While this is great for editing the GIF, it’s not so great for playing/viewing it with ease like in a web browser. Instead, it opens each frame of the GIF as a separate layer in Photoshop. However, with other applications like Adobe Photoshop, while the software can technically open the GIF like it can with other graphics, it doesn’t really display the GIF as you’d expect it to. Open local GIFs with the Open menu or possibly with a drag-and-drop into the browser window. On almost all operating systems, most web browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, etc.) open online GIFs with no problem-you don’t need any other program on your computer. Do you want a program that can play the GIF like a video or image viewer, or do you want something that will let you edit the GIF?

How to Open a GIF File Before you look into the programs mentioned below, first decide what it is that you’re after. Because GIF files are saved in a lossless format, the image quality isn’t degraded when used with GIF compression.Īn image in GIF format. Websites often use GIF files too, to display animated objects like buttons or header images. Though GIF files don’t contain audio data, they’re often seen online as a way to share video clips.

GIFs (pronounced ‘gif’ or ‘jiff’) are typically small image files that most people use to create animated images to share on social media. However, a GIF can be used with large files as well.

A file with the GIF file extension is a Graphical Interchange Format file.

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