What's An Animated Gif?

There are lots of ways to get things to move on the computer screen. Unfortunately, many of them require some special software (Quicktime, Realplayer, etc.) and are made up of very large files. Animated gifs are special because the files are smaller and all it takes is your browser to play them.

Most of the pictures you see as you surf the web are either gif or jpg image files. And most of the gifs are simple, static images. But, animated gifs move because they are composed of multiple files plus an HTML message that tells your computer to rotate through the files -- like flipping through the pages of one of those little movie booklets.

Below are some still frames from one of the animated gifs on this site. You can see how they are designed to create the illusion of movement when viewed in rapid succession.

And how does one get a series of pictures that will move? Well, some of the simplest gif animations consist of only 2 frames. You've probably seen them in the banners of porno sites. If they show penetration, the 2 frames probably are just "in" and "out."

But if you want the movement to be smoother and to have a sense of quality to it, you need to actually film the movement (such as masturbation) that you want to represent. In other words, your model needs to be moving while the camera takes a series of frames. You can use a video camera or a still camera that shoots continuously. Most of the early gifs posted by the manager of this site were taken with a Nikon Coolpix digital camera in continuous mode. Some of the more recent ones were taken with a Canon videocam and converted into gifs.

Here are some instructions in case you want to try to make your own animated gifs and send them in to be posted on this site:

If you have a video or a still camera that will make a short digital video, that is ideal. The file should be very short, not more than about 2 MB in size. The video file should be in .mov or .mpeg format. You can transmit files one each as attachments to emails. I can turn them into gifs.

If you don't have a camera that takes videos, use the "continuous" setting on your still camera. This takes a rapid series of frames while you hold the shutter down. If your camera doesn't have a continuous mode, you can make each exposure individually - but you will have to slow down the masturbation action so that your hand moves just a little between each exposure. To make the camera respond quickly, you can use a smaller file size. The individual frames need to be clear, but they don't have to be of a very large file size.

Here are some additional instructions for the still camera technique.

1. Use a tripod.
2. Seat yourself or lean against a piece of furniture so that you won't accidentally move your body between frames.
3. Make only about a dozen frames for each gif - for example if you are stroking just enough to follow the movement of your hand once from the top of your shaft to the bottom and returning to the top.
4. Make sure the individual frames are sequentially numbered and are in .jpg format.
5. These frames can be imported into an animation software program (such as Photoshop ImageReady) and converted into a gif. If you don't have this software or are unfamiliar with the process, send the frames to me and I will do that work.

Good luck! Don't make this a chore - enjoy yourself.