Posted on: June 4, 2017 at 4:37 am

A ‘Cinemagraph’ is somewhere between a still photograph and a video. It is made using a series of still images, where just one part of the subject has moved. It could be a person sitting and dangling his leg while the rest of the elements in the subject remain static.

By combining a series of images into a repetitive animated loop, the Cinemagraph is produced as a GIF animation. The result can be nothing short of stunning. Take a look at some pretty amazing Cinemagraphs here.

If you’d like to try your hand at making a Cinemagraph, its really not too hard. Just like with still images, if you start with a clear visual idea of what you want your finished project to look like, the rest falls into place. Needless to say a tripod is mandatory. While there are dedicated software to make Cinemagraphs, Photoshop works just fine too. You could either shoot a series of still images in burst mode, or just shoot a video and select the frames required after layering them. More on that here. Whatever method you employ, be sure to have the same frame at the beginning and at the end of your GIF, so as to have a smooth loop created.