Being an internet surfer, you’re usually juggling numerous identities: the aware citizen, the hilarious meme sharer, the judgy commenter, and, at times, an accidental GIF editor. That funny quote from “The Office” or your cat’s spectacular fail would look so much better if only you could fit it onto the story reel or as a neat reply to a tweet, wouldn’t it?
But beware, one doesn’t simply go jabbing scissors at a GIF. You want it to maintain its charm even after trimming the extra frame. Heck knows you’re brave, but sometimes, this simple necessity can turn into a real battle against pixels and screen resolutions.
Online or Offline GIF Editing Route?
Using online tools can seem quite tempting. One click here, a little drag there, crop GIF, and download. It might be easy to trim GIF online for smaller, bite-sized ones, but when handling bigger movie scenes or high-definition cat-fails, you’re sometimes at the mercy of your internet speed.
Offline software can be more reliable and have a broader range of functions but does require more time and patience. But hey, if that means ending up with the perfectly cropped GIF of Michael Scott’s “That’s what she said!” every time, it’s worth a shot.
How to Crop a GIF With Flixier
Here are the basic steps to crop and resize GIFs using a simple online video editor called Flixier:
- Upload your GIF
Go to Flixier and click on the Start Editing button. Once in the Flixier editor, click on Import or drag and drop your GIF file into the library area. You can also add a GIF from the Stock tab. Search for the GIF you want and drag it onto the timeline.
- Crop the GIF
With your GIF deselected on the timeline (just click out of the selected area on the canvas), you’ll see the Settings panel on the right. Under Resolution, you can choose a preset to automatically crop your video to that aspect ratio. You can also enter a custom resolution to crop to any dimensions you need.
- Adjust and preview
Use the playback controls to preview your cropped GIF. You can add effects, transitions, and text, or just keep it simple. To ensure any text or key visual elements are not cut off on different social media apps, enable the Show Safe Zone feature under the Resolution settings. This will display a semi-transparent box indicating the Safe Zones to keep your content within. Anything outside this area may get cut off.
- Export your cropped GIF
When you’re happy with your new cropped GIF, click the Export button in the top right corner. Choose GIF as the output format, then click Export and Download to save your cropped GIF. Now you’re ready to send your newly cropped GIF out into the wild.
Tips for Cropping GIFs
Okay, now you have the basics down. But the devil’s in the details, as they say. So, here are a few pointers to keep in mind:
1. The Long Way Always Revisited
Landscape orientation might seem okay for your desktop display, but try trimming details to fit mobile screens, and suddenly, everything looks squished and less impactful. Your 9:16 ratio could be an ideal choice for your vertical displays, making sure those chuckles aren’t cut short just because of a poor aspect ratio.
Each digital space differs. The GIF you’re cropping should maintain its original charm and fit the platform’s specifics to look perfect. For reference, here are the standard sizes for GIFs on popular platforms:
- Facebook posts – 476 x varied (Tall)
- Pinterest – 1000 x varied/2:3 aspect ratio
- Twitter Posts – 1200 x 675 px
- Instagram Story/Reels – 1080 x 1920 px
- LinkedIn Posts – 1104 x 736 px
- Snapchat – 1080 x 1920 px/9:16 aspect ratio
2. Size Matters
Cropping a GIF while retaining its integrity might be the goal, but that doesn’t mean you go overboard with an atomic size. What use is your excellent GIF if it causes someone’s device to hang due to its gargantuan volume? For mobile devices, websites, or emails, you’re generally safer within the 1 MB territory. For reference, here are the maximum sizes for GIFs on popular platforms:
- Facebook posts – 25MB
- Pinterest – 20MB
- Twitter Posts – 15MB on web, 5MB on mobile
- Instagram Feed Posts – 30MB
- Instagram Story/Reels – 30MB
- LinkedIn Posts – 5MB
- Snapchat – 1MB
These sizes might seem a bit high on some platforms, but that doesn’t mean your GIF should be the maximum size. Lighter, quicker-to-load GIFs may have greater engagement simply because they don’t test your audience’s patience. We’re here for swift laughs, not buffering lags.
3. Focus, but Not Too Closely
While cropping a GIF, you might feel the urge to cut everything else except for that one hilarious moment or expression. Trimming those edges to fit your screen may force you to excessively zoom in, pixelating the image.
Be careful, as this could lead to your viewer missing out on valuable context and thereby misinterpreting the whole thing. Don’t make the subscribers of your favorite meme subreddit end up as confused as that meme of John Travolta looking around in Pulp Fiction.
4. Quality Over Quantity
What most bad quality GIFs and memes have in their comment section is the “Y’all got any more of them pixels” joke. It’s all fun and games until your GIF is on the receiving end of this banter. Quality is still a thing; it is absolutely a thing. When you compress your GIF to the utmost limit just because you want to keep its size within control, there’s an annoying trade-off that creeps in – pixelation.
This can turn your otherwise hilarious GIF into a grainy blob of vague movements that invite more squinting from viewers than laughs. Please don’t be that guy in the group chat who always sends pixelated memes. That’s a very specific level of social disgrace we think you should aim to avoid.
Easy as Pie, Right?
An extra pixel here, a redundant frame there… you could totally do without them. Ultimately, what matters is that your final GIF grabs attention, makes sense, and keeps its humor intact even after trimming off the extra fat.
P.S. It’s pronounced “Jif,” no matter what anyone says!