Turn a finished image into a short, seamless looping video with the animate tool in the image editor. This page covers all 13 animators, length and frame rate options, the export formats, and how animation export works in Studio.
The animate tool takes your current look (the image with every effect, palette and grade applied) and moves it with a simple image-processing animation: a threshold that sweeps, colors that cycle, channels that split. Every animator is built so the last frame flows back into the first, so the result loops forever without a visible jump.
Nothing is generated. Each frame is your finished image, transformed by a formula that depends only on where the frame sits in the loop.
The "animate" window renders your image once, then plays the chosen animator live in the preview. Change the animator, length or frame rate and the preview updates straight away.
Note: Effects that draw on paper, such as dither, use the paper color of the current theme here: a warm light paper in light mode and near black in dark mode. Switch the theme before opening the tool if you want the other background.
Pick one from the row of buttons. Each one runs through one full cycle per loop.
| Animator | What moves |
|---|---|
| Posterize cycle | The number of tone levels breathes between 2 and 8, so the image steps between graphic and smooth |
| Threshold sweep | A black-and-white cut point sweeps from dark to light and back, revealing the image in hard silhouettes |
| Solarize | Tones above a moving level flip to their negative, the classic darkroom solarization |
| Invert flash | The image fades to its negative and back |
| Contrast throb | Contrast pulses from flat to punchy and back |
| Mosaic breathe | The image dissolves into big pixel blocks and resolves again |
| Hue cycle | Every color rotates once around the full color wheel |
| RGB split | The red and blue channels orbit away from the green, then come back together |
| Lens chroma | Red and blue scale outward and inward from the center, like a cheap lens breathing |
| Glitch | Horizontal bands slide sideways in bursts |
| Echo | Faded copies of the image trail to one side and swing back |
| Ripple | Thin horizontal strips wave side to side like heat haze |
| Grain flicker | A fresh layer of noise every frame, like projected film |
Every animator is driven by the frame's position in the loop, so the last frame leads straight back into the first. Grain flicker is the exception to repeatability: its noise is new on every frame, so it looks different each time you export it.
Tip: Pair the animator with the look. Threshold sweep and Posterize cycle suit photos with strong light. RGB split and Lens chroma suit halftone and ASCII, where the colored fringes land on hard edges. Grain flicker brings a dither to life without moving it.
| Control | Options | Default |
|---|---|---|
| length | 1 to 6 seconds, in half-second steps | 3 s |
| fps | 12, 24 or 30 | 24 |
The loop is exactly one cycle of the animator, so length also sets the speed: a 1 s loop moves quickly, a 6 s loop drifts slowly. Frame rate sets smoothness. 12 fps has a choppy, stop-motion charm. 30 fps is smooth enough for social feeds.
Click export video. While it works, the footer shows "encoding…" with a percentage, and the file downloads as bitgrain- followed by the animator name and a timestamp.
| Format | When you get it |
|---|---|
| MP4 | When your browser supports H.264 encoding through the WebCodecs API |
| WebM | Automatically, as a fallback, when MP4 encoding is not available |
You do not pick the format here: Bitgrain uses MP4 whenever it can. The video is scaled so its long edge is at most 1,280 px, on the free plan it also carries the small bitgrain.app watermark, and its width and height are rounded to even numbers, which video encoders require.
If the browser cannot encode at all, the window shows "export failed in this browser".
Tip: Social platforms loop short MP4 files automatically. A
3s loop at24fps is a good default for a feed post.
For keyframed animation of whole layouts, with text, shapes and images moving independently, use Studio's page animation instead. It offers more formats:
| Format | Notes |
|---|---|
| MP4 | Best quality and widely compatible. Has a quality setting: Low, Medium, High or Ultra. Falls back to WebM where MP4 encoding is unavailable. |
| WebM | Smaller files, for the web |
| GIF | A looping image, limited to 256 colors |
| SVG | An animated vector SVG. Only movement, scale, rotation and opacity animate. |
| Lottie | A vector .json file for Lottie players, with full motion, color and easing |
Raster formats (MP4, WebM, GIF) can export at 1x to 4x scale. Studio animations run at 24, 30 or 60 fps and are capped at 1,800 frames. The full workflow is in animation and keyframes.
1,280 px on the long edge, on every plan. On the free plan the video also carries the Bitgrain watermark.1,500 px on the long edge. Pro removes both limits.See plans and pricing or /pricing for details.