About the PNG to GIF Converter
Flat artwork is where GIF still holds its own. Icons, sprites, simple charts and UI captures use so few distinct tones that indexing them costs nothing visible, and the resulting file is compact. This converter reads the PNG, works out which colours it really contains, and writes a GIF89a with a palette built from that measurement rather than a generic one.
The alpha channel needs a decision, because GIF transparency is binary. With Keep transparency ticked, any pixel below half opacity becomes the transparent index and everything else stays solid; soft anti-aliased edges therefore turn crisp and can look slightly jagged against a contrasting background. Untick the option and those pixels are composited onto a chosen colour instead, which keeps edges smooth as long as the destination background matches.
Reducing the palette below 256 is worth trying on any graphic with large flat areas, since the file often halves with no perceptible change. Photographic PNGs are the exception and should stay at the full palette or, better, become a JPG instead. The reverse trip is handled by GIF to PNG.
How to use
- Choose the PNG file you want as a GIF.
- Decide whether transparency should be kept or flattened onto a colour.
- Lower Colours if the artwork is flat, then download the GIF.
Common questions
- Why do the edges of my icon look jagged?
- GIF transparency is on or off with nothing in between, so anti-aliased edge pixels have to pick a side. Flatten onto the destination colour instead to keep them smooth.
- Can this build an animated GIF from several PNGs?
- No, it converts one image into one still frame.
- How many colours should I keep?
- Start at 256 and step down. Flat illustrations often look identical at 64 or even 32 while the file shrinks noticeably.
- Is the original PNG modified?
- Never. The file on your disk is only read, and the GIF is created separately in memory.