Step by Step Instructions

Saving as GIF

Photoshop has two ways to save images as GIF. The first, using the Save As command, is not very flexible. The File->Export->GIF 89a Export module has many more features.

Note that in order to choose this command, the image must be in either RGB Color or Indexed Color mode. It's actually best to just stay in RGB Color mode, since the export module gives you a preview of how the image will look with the indexed color palette required by the GIF format.

There are several versions of the GIF 89a Export module for the Mac. Version 1.5.6 is the best one so far, as the one following it (which is included with Photoshop 4) has a bug in the preview option. Version 1.5.6 is available from Adobe's Web site. You can tell what version you have on the Mac by locating the file GIF 89a Export in the Plug-ins folder for Photoshop. Select the file and use the Finder's File->Get Info command.

Detailed instructions for using the Export module can be found either in the Photoshop 4 manual (if you have that version) or in the GIF89A.PDF file that comes with the module for Photoshop 3. The purpose of the instructions below is to give you some pointers that may not be apparent from the official documentation.

1. Starting with an image in RGB Color or Indexed Color mode, choose File->Export->GIF 89a Export.

2. Since it is always best to have as few colors as possible in a GIF, you may have to experiment a bit with the number of colors. Begin by choosing Adaptive from the Palette popup, if it is not already selected.

3. Go back and forth between the main dialog and the Preview to test your changes. Other parts of the preview image can be seen by dragging it with the mouse.

If the image's colors have drastically changed from the original, or lots of dottiness has been introduced because of excessive dithering, you may want to go back to the main dialog and increase the number of colors.

Typically, simple images like the one in this example can be represented in 16 colors. A greyscale photo usually needs 32 or so, and more complex images require more colors. One way to gauge whether or not fewer colors can be used is to look at how many similar shades of one color there are in the palette of the preview dialog. If there are many versions of one color with very slight differences in shade, you can probably reduce the number of colors further.

4. When you have reduced the number of colors sufficiently, click on the OK button in the main dialog. This will present you with a Save dialog, into which you can type the name of the new GIF file. When saving GIF files for the Web, you should always make sure the last four characters of a file's name are .gif (in lowercase). The way the export module works, it always tacks .gif onto whatever the existing name of the image is, so you can easily end up with names like fruit.gif.gif if you aren't careful.

Note that there is a bug in all current versions of this module which prevents you from properly saving a GIF that has 256 colors without transparency.

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