<p>Among a long list of cool new features added to Boinx's iStopMotion for Mac, two stand out. The first is that you can hook up a Canon DSLR and see it's live-view output right in the app. But the second is the one you'll really be interested in: iStopMotion now outputs animated GIFs.</p><p>iStopMotion is the perfect way to spend Christmas with some kids, be they yours or somebody else's (NB. I don't recommend stealing kids to do this: just use any that are already on hand). You can quickly build a stop-motion movie using household objects, modeling clay, humans or anything you like.</p><p>And now, if you hook up your Canon DSLR, you can feed its live view into the app and use the onion-skinning feature. This overlays a transparent version of the previous frame over the current camera view, making it easy to line up your animations.</p><p>And of course there are now GIFs. Instead of making a video, uploading it to Vimeo or YouTube and then forcing people to go click on the things, you can instead just make an auto-playing GIF that takes no effort to view whatsoever. If you already own the app, this update is free. If not you'll be in the hole for $50, which is a bargain to gain the love of your kids, or the trust of somebody else's.</p><p><a href="http://www.cultofmac.com/258997/boinx-istopmotion-now-supports-canon-dslr-live-view-and-animated-gifs/">Keep reading...</a></p>