How to Make the Most of Your YouTube Watches: GIF Magic for Devices

How to Create GIFs from YouTube Videos

Shanoon Cox

Mar 27, 2024• Proven solutions

Who doesn’t love Gifs? They are one of the most entertaining means to communicate on the internet. But have you tried creating a GIF from YouTube videos? Generally, GIFs use humorous or relevant scenes from movies or shows to make them relatable to the situation. If you’re someone who wants to create GIFs from YouTube, this is for you.

The article below will show you how to create GIFs from YouTube videos on the desktop computers and mobile devices with some free online GIF makers and apps.

Part 1: How to Create GIFs from a YouTube Video on the Computer?

1. FreeGifMAKER.me

FreeGifMaker is a simple online tool that allows the creation of animated Gifs free of cost. A minimum of two pictures has to be uploaded out of ten. It’s super easy and takes a couple of minutes to make a GIF from a YouTube video.

Find out how to create GIFs using FreeGifMaker.me using these steps.

1. Open the website on your desktop by typing http://freegifmaker.me/youtube-to-gif/
2. Go to YouTube and copy the URL of the video you want to make a GIF. Paste it on the above-mentioned website.
3. Click on “Load YouTube Video” below the URL space and wait for a few seconds while the tool checks the video source.
4. After the YouTube video is loaded, finally enter the gif duration, start time and click on the “Make a GIF button” and it will redirect you to the result page.

2. VEED.IO

VEED is another easy way to make GIFs from YouTube videos. VEED allows you to copy a YouTube video link of your choice and paste it on VEED without any difficulty. VEED not only creates GIFs from YouTube videos but also gives few more facilities like trimming, adding text, cropping to the clip which helps in creating super-cool GIFs. VEED has both free and Pro versions and is a perfect browser software.

How to use VEED only in 3 steps, know about it below:

1. First, you need to copy the link to the YouTube video of your choice and paste it into VEED. From there the software will start importing the video into its project editor and you can start creating the GIF from there.
2. For the editing part, you need to trim the part of the video in which you want to make the GIF and crop the GIF. You can easily do that by choosing the canvas size menu available. After that, you can add text, font style, color, and size to your GIF.
3. In the last step, you just have to download the GIF which you have made in VEED.

3. Kapwing

Kapwing is a great stage for creating GIFs as well as videos and images. Kapwing is one of the most used and liked online video editors available. It provides one single step for all the things to do while creating a GIF – upload, editing, and sharing the file.

To create unique GIFs with Kapwing, follow these easy steps.

1. First, you need to open Kapwing video editor and copy the URL of the YouTube video of your choice and paste it on Kapwing to create your GIF from the video. Any video which is shorter than 30 minutes and less than 500 MB is supported by Kapwing.
2. Once you have uploaded the video, you will find the video appearing in the timeline. The section of the video that you want to make the GIF of needs to be cut with the sliders which are available at the end. A GIF can be usually of any length but to maintain good resolution, it is always advised to not make the segment more than 10 seconds.
3. You can preview the GIF you created after trimming the video which will allow you to see how the final output would be like. Other edits such as cropping, adding text, and experimenting with the speed can be done on Kapwing as well.
4. In the last and final step, you just need to export the GIF which you will find in the dropdown arrow available just beside the red “Export Video” button. Then click on the dropdown button and choose the option “Export as GIF”.

After processing the GIF, you need to save it by downloading it.

4. File-converter-online.com

This online free video editor can convert videos into GIF without any watermark and the maximum length of the GIF from the video clip can be 20 seconds, which can be set by you as needed. It provides a simple and free GIF maker that again offers special effects as well such as setting up the speed of the video.

You can create your desirable GIF from YouTube video in 3 easy steps.

1. First, provide the specific link of the YouTube video which you want to create the GIF of in the space given.
2. Apply the start time of the video by sliding with the given slider and then set the desirable duration of the GIF which is available in the next “Duration (seconds)” by sliding the seconds.
3. Next, you can choose the speed of the video which is optional, and then set the resolution from higher to lower as per your choice.
4. The final step involves creating the GIF which you can do by clicking on the red button “Create GIF from the video” available below the resolution option and finally the downloading will start after a short waiting on the next page.

5. Clideo

Clideo is one of the most reliable video converters available online. It can create an animated GIF from YouTube videos without much complication.

You can make GIF on your own by following the 3 easy steps mentioned below.

1. First, you need to copy your YouTube video that you want to create a GIF with. Come back on Clideo and you will find a dropdown menu beside “Choose file”, there paste the link that you have copied earlier in the URL space. You can also select Google Drive or Dropbox for the same.
2. After pasting the URL, you have to choose the ‘infinity sign’ given on the right side which will create an endless GIF without sound. Click on the ‘loop’ button available just below the panel on the right side.
3. After completing the steps, you can watch the preview of the GIF and go back to editing if you need to change anything. Else save the output on your PC or Mobile phone.

Part 2: How to Make a GIF from a YouTube Video on the Android and iPhone?

1. GIF Toaster – GIF Maker

Gif Toaster is one of the video editing apps which makes the work of creating Gif from YouTube video super-easy. It can convert photos, panoramas and, videos into GIFs easily. You just need to download the app to make GIFs of your own choice.

You need to follow a few simple steps to create GIFs on your own.

1. It is accessible on the iOS App Store and the Google Play for free so you need to install GIF Toaster on your device. Once done, tap the “Make GIF” option available below, you can also click “Combine GIFs” to combine more than one video. After completing, scroll down the dropdown menu beside “Video>GIF” and select the video which you want to convert into GIF.
2. Once the selection is done, you will be provided with various options like “Basic Option”, “Direction Option”, “Effect Option” where you can control the playback speed, range along with other options available. You also get the option to choose “Filters” for making the GIF.
3. After selecting the options of your choice, you have to scroll back to the top again and press “Convert” to quickly convert the video into GIF.
4. Once the GIF is ready, you will be able to see the final result and you just need to ‘Save’ the file.

Part 3: Bonus: How to Create GIFS from YouTube video on iPhone without installing any app?

It is now possible to convert YouTube videos into GIFs by using the 5SecondsApp available for iOS. To make this possible you just require few things in your iPhone – the device should be iOS 11 or more, YouTube in the browser or app, and the 5SecondsApp already available in the App store.

First, you need to find a video that is not more than 10 seconds then begin the screen recording on the iOS recording feature and go back to YouTube to play the video and record the portion you need. To make the GIF you have to launch the app and tap the plus option there. Later, trim the video as you see fit. After you’re done, crop the video with the help of the crop tool and finally save it.

Part 4: Why Should You Use GIFs?

1. GIFs don’t prevent web pages from loading quickly

GIFs which are animated becomes more popular for any website as it gives meaning compacted in a small video the website uses to boost its chances of getting more views. While GIF does not make a website much slow but for better performance, it can be converted into lossy optimizations which do not make a huge difference in front of the human eyes or it can also be converted into HTML5 videos which makes the GIF 95% smaller in size.

2. GIF is an integral part of communicating on social media

Using GIFs makes any communication bright and friendly. It delivers great messages through short animated videos and has become the spotlight for communication in the past few years. Almost everyone using social media is using GIF for communicating with their friends and family.

Final Thoughts

There are many apps and video editors available today available free of cost. You can easily make GIFs from your most-liked video on YouTube. It is smooth to create GIFs on your own with the help of these editors mentioned above. Each one of them is having a free version and easy to handle so do not forget to try them next time you are making a GIF from YouTube videos.

Shanoon Cox

Shanoon Cox is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Shanoon Cox

Expertise in Film: Perfecting the Art of Chroma Key

The world of video-making owes much of its magic to small leaps of innovation. One of these leaps is the use of the chroma key background, which most people know by the more colloquial term—green screen.

Chroma key, also known as green screen or blue screen, is a cool hack for seamless visual storytelling, allowing content creators to replace backgrounds with any image or video they want. This technique is widely embraced in film, television, and online content, and has opened the door to limitless creative possibilities. Aside from its ability to maximize creativity, it is also cheap to employ and convenient to set up, which has made it a staple for everyone who works with visuals.

In this simple guide, we’ll delve into the fundamentals of the chroma key effect, how it is used for video making, and how to leverage that as you perfect your visual content.

YouTube Video Background Creating realistic video scenes at your will is easy to complete with Filmora green screen removal.

Create Video Backgrounds Create Video Backgrounds Learn Green Screen

How Does Chroma Key Work?

Chroma Keying is done by singling out a specific color (usually green or blue) from the foreground, removing it, and replacing it with a different background (for example, a sunset). This process typically follows a series of steps:

• Background Selection:

A solid, single-color background, often green or blue, that contrasts well with the subject must be used. The color chosen should not be present in the subject or any props in the camera field to avoid unintentional transparency.

• Color Keying:

This requires the use of specialized visual effects software to key out the chosen color. The green or blue background is designated as transparent, making everything of that color see-through. The software distinguishes between the keyed color and the subject, creating a mask for the transparent areas.

• Foreground Filming:

This involves filming the subject against the live chroma key background. During filming, the chosen background color (green or blue) won’t appear in the final result due to its transparency. The subject is captured as if separately from the isolated background.

• Post-Processing:

In post-production processing, the editor takes the keyed-out color and replaces it with the new background of their choice. This step creates the illusion that the subject is in a different setting or environment. The transparent areas become filled with the chosen background which, if done right, results in a cohesive and visually appealing composition.

Why Green?

Theoretically, the chroma key background can be any solid color. However, the most commonly used colors are studio blue and bright green, with the latter far more common.

The choice of background color depends on the specific requirements of the production and the colors present in the scenes being filmed.

Free Download For Win 7 or later(64-bit)

Free Download For macOS 10.14 or later

Contrast

The less similar your chosen background color is to natural skin tones, the easier to isolate and replace in your footage. Bright green provides a strong contrast to most human skin tones and is less likely to be present in costumes or natural surroundings, making it easier to isolate subjects during the color separation.

Luminance

The color green emits light with greater intensity than blue, allowing for far more effective isolation by cameras during filming. This also means that blue screens demand increased lighting for proper exposure compared to green. This situation may be less than ideal if you lack powerful lighting or you don’t have the big bucks for them.

Digital Sensors

Many digital cameras and sensors are more sensitive to green wavelengths, resulting in cleaner and more accurate color keying during post-processing. Modern technology has also evolved to optimize for a green background, making it a more practical choice for the chroma key effect.

Wardrobe and Set Design

Bright green occurs less naturally in costumes and set designs than other colors, making green the optimal choice for reducing the likelihood of color spill and keying issues. However, if you know your scene will have lots of green, it is probably best to film with a blue screen, so there’s less risk of color spill and less post-production work.

Setting up Your Own Chroma Key Studio

Setting up your chroma key is convenient and straightforward, but there are some key factors to consider while setting up to ensure maximal performance.

Choosing the Right Background Color

The first step in the chroma key setup is selecting the right background color to be keyed out. This choice determines your effective color separation and ensures a smooth keying process during editing. Choosing a chroma-key background color that contrasts distinctly with the subject’s colors is essential for effective color separation. This prevents unintentional transparency, color spill, and ensures a polished final result.

Lighting Considerations

Lighting is an important part of the chroma-keying process. Bold, uniform, and consistent lighting on both the subject and the background makes it easy to delineate one from the other fully. This minimizes shadows and variations in color, creating a smooth and seamless keying process. Multiple diffuse lights from different angles are often used to illuminate the green screen evenly.

Positioning/Camera

Proper subject and camera placement are necessary to ensure an even color-keying process during post-production. To prevent shadow interference, the green screen should be smooth, tense, and without wrinkles or shadows.

High-quality cameras are essential every time, especially for chroma keying. Images with better definition are easier to key, so camera quality significantly affects the outcome. Even if your camera isn’t the best, merely shooting well can ensure a clean color-keying process during editing, resulting in professional-looking visuals.

Recording Tips for Chroma Key

• Proper Lighting

Maintaining uniform and well-defined lighting during recording is essential for a successful chroma-keying process. This consistency ensures a seamless keying process during post-production.

• Keep Distance from the Green Screen

The optimal distance between the subject and the green screen minimizes color spill and allows for natural movements. Proper distance between subject and background allows for easier isolation of the background and much smoother post-editing. A recommended starting point for the issue is around 6 to 10 feet from the background.

• Subjects and Clothing

As mentioned before, the choice of costume for Selecting appropriate clothing that doesn’t match the chroma key color prevents transparency issues. Subjects also have to be positioned in such a way that there is minimal light interference and reflection. These contribute to a flawless chroma key outcome.

3 Basic Troubleshooting Strategies

• Color Spill

Sometimes, reflected light from your green background can be cast on your subject and may remain so when the background light is keyed out. This phenomenon is known as a color spill. It is usually because of uneven lighting or shooting around reflecting surfaces. Avoiding spill can differentiate between good and lousy chroma key aftereffects.

Human hair is one area where color spill can show up unsuspectingly. Due to the translucency of hair, it is common for some unintended light to seep through. This allows some background visibility, which you do not want with a chroma key. This is especially notable with lighter hair colors like blond hair.

There are ways to account for this. Many video-editing software have features such as spill suppression and screen matte adjustments that can enhance the final footage. Specialized plugins also go a long way in ensuring minimizing spill. Addressing spill correction tackles unwanted green artifacts and ensures a clean keying process.

• Poor Lighting

Suboptimal green screen lighting can lead to inconsistencies in keying and editing, undermining your product. One way to avoid this is to light the screen and subject separately. Another tip, although expensive, is using multiple diffuse light sources and trying to maintain even lighting across every square foot of your scene. Super bright or dark spots can ruin your output, so it’s worth the extra effort if you don’t want to deal with problematic post-production.

• Poorly Refined Edges

Chroma keying should leave your videos with crisp, defined, natural-looking edges. But post-production editing can make all the difference if it doesn’t come out to your taste. Softening and refining edges make a smoother transition between the foreground object and the new background. Light adjustments to edge thickness and screen matte settings can also help enhance overall visual quality and add finesse to your work.

Conclusion

Green screen photography produces excellent results, and its ease of use makes it indispensable for videographers of all levels. In this guide, we’ve discussed chroma key technology, its role in the industry, and how to apply it to your craft to elevate visual content.

Chroma key, also known as green screen or blue screen, is a cool hack for seamless visual storytelling, allowing content creators to replace backgrounds with any image or video they want. This technique is widely embraced in film, television, and online content, and has opened the door to limitless creative possibilities. Aside from its ability to maximize creativity, it is also cheap to employ and convenient to set up, which has made it a staple for everyone who works with visuals.

In this simple guide, we’ll delve into the fundamentals of the chroma key effect, how it is used for video making, and how to leverage that as you perfect your visual content.

YouTube Video Background Creating realistic video scenes at your will is easy to complete with Filmora green screen removal.

Create Video Backgrounds Create Video Backgrounds Learn Green Screen

How Does Chroma Key Work?

Chroma Keying is done by singling out a specific color (usually green or blue) from the foreground, removing it, and replacing it with a different background (for example, a sunset). This process typically follows a series of steps:

• Background Selection:

A solid, single-color background, often green or blue, that contrasts well with the subject must be used. The color chosen should not be present in the subject or any props in the camera field to avoid unintentional transparency.

• Color Keying:

This requires the use of specialized visual effects software to key out the chosen color. The green or blue background is designated as transparent, making everything of that color see-through. The software distinguishes between the keyed color and the subject, creating a mask for the transparent areas.

• Foreground Filming:

This involves filming the subject against the live chroma key background. During filming, the chosen background color (green or blue) won’t appear in the final result due to its transparency. The subject is captured as if separately from the isolated background.

• Post-Processing:

In post-production processing, the editor takes the keyed-out color and replaces it with the new background of their choice. This step creates the illusion that the subject is in a different setting or environment. The transparent areas become filled with the chosen background which, if done right, results in a cohesive and visually appealing composition.

Why Green?

Theoretically, the chroma key background can be any solid color. However, the most commonly used colors are studio blue and bright green, with the latter far more common.

The choice of background color depends on the specific requirements of the production and the colors present in the scenes being filmed.

Free Download For Win 7 or later(64-bit)

Free Download For macOS 10.14 or later

Contrast

The less similar your chosen background color is to natural skin tones, the easier to isolate and replace in your footage. Bright green provides a strong contrast to most human skin tones and is less likely to be present in costumes or natural surroundings, making it easier to isolate subjects during the color separation.

Luminance

The color green emits light with greater intensity than blue, allowing for far more effective isolation by cameras during filming. This also means that blue screens demand increased lighting for proper exposure compared to green. This situation may be less than ideal if you lack powerful lighting or you don’t have the big bucks for them.

Digital Sensors

Many digital cameras and sensors are more sensitive to green wavelengths, resulting in cleaner and more accurate color keying during post-processing. Modern technology has also evolved to optimize for a green background, making it a more practical choice for the chroma key effect.

Wardrobe and Set Design

Bright green occurs less naturally in costumes and set designs than other colors, making green the optimal choice for reducing the likelihood of color spill and keying issues. However, if you know your scene will have lots of green, it is probably best to film with a blue screen, so there’s less risk of color spill and less post-production work.

Setting up Your Own Chroma Key Studio

Setting up your chroma key is convenient and straightforward, but there are some key factors to consider while setting up to ensure maximal performance.

Choosing the Right Background Color

The first step in the chroma key setup is selecting the right background color to be keyed out. This choice determines your effective color separation and ensures a smooth keying process during editing. Choosing a chroma-key background color that contrasts distinctly with the subject’s colors is essential for effective color separation. This prevents unintentional transparency, color spill, and ensures a polished final result.

Lighting Considerations

Lighting is an important part of the chroma-keying process. Bold, uniform, and consistent lighting on both the subject and the background makes it easy to delineate one from the other fully. This minimizes shadows and variations in color, creating a smooth and seamless keying process. Multiple diffuse lights from different angles are often used to illuminate the green screen evenly.

Positioning/Camera

Proper subject and camera placement are necessary to ensure an even color-keying process during post-production. To prevent shadow interference, the green screen should be smooth, tense, and without wrinkles or shadows.

High-quality cameras are essential every time, especially for chroma keying. Images with better definition are easier to key, so camera quality significantly affects the outcome. Even if your camera isn’t the best, merely shooting well can ensure a clean color-keying process during editing, resulting in professional-looking visuals.

Recording Tips for Chroma Key

• Proper Lighting

Maintaining uniform and well-defined lighting during recording is essential for a successful chroma-keying process. This consistency ensures a seamless keying process during post-production.

• Keep Distance from the Green Screen

The optimal distance between the subject and the green screen minimizes color spill and allows for natural movements. Proper distance between subject and background allows for easier isolation of the background and much smoother post-editing. A recommended starting point for the issue is around 6 to 10 feet from the background.

• Subjects and Clothing

As mentioned before, the choice of costume for Selecting appropriate clothing that doesn’t match the chroma key color prevents transparency issues. Subjects also have to be positioned in such a way that there is minimal light interference and reflection. These contribute to a flawless chroma key outcome.

3 Basic Troubleshooting Strategies

• Color Spill

Sometimes, reflected light from your green background can be cast on your subject and may remain so when the background light is keyed out. This phenomenon is known as a color spill. It is usually because of uneven lighting or shooting around reflecting surfaces. Avoiding spill can differentiate between good and lousy chroma key aftereffects.

Human hair is one area where color spill can show up unsuspectingly. Due to the translucency of hair, it is common for some unintended light to seep through. This allows some background visibility, which you do not want with a chroma key. This is especially notable with lighter hair colors like blond hair.

There are ways to account for this. Many video-editing software have features such as spill suppression and screen matte adjustments that can enhance the final footage. Specialized plugins also go a long way in ensuring minimizing spill. Addressing spill correction tackles unwanted green artifacts and ensures a clean keying process.

• Poor Lighting

Suboptimal green screen lighting can lead to inconsistencies in keying and editing, undermining your product. One way to avoid this is to light the screen and subject separately. Another tip, although expensive, is using multiple diffuse light sources and trying to maintain even lighting across every square foot of your scene. Super bright or dark spots can ruin your output, so it’s worth the extra effort if you don’t want to deal with problematic post-production.

• Poorly Refined Edges

Chroma keying should leave your videos with crisp, defined, natural-looking edges. But post-production editing can make all the difference if it doesn’t come out to your taste. Softening and refining edges make a smoother transition between the foreground object and the new background. Light adjustments to edge thickness and screen matte settings can also help enhance overall visual quality and add finesse to your work.

Conclusion

Green screen photography produces excellent results, and its ease of use makes it indispensable for videographers of all levels. In this guide, we’ve discussed chroma key technology, its role in the industry, and how to apply it to your craft to elevate visual content.