Liae Blog

You probably know this but it’s often difficult to find the good site that doesn’t ask you for money, but rather guides you (FOR FREE) to getting just the write banner you want. You might ask Banner? Who needs it anyways. Well, banners are used by advertisers, for site developers and now even many of the channels on the most famous video sharing site – The youtube.come

Of course one way to do is to download some GIF animation software, Some image manipulation program such as paint.net or GIMP.

Just search them in Google and you should have no problem getting to their site.

They all could take time since you would need to create each frame for animation if your goal is to create a .gif file, you will also need to spend some time learning about the software.

For JPG you could simply use ms-paint but it doesn’t provide enough tools such as shadow, glow etc which you might like. Without attractive banners, banners aren’t banners are they ? Try GIMP, a free and powerful application that comes closer to commercial-Photo Shop.
Here is a site that’s my favorite, know any? Share with me and others.

http://cooltext.com/

On that site, you can chose the type of banner you want as it appears on the first page. Once you have generate the gif you want to use, just save the picture file or download using their download link.
Also try google search with keywords like “Generate Banner Online” or “Online Banner Generate to get other many useful sites that create banner without using any software.
Problems you will face while doing all this onlin.e

• Getting the right size for your requirement in terms of Height and Width. Not all so called Generate Banners Online don’t have this feature. Some of them also have a frame that advertises their company. You will probably not want that. So avoid them.
• Find the one that allows to insert Height and Width that way you will save time. Otherwise you might have to play with text size – adding spaces etc on the text line and changing font size to get it right. If it’s impossible to get the correct size you need. Try going as close as you can. Say you need a size 850 by 75, 870 by 75 isn’t that bad. Your request will look 90% of the original you made on that site.
• Remember, .gif image or .jpg image if submitted to a site that requires specific size  and your image is not in that requirement, your image will look expanded or shorten – i.e. your .gif or .jpg image can be distorted. Hence create the size that is required so you can expect the best result.

http://www.gifworks.com/image_editor.html

That is also a great site and has been around for a very long time.
Try it. It actually lets you set the size (Width and height) for your image project.
Click on the above link and see how it works for you. I used the one that is mention at the top of this post, had to spend about 1 hour to tweak and write the line and finally I get it where it looked okay. Where you can, try adjusting the font size and texts to get to the exact size you want. To find-out the size of the output image, right click on the image and see it’s properties. I like to open the image in a new window. Most browsers will tell you the size at the top as a title bar, you can also learn just by right clicking on the image and click properties. It should show height and width. GIF images when changed in height or length can look ugly in your final project (i.e where you have used the final .gif)
If you are interested in doing yourself, then grab this from Microsoft for .gif animation.
http://from Microsoft GIF Animator

The catch on that App? Well you must be “signed in to Windows Live ID to access product keys and initiate downloads”. You will need to download their Windows Live program. So download Windows Live even if you don’t wish to use it later. You can install the GIF application, then uninstall Windows Live. It should work since it has worked for me. Remember, running windows LIVE on older machine with less than 1GB Ram, Pentium 4; slows down your PC – based on my experience with my a notebook of my friend which is about 5 years old! My friend, simply remove the Windows Live, now just goes to hotmail.com to check his emails etc.

Well, any other good ones that are out there there, you know ? Share.

Since this post is about for people who don’t have thick wallet (like me), here is one more link out of the universe of COMMERCIAL Quicksands. Not every commercial programs perform what they claim. Don’t you agree on that one?

Try this if one if you like, it’s from these sites.

• http://download.com/…..GIF Animator – This is a simple freeware but works just fine
• http://software.benetonfilms.com/Beneton_Movie_GIF/ This one actually lets you even make a movie. Try it. CNET has rated as spyware free. See Here for link also has 3.5 user rating on this software

Well, that’s for now. Enjoy creating banners for free. Keep your $ in the bank. Lots of good folks are out there helping us – the needy ones but with Creativity in our heads. But please be careful from where you download, if you can look for logos or certifications on (1) Virus Free (2) Spam Free (3) Adware Free (4) Malware free. (4) Free to use as long as you keep it on your computer and not distribute or sell it.

RUBEN
http://www.youtube.com/k6yardotcom
Top banner on that channel was created using some of these free tools and I have no words to describe, how easy it was and it was free.