There are online gif makers with instructions.

Honestly, something like brush.ninja is a great starting point. It's super user-friendly and versatile for how simple a design it is.

Gimp is free software, and there are many free online sites to convert content to gifs

Photoshop

Shotcut. Blender. GIMP 2.

• https://www.pencil2d.org/

• https://www.snapfiles.com/get/cyotekgifani.html

• https://www.snapfiles.com/get/stickfigure.html

• https://www.nchsoftware.com/animation/index.html

GifGun plugin for After Effects

I usually stick with Adobe After Effects for more complex animations, but Photoshop works well for simpler ones when I just need something quick.

I used to use Photoshop until the “save for web” server error issue…

Ezgifs

Lottie files is really the best option for UI UX

You can try the following app. It has a weird name but it is a great app when it comes to making GIFs from videos on your iphone.

https://preview.redd.it/cv9669vygtbd1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=48a8e0b3587758e111060dab90fe1f684e5f97ae

I think you can create GIFs on your iPhone with the live photos. Just set the live photo in a loop. Basically that's what a GIF is. So, open the Photos app on your iPhone and select the LIVE Photo that you want as GIF. Then tap on the drop-down menu on LIVE thing that appear on the top-left. From there select Loop to set the live photo in a loop. Once you do that you can save it or share it with others as GIF.

Check out this GIF maker app for iPhone. It has really good ratings and you can also create Boomerang videos & access your GIFs from the keyboard. All in all it is one of the best app to make GIFs on your iPhone.

Gifski by our favourite dev. does exactly what you’re asking

Permute - Media Converter for macOS

Gifox is excellent, and if you do need to make a lot of gifs the pro version is worth it.

If video is your thing, you can use ffmpeg to convert a video to an animated gif.

I wrote a commercial cutting tool and inverted its results (just commercials) and created a sped up animated gif of the results. Historically this will display well in FF, but there was a time when something like this would have brought Chrome to it knees. Should work ok now. https://endlessnow.com/ten/SurLaTablo/the-anti-commskip.gif

Krita. You can use the animation timeline docker or the more simplified storyboard docker. The storyboard docker is a simplified version of the animation docker. The animation docker has onion skin and frames that are not keyframes, whereas the storyboard only shows keyframes. The idea being the storyboard items could be viewed as a scene and non keyframes are within a scene. Generally I would recommend using storyboard at a high level but you'll need the animation docker for more detail 

I use a few scripts with mpv to avoid dealing with gui video editors.

https://github.com/occivink/mpv-scripts

default 'encode slice' generates a webm but covers the basic idea

If its not complicated you can use Gimp (every frame is a layer) or ffmpeg if you already have frames as different images.

This one liner might help you:

ffmpeg -i [CLIP] -f lavfi -i "movie=[CLIP], fps=25, scale=320:-1:flags=lanczos, palettegen[out]" -filter_complex "scale=[H RES]:-1,paletteuse,fps=[FRAMES PER SECOND],setpts=PTS/[SPEED]" -an [CLIP].gif

Say you want to convert movie.mp4 to a GIF which measures 800px across and runs at 150% of the original speed and 10 frames per second:

ffmpeg -i movie.mp4 -f lavfi -i "movie=movie.mp4, fps=25, scale=320:-1:flags=lanczos, palettegen[out]" -filter_complex "scale=800:-1,paletteuse,fps=10,setpts=PTS/1.5" -an movie.gif

Why is it better than most other solutions? Because it generates an optimised palette for the GIF (remember that GIFs have an indexed palette), making the resulting animation less grainy and smaller in size.

I got some pretty decent gifs for my steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1435470/Space_Bandit using ImageMagick.

ScreenToGif works well.

On https://ezgif.com you have a slider to determine how many colours you want to sacrifice for a smaller file size.

Also, instead of creating an actual .gif files, you can use https://gfycat.com - it works well for Reddit for example :)

GIFGUN if you want something easy or FFMPEG if you’re a nerd

Gifski is free and I can’t say enough good things about it.

I just render out an MP4, then open that in PS and save as a GIF.

I’ve always used Photoshop. It gives you a good amount of control and I can get much lighter files than the native media encoder.

Gifsky

You need to look up layering animations in after effects or premier

With your file open in photoshop, go to Window>Timeline. Now click the panel options menu in the top right corner of the Timeline frame, and click New Frame. Create new artwork for this frame. Create more frames as desired.

Arrange them on the timeline by specifying times for each frame. There's a drop down menu where it says "0 Sec" under the thumbnail. Change to desired time for each frame to appear.

Mess around with tweens as desired for transitions between frames. What you specify of sliding in is "Position Tween". Basically this is an automatic animation of your objects moving from their position in frame A to their position in frame D. You can also do this manually by adding frames B and C (or more!) between your two 'bookend' frames and positioning the elements as desired. More frames=smoother

Hope that helps you get started! To animate using content from scenes from video or animated clips, use File>Import>Video Frames to Layers.

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Save the file as PSD (your working version).! Don't save your only copy as a gif because then you won't be able to keep editing it in the future.

To share it and generate great internet fame for yourself, Go to File> Export > Save for Web (Legacy) (CC) or File > Save for Web (CS6 and older)

1. Select GIF 128 Dithered from the Preset menu.
2. Select 256 from the Colors menu.
3. If you are using the GIF online or want to limit the file size of the animation, change Width and Height fields in the Image Size options.
4. Select Forever from the Looping Options menu

AND WE HAVE A WINNER! (simple gif using your image)