaces a color, the inaccuracy, or “error,” is carried to the next pixel, where the error is added to the color before selecting the nearest color. This process is repeated for every pixel in the image.

· Choose “Nearest Color” to reduce colors by replacing a pixel’s original color with the nearest matching color in the newly generated palette.

 From Paint Shop Pro 8 User Guide (http://www.corel.com/6763/psp_downloads/pub/psp8gid.pdf):

About Palette Options

When you decrease an image’s color depth, you must select a palette

option. Depending upon the color depth you select, two or three of

these methods are available:

Optimized Median Cut Measures and ranks each color by how

frequently it occurs in the image, then uses the most frequently

occurring colors to determine the new palette. Even if your image

contains fewer colors than the palette that is generated, this method

may not represent each color exactly. The method, therefore, is not

as accurate as the Optimized Octree method, but it is better at

weighting color importance.

Optimized Octree Creates an eight-level “tree” with eight branching

nodes totaling 256 individual “leaves” or colors to determine the

new palette. This method attempts to reproduce each color in the

original image, so if your image contains fewer colors than the

palette that is generated, every color in the image is represented.

This method is faster and more accurate than Optimized Median Cut,

but it is not as good at weighting color importance.

Windows Changes each pixel’s color to the nearest color in the

Windows palette.

Standard/Web-Safe Palette Changes each pixel’s color to the nearest

color in the standard Web-safe palette. Use this method to create

images for the Web that can be viewed without color distortion on

most monitors.

About Color Reduction Methods

When you decrease an image’s color depth, you must select a color

reduction method. Depending upon the color depth you select, two

or three of these methods are available:

Nearest Color Replaces the original color of a pixel with the color in

the newly generated palette that is closest to the original RGB value.

This method eliminates dithering and produces a high-contrast

image. Simple graphics may look better with this method.

Error Diffusion Replaces the original color of a pixel with the most

similar color in the palette, but spreads the discrepancy between the

original and new color to the surrounding pixels. As it replaces a

color (working from the top left to the bottom right of the image), it

adds the “error,” or discrepancy to the next pixel, before selecting

the most similar color. This method produces a natural looking

image and often works best for photographs or complex graphics.

Ordered Dither Adjusts adjacent pixels so that two colors give the

illusion of a third color and intermingles pixels to produce patterns

based on a known palette. Use this method to give the image the

appearance of containing more colors than it actually does. Images

may appear to be composed of cross-hatches and dots and may have

distinct patterns of light and dark areas. 

[GIF TIP] Jasc Animation Shop Resize Type

Smart Size - Smart Size allows Paint Shop Pro will choose the best algorithm based on the image characteristics.

Bicubic Resample - Bicubic Resample uses a process called interpolation to reduce the "jaggies" associated with expanding an image. Therefore, choosing this resize algorithm is always best when you are enlarging a graphic, especially photographs.

Bilinear Resample - Bilinear Resample works the opposite of Bicubic in that it applies the opposite algorithm. Use Bilinear Resample when you are reducing the size of a photograph.

Pixel Resize - Pixel Resize removes or adds pixels as necessary to achieve the new height and width specified for the graphic. This resize algorithm works best with graphics with clear sharp hard edges. To see how this works, create a new graphic 150x150. Draw a black rectangle with Antialias unchecked. You will have a black rectangle with clear sharp straight edges. Now, duplicate the graphic (Shift+D). Resize both to 70%, one with Pixel Resize and with Smart Size. Zoom in on both graphics. You will see that with Pixel Resize, the edges are still clear and sharp, whereas the Smart Size edges are now slightly blurry due to the antialiasing that went on during the resize.

TLDR: use "Smart Size".

[GIF TIP] Portable (ThinApp) Jasc Animation Shop 3.11 & Portable (ThinApp) Ulead GIF Animator 5.0

Virtualized using VMWare ThinApp.

Jasc Animation Shop 3.11 ThinApp (INSMODSCUM R1 20150303)
https://depositfiles.com/files/qf9ozo4k2

Ulead GIF Animator 5.0 (Bonus FX) ThinApp (INSMODSCUM R1 20150303)
https://depositfiles.com/files/rz759grn7

Jasc Animation Shop works 100%. Ulead GIF Animator produces GIFs with shitty colors. Cursory look shows Ulead produces 7 bit GIFs, while Jasc produces 8 bit GIFs (not really sure about this though).

TLDR: Use Jasc Animation Shop for now.

[GIF TIP] GIF Like A Boss - How To GIF

Insurgency Mod Scum finally decided to embrace the GIF fad. Time to go to school.

Good HOWTO:
https://sites.google.com/site/howtogif/home

Tools
http://insurgencymod.blogspot.com/2015/04/gif-tip-gif-tools.html

Portable (ThinApp) Jasc Animation Shop 3.11 & Portable (ThinApp) Ulead GIF Animator 5.0
http://insurgencymod.blogspot.com/2015/04/portable-thinapp-jasc-animation-shop.html

Jasc Animation Shop Maximum Quality Config
http://insurgencymod.blogspot.com/2015/04/gif-tip-jasc-animation-shop-maximum.html

Jasc Animation Shop Optimization
http://insurgencymod.blogspot.com/2015/05/gif-tip-jasc-animation-shop-optimization.html

Jasc Animation Shop Resizing
http://insurgencymod.blogspot.com/2015/04/gif-tip-jasc-animation-shop-resize-type.html

VirtualDub DShowInputDriver & FFMPEGPlugin Plugins & Color Depth
http://insurgencymod.blogspot.com/2015/04/gif-tip-noted-virtualdub.html

VirtualDub Hardcoded Subtitles
http://insurgencymod.blogspot.com/2015/04/gif-tip-virtualdub-subtitles.html

[GIF TIP] [NOTED] VirtualDub DShowInputDriver & FFMPEGPlugin Color Depth Config

Default values (DShowInputDriver and FFMPEGPlugin plugins):

VirtualDub-1.10.4-DShowInputDriver: YUY2

VirtualDub-1.10.4-FFMPEGPlugin: YV12

YUY2 OK

YV12 BAD

TLDR: Use YUY2 Color Depth. (Use "Video -> Full Processing Mode" and "Audio -> No Audio".)

[GIF TIP] GIF Tools

UPDATE 2014.04.20

One must have the right tools for the job.

USED:

VirtualDub

VirtualDub Plugins:
DShowInputDriver-0.93 (Open MP4 files)
VirtualdubFFMpegPlugin_0824 (Open MP4 files)
xy-VSFilter_3.0.0.306_x64 (Subtitles) (see this: http://insurgencymod.blogspot.nl/2015/04/gif-tip-virtualdub-subtitles.html)

(NOTE VirtualDub FFMpegPlugin will work anywhere, VirtalDub DshowInputDriver needs "LAV Filters. Use "Video -> Full Processing Mode" and "Audio -> No Audio")

AVIDemux (Cut MP4 files without loss)
VLC ("e" (framy by frame) "shift + s" (screenshot))
Jasc Animation Shop 3.11 (ThinApp)

Jasc Animation Shop
http://www.freewaregeeks.com/?page=detail&get_id=228&category=18

The Jasc Animation Shop 3.11 installer file name is "ani311en.exe".

 File: ani311en.exe
 CRC-32: 15498870
 MD4: c49ef39932fe6f6c90bfe812d2d9b6fc
 MD5: 79d6726fbcd27eb94c8111d686f5ac2c
 SHA-1: 64b34a96815303279c3c64685a8b6342574dcc08

UNUSED:
QGifer (open source) (piece of shit)
Ulead Animation Shop (produces shit quality GIFs)

[GIF TIP] Jasc Animation Shop Maximum Quality Config

Jasc Animation Shop 3.11. Maximum quality.

[GIF TIP] VirtualDub Hardcoded Subtitles

Hardcoded subtitles in VirtualDub.

Download "xy-VSFilter_3.0.0.306_x86.zip".
Copy "VSFilter.dll" to "plugins32".
Rename to "VSFilter.dll.vdf".

In VirtualDub:
Video->Filters->Add Filter->TextSub.
Select "srt" file.

[PICS] Birdman Pistol (123 PICS) (IMFDB)

http://imgur.com/a/Acl60

Taken from 720p YIFY release IIRC using VLC frame-by-frame.