How to Slow Down a Gif in Photoshop?

People love animated GIFs. They are a fun way to express yourself in a digital environment where everything is stale and monotonous. Gifs are also great for conveying brief moments of hilarity, which you can’t really do with emojis or text alone.

If you use your selfie skills on photo-editing apps often, you know that there isn’t much scope for creativity because of the tight restrictions on file size and dimensions.

In such situations, a Gif comes in handy to get the point across concisely without compromising on aesthetics too much.

A short video may have more impact than a long one, but when we see something moving so many times in quick succession, it loses its charm quickly. It’s not always easy to edit a video to slow down its pace so that it looks good and has the same effect as before.

Continue reading to find out how you can make these changes fairly easily with Photoshop.

How to Slow Down a Gif in Photoshop?

If you want to slow down a Gif, you will need to increase the number of frames in that Gif.

Now that you know that slowing down a Gif can either be done by adding more frames or slowing down the interval between the frames, let’s see how to do it in Photoshop.

To do that, click on the Gif and go to Image > Mode > Create Frame Animation. This will open a new window where you can add or remove frames. You will see the options for adding and removing frames on the top-left of the frame animation window.

You can either add more frames or reduce the existing ones. However, if you add more frames, you need to increase the duration of the Gif as well. This will ensure that the Gif has the same duration as before with the added effect of being slowed down.

While you can also reduce the duration of a Gif, this also has repercussions for the overall aesthetic quality of the Gif. A Gif that has been slowed down may not have the same crispness as the Gif you started with.

Before we begin, you must already have your images loaded in Photoshop. After that, you can follow these steps in slowing down your GIF.

1. Go to File > Open and browse to your GIF file. Hit Open.

Your GIF will now open up inside Photoshop. Each frame of the GIF will open up as a separate layer. After doing this your screen will be filled with the timeline of each frame.

Now, at the bottom of your screen, you will see the Render Video icon. Click it. This will bring up the Render Video menu. Use the Select Folder option to select the destination folder for your video, and hit Render. This will render your GIF as a video.

2. Look at the first frame of the GIF. Underneath it, you will see a Convert To Video Timeline button. Click it.

3. Go to File > Open and open the newly rendered video in Photoshop. It will open as a single timeline inside Photoshop. Right-click on the timeline to access the Retime Menu.

Move the slider up or down depending on whether you want to slow down or speed up the GIF. I chose to speed up my GIF. 

Once you are done, your timeline will reflect the change.

Now your clip speed has been changed.

4. Now, go to File > Export > Save For Web (Legacy)This will open the GIF Exporter

On the bottom left of the window, you can see the Preview button. This will open up a preview of your GIF in your browser. You can use this to check whether your GIF has been rendered correctly. 

When you are satisfied with your result, click on Save, choose a destination folder, and voila. You have just retimed your GIF

Try out Different Speeds

It’s not just about slowing down an existing Gif but also experimenting with different timings to see how they affect the overall impact of a Gif.

Before you start editing your Gif, it makes sense to try out different speeds to understand which one looks best. When you slow down a Gif, you are essentially increasing the duration of each frame.

The more frames there are, the longer the Gif will take. You should always keep the file size in mind when you are editing. A longer Gif will use up more space and can take longer to load on your device.

When you are editing a Gif in Photoshop, you have the option to change the frame rate. This specifies the number of frames that are used to create each second of the video.

You can select a frame rate in the Animation panel. You can also change the playback speed of a Gif. This is helpful if you want to make a Gif longer without adding extra frames. You can also change the playback interval.

This is the amount of time that elapses between each frame as the Gif is being played back. You can make this shorter or longer depending on your requirements.

Change the Frame Rate

This simply means changing the number of frames per second in the Gif.

If you want to slow down a Gif but don’t want to add more frames or change the duration of the Gif, you can change the frame rate.

You can do this by clicking on the Gif and going to the Animation panel. You will see the Frame Rate option on the top-left of the panel. This option allows you to change the number of frames per second in a Gif.

You can slow down a Gif by decreasing the number of frames per second. A higher frame rate will mean that a Gif is more smooth and has more frames per second. A lower frame rate will make a Gif appear choppier.

Change the Playback Speed

You can change the playback speed of a Gif by selecting a value from the drop-down menu.

In the same frame animation window that you used to add or remove frames, you will also find the Playback Speed option. This option is similar to the Frame Rate option in terms of its function.

There are also options for slowing down and speeding up the Gif. You can use the Playback Speed option to make a Gif longer without adding extra frames. You can also use this option to slow down a Gif while keeping the same number of frames.

Change the Playback Interval

The playback interval determines the amount of time that elapses between each frame as a Gif is played back.

Simply put, when you increase the playback interval, you are increasing the gap between each frame. You can edit this by clicking on the Gif and going to the Animation panel.

There is an Interval option on the top-left of the panel. You can change the playback interval between frames by changing the values in the interval box. A higher playback interval will make a Gif look choppier.

A lower interval will make the Gif look smoother. While you can use the playback interval to slow down a Gif, you cannot use it to speed up a Gif as you can with the other two options.

Conclusion

Animated GIFs are a great way to convey humor or a point in a visual way. But many GIFs look very quick, leaving almost no time for the viewer to process what’s happening.

Take some time to slow down a GIF, and you’ll make it so much more effective: people will be able to really see what’s going on. Additionally, slowing down a GIF can make a static GIF look much more interesting because it allows for a lot more creativity with the frame rate.

When slowing down a GIF, you have to keep in mind that it will also increase the file size. However, with a little bit of creativity and experimentation, you can create a GIF that’s not only funny but visually appealing to look at as well.