Creating animated GIFs from layers

TinyImage includes a Create GIF feature which allows you to create and export animated GIF files from any selected Figma layers.

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Selecting and refreshing Figma layers

The GIF feature in TinyImage works by taking the selection of layers that you highlight in your Figma page, and using each one as an individual “frame” for your animated GIF.

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Selecting layers to use as frames for your GIF

To get started creating a GIF, you can click on the Create GIF button in the TinyImage header. If you don’t have any Figma layers highlighted already, you’ll see a prompt asking you to to select some layers on your page to use as the “frames” for your animated GIF. Once you’ve selected some layers on your page, you can click the Use Selected Layers button, which will load your selected layers into a preview.

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Refreshing the selected layers

If you would like to change the layers that are being used as “frames” for your GIF after you’ve already loaded some, you can make a new selection of any Figma layers by highlighting them on your page, then clicking the Refresh button next to the Selected Layers label in the “Create a GIF” toolbar. This will load the selected layers as new frames in the GIF preview.

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Updating the order of your frames

There are a number of different ways to sort the order of your frames in your animated GIF:

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Sort frames by Custom Order

You can manually sort the order of your frames using drag and drop, by clicking/holding your mouse on any thumbnail image, and dragging it left or right to shift its order in your GIF, then dropping it to confirm that order. This custom ordering will be saved if you want to switch between ordering options, so you can get it back by clicking the Sort frames by Custom Order option in the sorting select box.

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Sort frames by Figma Layer Order

Selecting the Sort frames by Figma Layer Order option will automatically sort your the order of your frames to match their order in your Figma layers.

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Sort frames visually by Columns

Selecting the Sort frames visually by Columns option will automatically sort your the order of your frames to match their visual positioning order by columns in your Figma design.

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Sort frames visually by Rows

Selecting the Sort frames visually by Rows option will automatically sort your the order of your frames to match their visual positioning order by rows in your Figma design.

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Sort frames visually by Figma Layer Name

Selecting the Sort frames by Figma Layer Name option will automatically sort your the order of your frames to match their alphabetical order according to their Figma layer names.

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Adjusting the GIF speed and playback options

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Setting a delay speed for all frames

You can control the playback speed of your GIF by setting a frame delay to each of your frames using the delay slider. Clicking/holding and dragging the delay slider will allow you to specify your desired frame delay timing (in milliseconds). This setting will be applied to all of the frames in your animated GIF. The playback speed in your GIF preview will update in real-time as you adjust this value.

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Overriding delay speed per frame

In addition to setting the frame delay using the slider, you can also specify different delays per frame, which overrides the value that is being set by the delay slider. To specify the delay for a certain frame, click on the delay number input underneath the desired frame’s thumbnail image image; you can enter any number between 1-9999, which will become the new delay (in milliseconds) for that specific frame in your GIF.

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Setting the play count

You can specify the number of times your GIF should play through from the first frame to the last frame by using the playback input number field. Setting this option requires the Infinite toggle to be disabled, then you can input a number, which will become the amount of times your exported GIF will play through (and then freeze on the final frame after that number of play throughs).

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Controlling GIF preview playback

While previewing your GIF, you can use these buttons to help control the playback:

The play and pause control buttons allow you to instantly pause/resume playback of the GIF preview.

The previous and next control buttons allow you to shift the current frame in the GIF preview backwards or forwards by one frame. Please note that the preview must be paused in order to use the previous and next control buttons.

The restart control button allows you to instantly restart the GIF preview frame, setting the “current frame” back to the first frame.

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Add frame transition effects to your GIF

By default, frames will transition between each other without any motion or effects, but if you’d like to change this, you can select an option from the Transition Type select input:

• Instant (Default)
• Fade
• Slide ←
• Slide →
• Slide ↑
• Slide ↓
• Wipe →
• Wipe ↓

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Setting GIF export options

The export settings for your GIF can be configured using the following options:

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Setting the image dimensions

By default, the dimensions of your image are set to the first frame’s image width/height, but you can override these values to be whatever you like by updating the width and height input number fields with the size of your choice.

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Scaling the image size

To easily export your image at a different scale of the selected size (eg. @2x, @0.5x etc), you can use the scale select box to choose a scaling option. This will ensure that the GIF is exported at the scaled size (shown next to the scaling select box).

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Selecting an image fit option

Depending on if you want the images in your frames to take up the entire size of the frame, or to be shrunk down to fit the frame size, you can choose between the Cover Images and Contain Images (which is the default option) options in the image fit select box.

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Setting the background color

If you’re using transparent images or just using the contain image fit (which may leave some gaps around your images), you can specify the solid background colour of your GIF by setting a HEX color value (starting with a #) in the background colour input field.

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Setting the GIF compression/quality

You can set the lossy compression quality level for your GIF exports from 1-100 by using the compression slider. Clicking/holding and dragging the slider will allow you to specify your desired quality level.

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Using global color palette

If you’re exporting a GIF where the color palette for every frame is the same (with only some minor movement, text changes etc between them) and are seeing some color artifacts, you may want to enable the All frames have the same color palette toggle option, which will re-use the color palette from the first frame in your GIF, and apply that to all of the other frames in your GIF, too.

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Using image dithering

If you would like to specify the dithering to render your GIF with, you can select from some dithering algorithms that are included in the Image Dithering select box.

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Exporting the GIF file

Once you’re happy with your animated GIF preview, you can click the Export GIF button in the toolbar; this will begin the process of adding your GIF frames one by one. You’ll see a progress indicator showing which frame is currently being processed, followed by a progress indicator showing the progress of rendering your final GIF file.

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Exporting to a WebM video or animated WebP image

You can optionally export your animation to a .webm video or animated .webp image file (instead of a GIF) by clicking on the dropdown box and choosing the WebM or WebP option, then clicking the Export button.

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Exporting to a MP4 video

You can optionally export your animation to a .mp4 video by clicking on the dropdown box and choosing the MP4 option, then clicking the Export button.

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Saving the exported GIF file

After all of the frames in your GIF have been processed, you’ll see a confirmation notification letting you know that your GIF has been rendered, and your .gif file download will automatically be triggered.