Convert GIF to PNG

First frame only, and how to get the others

A still picture holds one image, so turning an animated GIF into a PNG means picking a single frame. Octoolo's picture tools take the first one.

For any other moment, use the Video Editor, which treats an animated GIF as a video clip:

• Press Add videos, pictures, music and add the GIF.
• Move the playhead to the frame you want.
• Press Save this frame under the video to save it as a PNG.

That PNG is the size of the video project, such as 1920 × 1080 for a landscape one, with the GIF fitted inside and bars around it when the shapes differ. It saves one frame at a time; extract frames from a video has the details. The Video Editor works with FFmpeg, which Octoolo downloads once, the first time it is needed (77 MB). To keep the whole animation in a lighter file instead, convert GIF to MP4.

What the PNG keeps

GIF and PNG are both lossless, so moving a frame from one to the other changes nothing you can see:

• Colors. A GIF frame uses at most 256 colors, and the PNG shows exactly those.
• Transparency. GIF pixels are either fully see-through or not at all, and the clear ones stay clear in the PNG.
• Size in pixels. Exported at the full size, the PNG has the GIF's own width and height.

What the PNG does not keep is the movement, and with it the timing and the loop. If you open the PNG later and wonder where the animation went, that is why: PNG files saved by Octoolo are always still pictures.

Many GIFs are small in pixels. To make a bigger PNG, choose Image › Image size… before exporting, or type a larger width in Export's W box; both use smooth resampling, so pixel art comes out soft rather than blocky. For a sharper enlargement of a small GIF, try Image › Upscale 2× (AI); see the image upscaler.

What a still from a GIF is good for

People pull a frame out of a GIF for all sorts of reasons:

• a thumbnail or preview image for a post or a page,
• a slide or a document that should show one clear picture rather than a moving one,
• a sticker or emoji with a clear background,
• a reference image for a bug report or a how-to,
• a picture to print, since paper cannot move.

Once the frame is open in the Photo Editor you can crop it, add a caption or put a border around it before exporting, and nothing you do changes the GIF itself. If a JPG is what you need, see GIF to JPG.

For a thumbnail, the frame often needs a fixed shape. The Crop tool (C) offers Square 1:1, 4:5 portrait, 3:2, 16:9, 9:16 story and more; pick one and drag the box over the part that tells the story.

The Convert tool

For a plain conversion, Convert pictures on the Photo Editor's start page does the same job without opening the editor. Choose the GIF: the original plays as it always does, and the result beside it shows the first frame, the one that becomes the PNG. For a GIF, both PNG and Same under Format give a PNG, since Octoolo does not write GIF files.

The result shows its width, height and file size, and the percent change against the GIF. Press Save PNG; the Windows Save window suggests the GIF's name with .png at the end. Drop several GIFs and the same settings apply to all, with Save all as ZIP for the lot.

That side-by-side view makes the first-frame rule easy to see: an animated GIF keeps moving on the original's side, while the result holds still on the frame you will get, so there are no surprises after saving.