How to make a Cinemagraph with GIMP Print E-mail

Ghost Car Cinemagraph

I read about how to make Cinemagraphs (a fancy name for an animated gif made from a video that looks like a still image with one or more moving parts) from this tutorial at Photojojo. It is a good tutorial, and worth reading to supplement my tutorial. It uses Photoshop, but I use GIMP. The technique is quite simple when using Photoshop, and is also quite simple with GIMP but not as elegant: it is not as automated, and therefore contains a simple, repetitive element. Also you need to prepare the video file as image files first, as GIMP can't open AVI files. Neither differences pose difficulties.

If you open a Cinemagraph in GIMP you will find it is a regular animated gif but that it comprises a complete background image, and above that a stack of images that are entirely transparent, save for the section/s of each image that comprise the moving elements seen when you view the Cinemagraph. This is worth bearing in mind to understand how to make them.

You will need:

  • a video clip (this tutorial assumes AVI format)
  • GIMP
  • The GIMP Animation Package (GAP) extension to GIMP if you don't have it already (if the tab 'Filters' in GIMP shows no 'Animation' subheading I guess that means you don't have it)
  • A method to export frames of a video as image files. This tutorial uses 'ffmpeg' as I'm using GNU/Linux and it's available easily via a package manager. Windows and Mac users may have to use something like Streamclip, unless there is a free software option for their platform

If you want to give it a go here's how to make a simple Cinemagraph in GIMP:

  1. Take your video clip and place it in its own folder. Open a terminal emulator in the folder and use the command-line tool 'ffmpeg' to export all the frames from the video as image files. :
    ffmpeg -i YourVideoClip.AVI frame%d.jpg
    Needless to say, if the video is long there will be a lot of frames and a lot of resulting jpg files.
  2. Choose the sequence of images to make the Cinemagraph with. Delete the rest. Open the first frame of your sequence in GIMP. The layers window will label it 'Background'.
  3. Save this as 'a-title-you-choose.xcf' so it can be opened and edited easily later (xcf being GIMP's native file format).
  4. Go to 'File', then 'Open as layers'. Select all the remaining images in your sequence (click the first then Shift click the last) and load them into GIMP. They will be added sequentially by file name into the layers stack.
  5. On the top layer (just because its currently the only visible one) select the area/s you want to show moving in the finished Cinemagraph. I used a feathered edge of radius 10.0 to give a soft edge to the resulting mask.
  6. Save the selection you have made to a channel by going to 'Select' and choosing 'Save to channel'. Now deselect your selection by doing 'Select' and then 'None'.
  7. Now comes the sweetly repetitive part. Right click in the 'Layers' window on the top-most layer of the stack. Select 'Add layer mask'. In the dialog that opens click the radio button for 'Channel'. You will notice that the selection you saved to a channel is pre-selected for you. Click 'Add' in the dialog. Now right-click on the next layer down and click 'Add layer mask', you will see 'Channel' is pre-selected so just press 'Enter' on your keyboard. Now right-click the next layer down, click 'Add layer mask', press 'Enter'. Repeat and repeat and repeat. When you get down to the 'Background' layer stop. The 'Background' layer needs no mask.
  8. Done. If you want to use the 'Filters/Animation/Playback' function to preview your gif (ahem...Cinemagraph) you will need to apply all those masks, layer by layer. Instead I go to 'File' and 'Save a copy' and give it a name (ie: 'something.gif.'). The gif dialog will open, showing radio buttons. Choose to save as an animation, and to limit colours or to use greyscale. Under the 'Frame Disposal' options choose 'Cumulative Layers (combine)' as this keeps the background layer on display while the masked layers animate over the top of it.* All the layer masks will be applied automatically.
  9. Enjoy your Cinemagraph, or continue working on it in GIMP until it's looks right.

Notes:

  • My ghost car Cinemagraph uses a frame from the video taken before the car drove past as its background layer. I made this one layer have a slower frame speed than the others to allow a pause between times when the car drives by, thus saving on using unnecessary frames. You can change the default frame speed (100ms per frame) for individual layers in GIMP by double-clicking on the layer name in the 'Layers' window and adding a space and a bracketed time in milliseconds after the name ('Background' became 'Background (1500ms)' in this case).
  • The area around the car is not very high quality; you can see the landscape move jerkily. This is because I did not have a tripod with me (I rested the camera on a chain-link fence) so there was some camera movement. Never mind, it serves as an illustration of the principles involved, if not as a perfect creation!

*[Edit] Thanks to Gulliver for pointing out that the 'Frame disposal' options must be set to cumulative on export. Alternatively, the animation layers could also be set to combine rather than replace preceding layers before exporting the project by optimising the layers for GIF (Filters > Animation > Optimise for GIF), if this is done then the 'Frame Disposal' export option can be left as its eloquently worded 'I don't care' default.