TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
>I queried the archives for this, and found several postings for
>converting from X file format to .GIF, but found nothing about editing
>.GIF files. I have tried MS Image Composer without success. I have
>several .GIF files on an Intranet site that need correction, but so far
>have not found a tool to edit them. Would Photoshop do it? Is the
>conversion to GIF a one-way trip to Bitmapville? (it's a suburb of
>Flatland...)
>
>Does anyone have any experience with this? Thanks!
Ron,
A quick primer on GIFs... and if I insult your intelligence, apologies
in advance.
GIF (Graphic Interchange Format) files are compressed bitmap graphics
with a color depth of eight bits or less (256 colors maximum.) GIF
compression is "lossless," meaning that you can save a GIF file over
and over again without losing any of the information in the file;
compare this to JPEG graphics, which use "lossy" compression; JPEG
quality gets steadily worse if you repeatedly save a JPEG file
to itself.
Because GIFs are basically bitmaps, editing a GIF directly is going to
involve painting pixels in one form or another; there are no editable
"layers" in the file. If the GIF graphics contain text, for instance,
there is no "text layer" to click and edit; the "text" is now just
pixels of a different color than the background. To change text in a
GIF file, you'll need to paint over the existing text and then create
new text.
There are many tools which can be used to edit GIF files directly.
Photoshop will certainly do it. I don't personally use Image Composer,
but a colleague of mine does, and he warmly assures me that you can open
*and* edit GIF files directly with that application. A quick turn at his
keyboard seems to confirm this. (Make sure that you set the "file type"
dropdown in Image Composer's "File Open" dialog box to to "GIF" or "All
files" when you're trying to open and edit your GIFs... otherwise, you
won't see them as candidates for editing in the first place.)
In my opinion, it is preferable to work in your graphic application's
native format and then export an optimized (as small as possible with
reasonable image quality) GIF rather than editing/creating a GIF directly.
Most, but not all, web designers do it this way. If the intranet graphics
in question *were* created this way, it would definitely be worth your
while to try to locate the graphics from which the GIFs were created;
chances are they'll be much easier to edit.
If the original source graphics no longer exist, make sure you've got
backups of the GIF files before you start hacking away. :-)
Hope some of this helps. Feel free to write me privately if you
have more questions.
Best regards.
--
Barry Campbell | Why people tear the seams of anyone's dreams
barry -at- webveranda -dot- com | is over my head... (Duke Ellington/Bob Russell,
40.77 N, 73.97 W | "Do Nothin' Till You Hear From Me")
