If you’re anything like me, you probably have an army of GIFs sitting in a folder on your phone or computer, just waiting to be unleashed at any given point during a text conversation. When I don’t have a GIF handy, I often just Google a phrase of some kind and scroll until I find something I’m satisfied with.
But there are more than a few times when I simply can’t find what I’m looking for. Sometimes it’s because the scene I had in mind for a GIF is from something niche or a very specific part of a scene that no one has clipped yet. That’s about the time I usually whip out the trusty old S Pen from the Galaxy S25 Ultra and make my own GIFs.
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What is Samsung AI Select?
(Image credit: Nicholas Sutrich / Android Central)
Samsung AI Select is the new name for Smart Select and includes several new features, along with a more user-friendly interface. AI Select is available any time you unsheathe your S Pen from the Galaxy S25 Ultra via the pop-up menu that appears.
When you use AI Select to select something on screen, it will intelligently understand the dimensions and shape of what you’ve circled, then give you a pop-up menu full of actions you can perform on your selection.
Aside from some nifty context-sensitive actions, AI Select makes it dead easy to make GIFs from any source. This is particularly useful in an age when content can be on any platform or service, which would typically make it difficult to capture or edit without AI Select. As such, it’s become an invaluable part of my daily life, especially when I’m chatting with friends.
How to make GIFs on a Galaxy S25 Ultra
Let’s say you found a YouTube video with the perfect moment for a short reaction GIF, or you want to capture the expression of your favorite TikToker, AI Select is exactly the right tool for the job.
Once you’ve found your video of choice, follow these steps to make that perfect GIF:
1. With the video on screen, pull out the S Pen from the phone. I recommend pausing the video just before the moment you want to capture, if possible.
2. Tap on the floating pencil icon to bring up the actions menu.
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3. Tap on AI Select.
4. Use the S Pen to draw a circle around the content you want to capture.
(Image credit: Android Central)
5. Use the anchors on the corners to resize the capture rectangle to make it the dimensions you want.
6. From the pop-up menu below the capture rectangle, tap on the three dots menu button.
7. Tap Create GIF.
(Image credit: Android Central)
8. Select your desired quality from the menu. Lower quality is better for longer GIFs as it’ll keep the size down.
9. Unpause the video at this time (if applicable), then hit Record to begin GIF creation.
10. When you’ve reached the end of the section you want to record, tap the Stop button.
11. A new pop-up menu will let you edit the GIF, pin it to the screen so you can drag-and-drop it into an app for sharing, copy it to the clipboard, share using the system share dialog, or save it for later use.
(Image credit: Android Central)
Edit your GIFs to perfection
While there’s an edit button at the end of GIF creation, I don’t recommend using it because it’s largely useless. Instead, you’ll want to open the GIF in Samsung’s Gallery app after it’s made, as this allows you to trim it, rearrange the frames, doodle on it, add stickers, adjust the speed, and more.
Making GIFs with the Galaxy S25 Ultra is an absolute blast, and it’ll get you making the most unique GIFs of all your friends in no time.
The Galaxy S25 Ultra is the ultimate creation tool thanks to the power of the S Pen and Samsung’s fantastic software features.
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