Advertisement
Tech

Google’s Motion Stills helps you make sweet GIFs with text

Now you can liven up your Live Photos in iOS.

Photo of Christina Bonnington

Christina Bonnington

Article Lead Image

If you have a tendency to forget Live Photos exist on your iPhone, you’re not alone. What you need is a good reason to share those moving images, or a good way to GIF-iphy them—or both. With its latest update, Google’s Motion Stills app is just the solution.

Featured Video

Once you give Motion Stills (free on iOS) access to your photo library, it automatically identifies all the Live Photos you’ve taken. Using the app, you can make some tweaks, such as looping or reversing the video, or share it in GIF format. Now, though, you can also add moving text to your images.

How to turn Live Photos into GIFs

It’s incredibly easy: Just select the Live Photo you want to play with and tap the “T” button at the bottom. Then, type in your text, selecting what color background and font you want for it. And lastly, place the text on the image. If you place the text on or near something that’s moving—say, a hockey player speeding across the ice, or a truck passing by in the background—the text will cling to that object, following its movement. 

Advertisement
Text can motion track objects in Motion Stills.

Text can motion track objects in Motion Stills.

GIF via Google

Adding text can make a Live Photo more silly, or more memorable.

Adding text can make a Live Photo more silly, or more memorable.

GIF via Christina Bonnington/Motion Stills

Motion Stills is incredibly easy to use.

Motion Stills is incredibly easy to use.

GIF via Christina Bonnington/Motion Stills

Advertisement

You can also try turning your Live Photo into a cinemagraph, keeping the background perfectly still while only the subject moves (looping GIF-like, of course). Google explains how it accomplishes all this in a post on its research blog

If you haven’t already given the app a try, it’s definitely worth a download. 

H/T Mashable

 
The Daily Dot