The Basics of GIF Brewery Creating GIFs

To start using GIF Brewery, you'll first need to open a video file. You can use the File > Open... menu option or simply drag the video to the GIF Brewery icon in your dock. You'll be presented with a window that looks like above.

In order to see the GIF Properties side window, simply click the GIF Properties button in the toolbar. Here you'll see all the possible GIF settings.


As you can see in GIF Brewery's toolbar, you can resize and crop the frame. This is very helpful for controlling the file size of a GIF. In particular, this video was resized from 1280px in width down to 640px. People will thank you for not having a 1440px width GIF.

Additionally, GIF Brewery contains numerous image filters and effects than can enhance your video and GIF. You may access them in the menu above. If you've used an image editing program before, you'll be right at home with all the options.

Here I decided to apply a CMYK Halftone filter. I've found this filter (with the default settings) can really enhance the overall image quality of the produced GIF, especially if you notice excessive color banding in your created GIFs.


Another important part of creating a GIF is setting the start and end times. As I played the video I found a good spot for the start of my GIF. To set the start of the GIF, simply press the "Set Start" button in the bottom of the window.

Note that if you try to set the start time to later than the currently set end time, GIF Brewery will move the end time to the new start time as well. The same holds for setting a new end time that is before the current start time.


With the start time now set, I'll now set the end time. I'd like the end of the GIF to be at the 18 second mark. An easy way to move the current time to a precise location is the Movie > Goto Time... option in the menus. As you can see above, I can simply type in the time I want the movie to be at.


With the current time now at 18 seconds, I can now set the end time. Just like above, the end time can be set by pressing the "Set End" button. However, a faster way, in my opinion is to just press the o key on your keyboard.

You might be interested to know that GIF Brewery has lots of keyboard shortcuts. They really help with quickly creating and editing the start & end times of the GIF.


With the start and end times now set, I can now create the GIF. To create the GIF, simply press the "Create GIF" button in the toolbar. GIF Brewery will pop up a progress bar and after a couple of seconds, the created GIF will also appear like above.

If you like the GIF, you may save it. If you want to try again with different settings, simply Discard the GIF.

Happy GIF Brewing!