hi! so an anon asked how i did the blending on the first gif in this high school musical set! i use photoshop 2025 on a mac. you'll need basic gif-making knowledge!
step one: picking what to blend!
so for this, i picked a close-up shot of sharpay and one that was further back. i feel like this is a good way to go about blending in a lot of scenarios, but whatever works for you!! i also picked the close-up based on her dialogue, which i used as text on the gif!
step two: coloring
for the fully colored gif, i colored it as i normally do. if anyone needs a more in-depth basic coloring tutorial, let me know! but one tip that i honestly forgot about until looking at this again was that i added a gradient map layer and set the colors to black and pink (ff00a2) but then changed the opacity to 20% and set the blending mode to soft light. it gives the gif a little more pinkness to it!
for the black and white gif, i just added the same coloring from the colored gif and added a gradient map layer set to black and white.
step three: one document
now that your gifs are colored, you can put them in one document. these gifs are cropped to 540x540 and resized to the same. to do this, just convert your gif and coloring layers into a smart object and copy and paste. also make sure your gifs have the same amount of layers!
step four: blending
so now decide where you want to place your gifs. for this i placed the colored gif in the front (to the right) and the b&w in the back (to the left). it looks like i expanded them to make them look how i wanted. (i did make this a while ago!) but feel free to play around with it! make sure you hit shift and then expand with your mouse where the transform boxes come up!
within the layer order, the b&w gif should be on top of the colored gif. so while you have the black and white gif selected, create a layer mask. then use the brush tool (make sure foreground color is black and background color is white) and start erasing the middle and any harsh lines. my brush size was around 166. this is another great tutorial on the gradient method if you find it easier!
step five: adding pink color
now you're going to create a new layer and place it above the colored gif. set the brush color to pink (ff00a2). i usually like to make the brush size bigger for this. start using the brush on the edges and in the middle. then create another new layer and place it above the b&w gif. use the brush all around the edges and the middle. you then have to set the new layers to "color" so the pink is brighter and just pops better.
here's a pic of my layer order if that helps!
i hope this helps! and if anyone has any questions, let me know!
