Create Animated Images Using Python

No Photoshop? Not a problem! Learn how to easily create animated images from a list of static images or a video in Python.

Introduction

Animated images are a series of static images that are automatically played to show related content in a continuous and dynamic fashion, with the advantage of having a smaller size than videos. In addition, many web and mobile applications support animated images just like regular static images, and they don’t always allow you to upload videos. In this case, animated images can be very useful. Certainly, there are many other reasons why animated images are preferred. Sometimes, it’s just pure fun to put related or unrelated images together.

There are some online websites, desktop software, and command-line tools that can be used to create animated images. However, they’re not “pythonic” by the standard. Since many of us have been using Python more or less for various purposes, we have developed familiarity with the syntax and usage of certain built-in and third-party libraries. I thought it would be handy if we know how to create animated images using Python. Thus, in this article, I would like to share with you the steps to make animated images in Python, with the assumption that you have adequate experience working with Python.