Everything You Should Know About GIFs

If you’ve been browsing the internet long enough, then I am pretty sure most of you have come across moving or animated images and confused them with videos. A moving image is called a GIF (Graphics Interchange Format). GIFs are used all around the web to convey something that’s otherwise possible through a single static image. There are plenty of tutorials available online and you can learn more about it at HTTPS://www.skillshare.com.

Steve Wilhite, a computer scientist developed GIFs during June 1987. Its wide support and small size soon made it one of the most widely used image formats in the world. Ever since the 2000s, GIFs started becoming more and more popular among the youngsters and is now used widely around the world for different purposes.

The reason for its popularity comes mainly from the fact that the images can be animated and compressed to a very small size using a lossless compression technique without compromising on the quality of the image. Every popular messenger app has an option of sending GIFs to people. Since GIFs are literally images, they can be used anywhere from profile pictures to blog posts. There are mainly two ways of creating a GIF. One is stacking a lot of images on top of each other so that it plays like a video and the other is converting videos directly to GIFs.

Pronunciation of GIF:
You might think this to be a topic that’s not really relevant at all, but that’s where you would be wrong. There are literal internet wars going on for a long time in regards to the pronunciation of GIFs. Most people prefer saying it with a soft ‘G’ as in ‘jif’ while there are some who say it with a hard ‘G’. There are several renowned dictionaries that suggest both the pronunciations are right, I personally think that pronouncing GIF as “jif” is the correct way, and so does Steve Wilhite, the developer of GIF. At the end of the day, it comes down to your personal preference. Just hope that you don’t get caught in a lengthy, time-consuming debate while arguing about it with your friends and colleagues.

GIFs have become only more and more popular in the recent years. Most of the popular communication apps like WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook Messenger to name a few, support GIFs and allow them to be sent to other people. There are even websites dedicated to creating funny GIFs to be shared on the internet. Nowadays GIFs even have the option of including sound. I wouldn’t expect the use of GIFs to die out anytime soon unless something better comes along. If you’re interested, you can learn all about GIFs at HTTPS://www.skillshare.com