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Chino Wong
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Chronogifography: Splitting GIFs

Splitting an animated GIF file up into its composing frames/images (also known as exploding GIFs, decompiling GIFs, or GIF frame extraction) is a fairly common practical need for GIF creators.

Timeline Editor in Photoshop

Chronophotography, on the other hand — the study of movement using still photography—is a much more esoteric practice popularized by the work of Edweard Muybridge and Harold Eugene Edgerton. As an animator, I have always found prints by Edweard Muybridge and the work of Harold Eugene Edgerton not only extremely useful to study natural motion, but outstanding art in their own right; a satisfying hybrid of photography and film. For the past half-century the more practical applications of the format Muybridge and Edgerton popularized are to retroactively storyboard a video, animation, or piece of motion graphics for pitch work, for use in a portfolio presentation, or for academic discussion.

Examples of chronophotography by Harold Eugene Edgerton (left), and Edweard Muybridge (right)

And there are plenty of tools that can help you do this. One of the best tools I’ve used is MoviePrint, an free app for OS X by Jakob Schindegger that does exactly this for most video files. [HT Martin Koch]

MoviePrint breaks video into presentable frames

But what of the lowly animated GIF? Breaking down the frames of a decidedly less-esteemed GIF file is most commonly used for the purpose of…

  • GIF optimization — removing frames in order to reduce the file size of an animated GIF
  • Printing flipbooks of GIF frames
  • Curiosity
An example of EZGif.com’s GIF Splitter in action

But if the craft of animated GIF creation continues to mature, creators may eventually need to present their work the same way that filmmakers, visual effects artists, and motion designers break down their work for commercial, academic, and artistic purposes. Chronogifography, if you will. Below are some services that will get you started on this burgeoning artform.

Happy splitting!

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