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+--- Thread: Merging a still image and a gif (/Thread-Merging-a-still-image-and-a-gif)
Merging a still image and a gif - lucynakamura - 02-19-2026
hi all,
I've been at this for days, trying to figure this out for hours and hours scouring all over the internet and I cannot for the life of me figure out what I am doing wrong.
Basically, I am trying to create a silly gif with an image of a cat and two wings attached to either side of the image. The wings are animated (gif), and are both part of a single gif, so not separate. When I first tried doing this I quickly found out that whenever I export the cat only shows up at the very end, so I tried to figure out why. It's got to do with the layers, and every step of the way I found a plugin called ofn interleave layers being linked but at first I tried to avoid it since I couldn't figure out how to download it.
The cat in the middle is the image, the wings are the gif/animated part.
It quickly became apparent that I did need it, so I relented and downloaded it and put it in my plugin folder according to the instructions given (Filters->Development->Python-fu->console and then got the plugin folder.
I then pasted the contents in the plugin folder it gave me like so
Restarting Gimp that didn't do the trick, so I then created a subfolder, which also did not work. I then saw that gimphelpers.py might be needed and installed that, which also changed nothing. I use Gimp 3.0 and Windows 11.
What I thought was a very simple and quick creation has turned into a multiple days long affair, and at this point I'm more frustrated that I can't seem to figure out how to make this work rather than actually getting the result. I am sorry if this isn't the right place but I truly am at a loss of what I am doing wrong at this point.
Please don't assume I know anything when you reply, I am very new to Gimp and I know like nothing about Python. Assume I am an idiot (I am)
RE: Merging a still image and a gif - lucynakamura - 02-19-2026
Messed up the images, hopefully they work now
RE: Merging a still image and a gif - rich2005 - 02-19-2026
(Just a moan, why is it difficult to find an animated gif of wings without being pestered to sign up...web never used to be like that..)
First a little check list for everyone.
If the gif is optimised then unoptimise it: Filters -> Animation -> Unoptimise. (your layers look ok but do check)
A gif uses indexed color, change to RGB : Image -> Mode RGB
Ofnuts plugin is contained inside the folder, no need for moving the files. A Gimp 3 plugin (scm or py) requires the plugin inside a folder of the same name (without extension) For example the flatten-groups-0.0.py goes in a folder flatten-groups-0.0
[attachment=14261]
Using Interleave Layers. Look at the help file provided.
The overlay image can be a different size to the base animation but for fixing position make the layer same size as the animation. Layer -> Layer to image size.
For the plugin to work, you have to select the layers. Click select top layer - go to bottom layer and shift-click
Now apply the plugin Image -> Interleave Layers -> Interleave Single Layer. Browse for the image - Position=Over and OK.
This a 1 minute video of that (no audio) https://sendvid.com/ywt8n4pm
[attachment=14262]