tutorial — changing the background color in a gif
sofia & remy asked for this tutorial so here it is :)
note: i pay for photoshop and currently own the most recently released version of april 2025 - some things might be different if you're working on earlier versions of photoshop
i've made several gifsets (x, x, x, x) where i've isolated the gif subject so i can change the background into a bright, colorful background or into b&w backgrounds - in this tutorial i'll explain how i do that :)
in this tutorial we'll be going from this:
to this:
putting the tutorial under a read more!
step 1 — open your gif
i usually tend to make my gif beforehand, fully colored and sharpened and everything else, and save it before reopening it (as a gif) in photoshop cause i find it's the easiest way!
you'll have to work in frames mode when isolating the background color (because as said, you'll have to do this frame by frame) and it's important to always have the same frame and layer selected, otherwise you might run into some issues
for the purpose of this tutorial my premade gif (eddie<333) has not been colored, only sharpened
step 2 — selecting your subject
next up we're going to select our subject by going to the select category up top and clicking subject
↓ you'll now have a marching ants line around your subject ↓
sometimes photoshop will be silly and select either too much or too little, and you'll have to manually make sure (for every frame) that your subject is correctly selected - but i'll get back to that later!
step 3 — adding a solid color (/gradient color) layer mask
once you have your subject selected the way you want it, we're going to add a solid color (or gradient color) layer mask by clicking this half filled circle icon in your layers tab - from here on out you can choose whether you want to add a solid color or gradient (for this tutorial - we'll go with a solid color)
photoshop will ask you to pick a color (or gradient) so just go ahead and pick whatever color you wish to make your background! the lighter your color the brighter your background, and the darker your color the duller your background (for b&w backgrounds you can use black or white, it makes no difference) - once you're happy with your color, just press ok :)
step 4 — create a clipping mask
this might seem like nothing, but is actually an important step in the process! you want to make sure that the color fill layer you just created is clipped to the corresponding frame like so:
you can do this by pressing cmd/ctrl + alt + g or clicking right on your color fill layer and selecting create clipping mask
by clipping your color fill layer to the corresponding gif layer, you avoid this happening:
the color fill layer for the last gif layer has been applied on all gif layers before that, which will make it so that your subject will move in and out of the colored background and makes your gif look silly ↓
obviously this is what we want to avoid so clipping your color fill layer to your gif layer is an essential step!
step 5 — invert the layer mask of your color fill layer
next up we're going to select the layer mask and invert it by pressing cmmd/ctrl + i
this way we go from this
to this
step 6 — changing the blend mode of your color fill layer
the final step (!) is changing the blend mode of your color fill layer - i tend to just use the blend mode color on most of these as this mode tends to give the brightest results but you can definitely mess around and see what you prefer :)
(for this set i actually put the blend mode to soft light to create a duller background, for a gradient background just follow the exact same process but in step 3 choose gradient instead of solid color)
and you're done! now you only have to repeat this process for every. single. gif. frame. :)
and that's all there is to it really, so happy creating <3 see more tips/comments below and if you have questions, my askbox is always open!
tips / comments
1.- record this entire process into an action (tutorial on how to create actions) – this way you'll only have to select the correct frame/layer combo before pressing play and letting photoshop do the work for you! i made two general actions;
bw with subject select: use this action when photoshop can select your subject without issues!
bw without subject select: use this action when you need to manually edit the selection of your subject! (see 2.-)
feel free to download and use these actions! they will turn your background b&w - you can change the background color by clicking this square;
sofia @sadgayeddie made an action to select next frame + layer so you don't have to move your cursor around as often and graciously allowed me to share it <3 you can find it here
2.- (circling back to step 2) make sure photoshop correctly selects your subject – when using the select subject feature, photoshop may fuck up the selection of your subject, as such ↓
i don't want the lady in the background included in my subject - you'll have to use the quick selection tool to manually unselect whatever you don't want in your subject and/or manually select what you do want in your subject
from personal experience i know photoshop tends to fuck up with;
hair (especially when it moves around a lot)
blurry subject (eg eddie dancing in 8x06
one or more colors in your subject being too close to the background color(s) (such as bobby's suit in this example)
hands (the smaller the hands, the more photoshop makes a mess)
this is what the subject looks like without the lady in the back selected:
it's a bit more work if you have to edit the subject selection for every frame (and you might make small mistakes), but it's worth it! we want the gif looking like this in the end (sneak peek for my bobby set!!)
