N> help w/gif image

[Bell]

Hi, I'm new here. I don't know anything about DHTML scripts but I couldn't find a forum that was for .gif animations specificlly... so I hope people don't get mad that I posted here >.< I'm sorry if I'm totally in the wrong place *whimpers*
I just got a gif program called "Agif 2.23" I wanted to make some gifs for me and my friends I know how to use Photoshop but I can't make moving pictures with it so I looked for a animated gif program. This stupid program's tutuorial is bad and it doesn't tell me how to do anything I need.
I just want to take some little .gif's I saved, they look like this:

And I want to put a non-moving picture on the front:

But it doesn't do it right >.< so I just need help with it... this program I'm using is lame-o.

I re-sized it so its the same size as the .gif I want to put it on and I deleted the background and all that so it transparent and I saved it as a .gif w/transparent background. Then I opened up the Agif program and loaded the flowers gif and loaded the .gif of my Dancer and when I try to put it together it's doing all this weird stuff I don't know how to fix.
(gotta post a second time to include my other images, sorry T_T)

[Bell]

Part 2:
I've been messing with it for hours now and this is what I got:

It like flashes through the images and I know its slower then the original one but right now I just want her to be on top and not have all this junk overlapping her. So if I make it not transparent the stuff doesn't overlap but then it flashes the image of her like its just a jpeg w/her on a white background, so I make it transparent and then the other parts of the flower gif flash over/through her.
I want it to be like this:

But w/the .gif moving behind it. I don't get why this is so darn complicated >.< I'm so frustrated right now. Here is a screenshot of the program, after I duplicated the picture of my dancer because... its the only way it will be prescent throughout the entire running of the gif... if I just have one layer of her on top it just appears one time, then runs the flower gif w/out her picture. Here is the screenshot:


I don't know... this is the first time I've done this and I've read some guides but I just can't figure this out. If someone might be able to tell me what I'm doing wrong other then just being a total n00by w/it I'd really appriciate it. Or if the program I'm using is sucky and bad, can someone tell me what program for making the images I want to make I should download/buy?
I'm sorry if I'm totally off/in the wrong place *worries*

[Bell]

Here is what it looks like when I unclick the transparancy option on the images of my dancer:


I know how layers work in Photoshop but this isn't the same or am I just totally off? Why is it the .gif I import of my dancer shows up with the white background when the .gif file I saved in photoshop is transparent w/no background... it just like auto-fills it in w/a white background. I also don't understand why the other layers overlap each other, so they go over my dancer's image... how would you get one image to be dominant through the animated gif without being overlapped by all the layers in-between?

Is the program I'm using like bad? Because it looks like something from windows '95 when I was like six years old >.>;;; When I load the original gif into Photoshop, this one:

It comes up as an "Index" file and I can't edit or do anything w/it is their anyway I can unlock an index file in Photoshop and edit/make the gif using Photoshop? Or is that impossible?

I'm so sorry to ask so many questions, I was just really excited and stayed up all night trying to make this thing without much success. Is their an easier program to make the image I want to make or do I need to take some special classes to be able to make animated gif images?
Just in case someone thinks I'm just making a fuss so one of you guys makes it for me that's not the case. I don't want someone to do it for me, I want to do it myself and make them for my friends too, they would be so happy^^

So, this is my final addition to my very long problem.

[Twey]

Heh, I've no idea about Photoshop, but here's your image (created with the GIMP):


An "indexed" image has to do with the way the format stores colours. "Plain" image formats like BMP save the colours in RGB mode; that is to say, each pixel is coloured by combining values for red, green and blue. However, GIF images use an indexed colour storage method, for better filesize (and PNG still compresses better ). This means that in the headers of the file, it defines a few colours:

1: #000000
2: #ffffff
3: #ff0000
4: #00ff00
5: #0000ff

Then, when it wants to reference a colour, instead of using its RGB value, it simply uses the label it's given it; for example, if it wanted to use green, instead of saying #00ff00, it could just say 4. However, this means that if you try to use a colour not defined in this "palette," it won't work.

[Bell]

*Gasp* Oh my it's so pretty!

I have to say thank you so much for fixing my picture, it was so nice of you! But I have no idea what you're talking about *shy face*. So when I make my .gif image in photoshop and get it read to import into the .gif making program I should make sure to format the image to not be RGB type?

How did you make it move nice and smooth and fast like that and not all slow and boring like the ones I posted? Oh man, or are you saying I should just download that GIMP program and use that?
Do I have to know those funny numbers you posted to use the GIMP program because I don't know how to do that...
Gosh, I'm sorry about being so un-educated about this, I really thank you for helping me so far and fixing my picture.

[Twey]

Oh man, or are you saying I should just download that GIMP program and use that?

I've no idea. I haven't used Photoshop since about version 4 I'm told it's better than the GIMP, but the GIMP seems to do everything I've ever wanted from it, so I don't really bother myself about it too much.

Do I have to know those funny numbers you posted to use the GIMP program because I don't know how to do that...

Ack! Sorry, since it's a web design forum I assumed you'd be familiar with this format of expressing colours, which is common in HTML. The format is #RRGGBB, where there are two digits (hexadecimal digits, maximum value ff, meaning 255) representing a fraction of the total available red, green and blue. For example, #00ff00 means no red, full green, and no blue, so basically the brightest green possible.

[Bell]

I'm afraid I'm much too inexpierenced for this place. I have a website but I only used Photoshop to make it and never had to do much html stuff other then a few little things I copied from a book to make my scrollbars special colors that was using the numbers you're talking about.
Gosh you're smart.
I really thankful you're helping me, so nice^^ I still don't know how the heck to do this .gif image lol but at least you fixed my one. I think I will try to figure it out using photoshop or an adobe program and when I do I will post what I did just in case someone else is confused like me.^^

[Bell]

Well, just to finish off this topic. In case anyone else ever needs help. I ended up using adobe Photoshop and the .gif making program together, by opening up the gif files in Photoshop and copy/pasting the layers from the gif program into Photoshop (most of these programs work w/Photoshop). Then I take the image or images I want to be with that gif and save each to the gif layer. Then re-load the new set of images and put it together as a .gif. This takes longer but makes for some custom work to be done.
I made this by using both Photoshop and gif making program.

It works pretty well but you have to be careful to line up the images & also patient because its a lot of copy/pasting images into Photoshop, saving them, then putting them back in the gif program.
I also realized something about making layers transparent when in the gif program, you select the color you want transparent so most of these images have been build on white, so white becomes transparent and thus all thats left is the color changes that make it seem like its moving but if parts of your picture that is the base image/don't want to move has white in it they also become transparent. I don't know how to fit this other then changing things by hand in Photoshop so the color area thats being a problem no longer registers as white or "said color" in the .gif program
Well >.< thanks for your help everyone^^

[Twey]

I don't know how to fit this other then changing things by hand in Photoshop so the color area thats being a problem no longer registers as white or "said color" in the .gif program

Unfortunately, due to the way GIF transparency works, there isn't really any other way to solve this. Just make sure the colour you use for transparency doesn't appear anywhere else in the image, and you should be fine.