Like it or not, GIFs have pretty much become the de facto language of the Internet, and few services are as good of a place to find and share them as Tumblr. With that in mind, it’s only natural that the service have its own built-in GIF maker, which was just added to Tumblr’s mobile apps earlier today. All users need to do is select a video or set of photos and convert them. After that, you can edit them however you want or just post them as is.
Tumblr, the home of endless GIFs, is giving users an easier way to create them from videos and burst photos. GIF Maker, which appears under the ‘Photo’ option in Tumblr’s mobile apps, lets you select any video or set of burst photos to convert. Once selected, you can edit the GIF, which can be up to three seconds long, to make it rebound back and forth or loop. I tried out GIF Maker on my kitten, Mika, and the results are really fun. It’s super-easy to throw together something slick based on videos you’ve already got in your library and takes just a few seconds to post them. The addition means I’m far more likely to actually share snippets of the videos I take to Tumblr. There’s been an explosion of GIF making apps recently; Giphy’s GIF camera, Lively which leverages the iPhone’s Live Photos feature and other apps like Instant that remove the friction from making fun little animations.
