Looking to create a GIF maker for an event, basically an interactive photobooth that creates 5-10 second GIFs then adds them to a looping stream of the participants. Any tips on where to begin would be hugely welcome.

@goodspeed If you want to play back animated Gif's in Pd then have a look at [moonlib/image-help], but I don't know how to create them.
Unless you really need Gif's, recording playback and looping can be done in standard video formats in Gem. Audio needs recording separately and re-syncing for playback though.
So a program like TouchDesigner would probably be easier to program.
David.