How can this be, I made a gif which is 12 pictures, they are all 500 by 350 pixels, and are under 29 kb's. 29 times 12 is 348, and the gif thumbnail says it's 667 kb's.
I had a real good gif entry for the vulture contest and the same thing happened, and the only way it would fit (under 512 kb's) was to keep deleting photos until it looked like crap, and I don't want to enter garbage, so I didn't.
Please keep in mind that I'm still new at this, I don't even know how to use layers, when I make a chop or gif it's really being done the hard way, but I'm doing it.
With that in mind, any advise given is probably going to be like explaining time travel to Homer Simpson, but I'd still appreciate the help.

A good tutorial found in the tutorial section of PSC may help you with your gif problem...
http://photoshopcontest.com/tutorials/29/how-to-create-gif-animations.html

Other tutorials found in said section also may help you improve your skills.
http://photoshopcontest.com/tutorials/photoshop-tips.html

I'm afraid I can't be of much help personally, it's been years since I've made a gif for a contest.

good luck!

remember you can make the gif itself smaller and use a white or colored background looking like a frame at the right size. Remember the amount of colors matters, dither%, and Lossy. Have you figured that a single static background image helps to keep it down as well.

So homer have a beer and I'll tell you a story about a poor mountaineer.........

Layers are great when you figure them out. The base idea there is clear pages on top of each other so you draw pieces of the image on each page/layer. Also remember that you can move that layer any where in the stack, or you can add another layer between any layers etc. Then you can throw in the different types that a layer can be= best to play with these, the most use one for me in Multiple, for shading and stuff. And its opacity and fill= (the % amount of it shown on that page)

With the Gif stuff are you using cells or time line? Cells have you figured out tween and reverse frames in the control box in the upper right corner of the frame window?

Ask any other questions, you can get answers around here.

I understood the word beer and that's about it. But all kidding aside, the big question is how is 348 kb's worth of photos becoming a 667 kb gif after it goes thru the animation shop? I have never had this problem before, I do the math while making the gif to make sure it fits, now they "grow" after animating them.

I never looked at GIF's that way before, so I just checked one of mine:



The animation consists of 20 frames. The file is 320k. Each frame is roughly 140k. 20 x 140 is quite a bit more than 320k, so it is clear that adding the size of the individual frames isn't a helpful guide in estimating the finished file size. So why is this file so small? It's because the pixels that match in every frame are used only once. The pixels that move add to the size of the finished file. In short, less movement or smaller movement produces a smaller finished file. If I had twenty frames with different blurs or other effects, or larger moving objects, the file could be closer to 3 megabytes.

I'm puzzled as to why your very small frames end up with a finished file size even greater than the sum of the frame sizes. It may have something to do with the way GIF's are compiled (if that's the right term). I would bet the problem is the same, however: too many different pixels from frame to frame.

You need to use layers when building these things. If you are modifying one original frame by re-chopping it, then doing the same thing to get the next frame, you're going to end up with a lot of unique pixel arrangements from frame to frame. That will make the finished file larger than necessary.

Try this: Create a background. This is your base layer. Add a new raster layer. Place a simple object in it. Move it for each frame. Make sure you can see your layers. Once I figured out I could display layers in a side panel, it all became clear.

Read the tutorial, too.

Who said beer?

My advise: Stop making those freakin' gifs.

no

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You also need to figure the amount of space the .gif script uses.

The script includes the information for timing and replay etc.

I bet that's it!
I slowed it way down, and I bet that brought the numbers up, thank you.

I drastically changed the timings in the GIF above and saw no change in the file size in either direction. Are you doing anything else that might be adding to the size, like transitions or special effects?




.

Maybe if you post a snap shot the page that you see when you go to do the gif, someone can pick up on something your not noticing??

I don't think the speed would change the file size. I was just stating that there is a 13th part to a 12 frame animated gif.