Easy gif animation

[mcstraycat]

I am a relative newby and have a website built with Joomla CMS. I want to improve the looks of my banners by adding a little movement. The easiest way to do that would probably be animated gif files. I know zip about code but I know there is software that will write the code.
If you agree, would anyone know of some inexpensive software to help me build the animated gif files. Can't spend $600 on photoshop right now.
Or if you know an easier way, I'd love to know that also.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Doctor Q]

The answer used to be Adobe ImageReady, which is what I use, but those features were rolled into Photoshop.

Luckily, there's GIFBuilder (versiontracker). Free.

 

[angelwatt]

Gimp (which is free) is able to create animated gifs. Just look up a tutorial on it. I've done a few before with it and was fairly easy to do.

 

[Mac-Addict]

<<<<<<<<<<<<<< My avatar was made using Gimp

 

[mariahlullaby]

<<<<<<<<<<<<<< My avatar was made using Gimp

Your avatar always makes me hungry, and I'm not really a fan of apples unless I'm typing on them....and if I'm typing on the fruit, then I am probably drunk, in which case I am a fan of EVERYTHING!

 

[papadopolis1024]

<<<<<<<<<<<<<< My avatar was made using Gimp

Gimp for simple stuff. I have made several this way.

 

[Lord Blackadder]

Graphic Converter (shareware) can also make animated gifs pretty easily, using the batch processing tool under File > Convert & modify.

Here's a how-to. It's from an older version of Graphic Converter but the steps are the same.