Photoshop

Optimize animation frames

After you complete your animation, you should optimize it for efficient download to a web browser. You optimize an animation in two ways:

  • Optimize the frames to include only areas that change from frame to frame. This greatly reduces the file size of the animated GIF.

  • If you are saving your animation as a GIF image, optimize it as you would any GIF image. A special dithering technique is applied to animations to ensure that dither patterns are consistent across all frames and to prevent flickering during playback. Due to these additional optimization functions, more time may be required to optimize an animated GIF than to optimize a standard GIF.

    When optimizing the colors in an animation, use the Adaptive, Perceptual, or Selective palette. This ensures that the colors are consistent across frames.
  1. (Photoshop Extended) Make sure the Animation palette is in frame animation mode.
  2. Choose Optimize Animation from the Animation palette menu.
  3. Set the following options:
    Bounding Box
    Crops each frame to the area that has changed from the preceding frame. Animation files created using this option are smaller but are incompatible with GIF editors that do not support the option. (This option is selected by default and is recommended.)

    Redundant Pixel Removal
    Makes all pixels transparent in a frame that are unchanged from the preceding frame. The Transparency option in the Optimize palette must be selected for redundant pixel removal to work. (This option is selected by default and is recommended.)
    Important: Set the frame disposal method to Automatic when using the Redundant Pixel Removal option. (See Choose a disposal method.)

  4. Click OK.