HOW I TRY TO AVOID WHITEWASHING MY GIFS (FOR THE PITT)
hey! so, the show i've undoubtedly been giffing the most lately is the pitt, which features a whole lot of characters of color! it also happens to be a show with mostly white & cool toned backgrounds and bright lighting. unfortunately, those are circumstances in which it can become really easy for gifs to slide into whitewashing territory - whitewashing in this case meaning that characters of color are colored to be a lot lighter than they were in the unedited version of the scene.
DISCLAIMER: these are some examples of whitewashing that i encounter in my gifmaking process and actively try to avoid. this is by no means comprehensive, nor am i any kind of authority on what does or does not constitute whitewashing. furthermore, i myself have an issue where gifs look surprisingly different on tumblr on my pc vs my tablet, so truly, i think it can even depend on what device you're viewing gifs on. there are some cases that are pretty straightforward to me, but sometimes my tablet makes gifs - that looked perfectly fine on my computer - suddenly look kind of too pale.
TO NON-GIFMAKERS: absolutely feel free to look at these examples and if gifs strike you as way too pale for what you saw on screen just consider not interacting with that set. maybe you might even shoot the creator an ask/reply telling them that they may have veered into whitewashing.
okay, now that that's out of the way, let's just take a quick look at what i mean when i say whitewashing - let's look at this (extreme, cartoonish) example:
now you might say, "that's absurd, nobody would color it that way," but the thing is, something like this in different forms is easier to get to while coloring a gif than one might think.
and both skin tones (again... duh) and lighting can differ drastically from character to character and scene to scene. i've tried to assemble a few gifs of different characters of color to explain what i try to avoid and how i avoid it when i color.
BRIGHTNESS & CURVES
the most obvious and probably the most widespread (i think) thing is that when you originally screencap a show/import a video into photoshop, it's kinda dark. it just looks nicer to most gifmakers when we make it a little brighter. the issue with that can come when we do too much with our curve or brightness layers.
(the little circles show shades that i picked with the color picker tool at hopefully pretty much the same spot for all four gifs)
so you can see that i'm a bit of a hypocrite - i made her lighter with my standard psd! that's why i say that i personally think this is a matter of degrees. as far as i'm aware the difference between the unedited and second gif that shows how i usually color is within the margins. it's still fairly vibrant and brown whereas with the two lower gifs i'm firmly in pink/light beige territory (which is not sepideh moafi's skin color).
this one's pretty easy to avoid, in my opinion: just don't go too far with curves or brightness. i try to keep it in that margin that still approximates the color of the unedited version.
THE BLUES & GREENS
i feel like this is the most complex one. like i said, the pitt is a show with a lot of blue in the background and what can happen is that in trying to make those colors pop or reducing reds & yellows, we distort skin tones maybe a little too much.
layers this can become an issue in: selective color, color balance, levels, channel mixer, hue/saturation.
how i try to avoid this:
selective color: the red & yellow tabs of selective colors are crucial to me here. in those, i try not to increase the cyan or decrease the magenta or yellow too much -> of course it depends on the scene! if it's a very yellow scene, i can probably decrease the yellows of red or yellow without running the risk of actual whitewashing
levels: i usually keep my hands off the individual color levels for this - that's just a personal preference, though. if used, i'd apply the rules of color balance and channel mixer
color balance: i pretty much only use "shadows" and "lights" for color balance and here i try to take care with the cyan/red slider (and in some rare instances the yellow/blue slider) -> too much cyan and i create that pink-ish hue in the spots where the light hits the character, and that doesn't really belong there; with other characters too much cyan almost bleaches them out
channel mixer: no increasing reds in the green or the blue channel, basically
i made another example for this in combination with increased curves/brightness:
VIBRANCE
i don't see this one as often anymore because the pale gif trend was years and years ago (and personally, i'll never participate in it again bc i didn't like it), but for completion's sake i wanted to include it because pale gifs had a HUGE whitewashing problem.
as you can see, victoria looks sort of grey and ashy in the bottom two gifs. if you add more brightness/curves on top of that it becomes very, very pale which was sort of the trend for a while.
again, easy to avoid because i have to add a hue/saturation or vibrance layer and drag the dials into the negatives.
PALE COLOR GRADED/LIGHTING SCENES
sometimes the show does the deed itself, although i'm not super sure if that can still be qualified as whitewashing. in any case, sometimes i'll load screencaps into photoshop and go, "why does she look so pale??? i've giffed her before and she didn't remotely look like this."
at that point, i come to kind of a crossroad - do i try to color correct in addition to my usual coloring or do i just proceed as normal and go off of the skin tone presented to me in the scene?
i skew towards the latter... the top two look bad To Me but i don't know if there's an actual right answer to this conundrum, to be honest.
and that's it for now!! i hope this is maybe a little helpful? again, this is not meant to encompass everything or even go into much detail on individual colorings but moreso the general considerations i try to make when i gif. i hope it makes sense! tysm for reading!!
i recently got an ask [x] for blending anime gifs for two of my sets [x] [x]. i usually don't encounter that big of a difference between blending live action and animation scenes, so this will be more like some tips/ tricks i use whenever i blend scenes - regardless of the medium
this guide is split into three sections:
composition
overlay mechanics
colouring
1. composition
choosing scenes for overlays can be a little tricky if you don’t have any particular scenes in mind, or even if you do but aren’t sure how to put them together in a way that works best. i usually fall back to one of these four compositions. from there, it helps me choose the scenes to use and how they might look together. i’ll show examples for each one, from both animation and live action, so that it’s easier for you to picture
ofc, it doesn’t always work, e.g. if i really want to use two particular scenes, but both don’t really fall into any of these. one such instance this may occur is if there’s a lot of movement/ action in both scenes, like the one i've used in the header. in such a case, you probably need to experiment a little to see if it works
2. overlay mechanics
lighten vs screen
i usually use one of two blend modes for overlays: lighten or screen. without going into the technical difference between the two, the layman understanding (it me. i am the layman.) is that screen will allow more of your bottom gif to be seen through the top gif, while lighten will select the pixels that are lighter in colour between the two gif layers and show that one, regardless of whether it’s at the top or bottom
which blend mode you use really depends on the scenes you’re working with: sometimes, screen might be too distracting because it’s showing too much going on from both gif layers, while other times, lighten reduces the overlay effect because most of the darker scene is hidden. at times, the difference between the two is minimal, at this point it’s up to your personal preference - whether you wanna trade off between just a little bit more distraction vs. a little more obvious of an overlay
i’ve put in some examples from the gifsets you linked here, to show the blend modes i chose for them and why i didn’t choose the alternate
masking
after you’ve selected your blend mode, the two gifs might not overlay exactly the way you want it, with some parts still being hidden because of the contrast in brightness of the two gifs. for instance, in the first example above, half of the face on the right is hidden by the scene with the face on the left, because the latter is brighter than the former. this is where the layer mask comes in
i follow three main “rules” when masking for overlays:
use soft brush
the bigger the brush, the better
click, don’t drag
here’s a demonstration of these three tips
brightness adjustments
once you’ve done your overlay and masking, it’s the step for brightness adjustments to finetune the contrast between the two scenes. or in some cases, this might be much more than finetuning because the contrast between the two scenes still isn’t working out or can’t be masked away
i won’t go into too much detail here because i’ve talked about it before here [x] in step 2. in general, the rule of thumb is: if you want more of a particular scene to be visible, make it brighter. if you want to more of a particular scene to be hidden, make it darker
this can be done by one/ two/ three/ all of these adjustment layers:
gradient map (especially relevant if you want your scene to be b&w or with a colour gradient - see next part on colouring): by toggling the percentage of black vs. white/ whatever other colour you’re using
brightness & contrast
curves
levels
3. colouring
if you haven’t noticed by now, whenever i do overlays, i prefer to keep the colours as minimal as possible, since overlay effects tend to already be very busy visually (also bc i’m lazy). bringing back some examples, i usually go with one of the following combinations
i usually fall back to 1, 2, or 3, just because they’re the most straightforward, easiest, and provide the highest contrast. they also work especially well when you want to keep the whole gifset to a very fixed colour palette, which makes all the gifs look more cohesive altogether
4 is where animation and live action differ. i usually do this more with live action scenes just because it’s easier to mask specific areas with live action scenes, as compared to with animation scenes. because with animation scenes, if i want to mask a face, for example, because of the lines in animation, you will need to use a hard brush to mask the precise area of the face for the gif to look as cohesive as possible (not fun, especially for characters with spiky hair tips). versus in live action scenes, you can get away with using a soft brush and not going too much into the details, at least for scenes with not that much action. for both kinds of media, another layer of tediousness comes in when you need to shift the mask around as the scene or character moves. so i don’t use this colour combination very often, usually only with (usually live action) scenes that are more static, and when i really wanna show a more natural face colour in contrast with a coloured background, instead of slapping a coloured gradient map onto every single scene
5 is a lazy way to work around 4. however, it only works when your subject (the part of the scene you want to keep in its natural/ close to natural colour) is a very different colour from the rest of the scene, such that it can be isolated with colour adjustments. this isolation can be done with selective colouring (more on that here [x]) or with the hue/ saturation layer by reducing the saturation of the particular colour(s) you want to hide. for me, i usually like to emphasise reds and get rid of blues, so this works especially well if i want to keep a character’s face colour in a scene with a lot of blues
i rarely go with 7, just because if there are a lot of colours in the two scenes, it tends to look very messy. in such cases, i’ll also usually try to use some colour adjustments to get rid of any unnecessary colours (e.g. blue in the above example)
i've been wanting to share a gif-making tutorial for a long time, and since i recently hit 5000 followers i'm finally posting it!! i've collected a lot of resources and learned a lot of tricks over the years, and i'm very happy to finally share them with you all. i've included an overview of my full gifmaking process, as well as downloadable PS actions, PSDs, sharpening, and more, so hopefully this is helpful to both beginners and experienced gifmakers alike!! ✨
here is a folder of all the resources from this tutorial. all of them will also be linked individually below, along with any other websites and software that i recommend!
Video Downloaders/Resources
The first step of gif-making is to get your hands on a video file for the content you want to gif. The reality is that the most reliable way to access high quality versions of movies & tv shows is through t*rrenting, and in order to t*rrent, you need a paid VPN. I will recommend free alternatives for everything where at all possible, but a couple of investments will save you a lot of effort and give you access to waaaaay more stuff.
VPN (paid) - I use Surfshark, any paid VPN should work, find whichever has the best deal
T*rrent client - i use qBitt*rrent
Magnet link sites: Eztv, ThePirateBay, uIndex, 1337x, LimeT*rrents, T*rrentLeech
Video Guidelines: I usually use files that are 1080p quality. I used to use 2160p quality files almost exclusively, but it takes way longer, and with a good quality 1080p file, the result is basically just as good. In order to find a good file, check the file size before you download it. For a 1 hour tv show episode, you want a file around 3 or 4 GB. Anything under 1 GB won't give you a good result.
More options for downloading other kinds of videos:
Video DownloadHelper (paid) - download directly from video platforms! you get a couple downloads for free, but the paid version is worth it for me. Pros: works instantly so you dont have to wait for the t*rrent file to be posted, works on lots of sites, pay once/no subscription. Cons: no embedded subtitles.
Dropout-dl (free) - Command line downloader for Dropout.tv. Pros: free, works instantly, embedded subtitles, and always creates a separate searchable subtitle file. Cons: very technical setup. For this one, you will also need Docker.
VideoProc Converter (free version) - good for downloading YouTube, and extracting embedded subtitles from video files (5 minute limit on the subtitle thing)
Screencaps
The next step is to convert your video to screencap images.
mpv
sample mpv.conf file
I use mpv to make my screencaps because it's the most efficient, in my opinion. In order to set it up, you have to edit the settings in the "mpv.conf" file. Mine is located here: C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Roaming\mpv. I've linked a sample of the settings I use above. I recommend changing the screenshot-directory to a different folder for your screencaps. I organize my screencaps in numbered folders to keep track of them.
Image Software
I use Photoshop CS6 version, from this link:
birdyresources photoshop
more (free) photoshop links
The other software you can use is Photopea. There's lots of tutorials for that on photopeablr!
Importing Screencaps to Photoshop
In Photoshop, go to File -> Scripts -> Load Multiple DICOM Files. Then, paste the file path of one of your screencap folders into the pop-up.
Creating Gif Smart Object
First off: if your screencaps have a black border anywhere, crop it out, making sure that "Delete Cropped Pixels" is selected.
Next, there are a bunch of steps to be able to work with your screencaps in Photoshop. I have all of those steps saved as Actions.
download all my photoshop actions
how to use my actions
For a full description of how my actions work, how to use them, and a description of every action, I created a separate post just for that! It was a little too long to include here lol. It's not necessary to read the whole thing; feel free to just start using the first action and figure it out with trial and error if you want!
Coloring Layers
It's kind of hard to describe the coloring process, so I've provided several PSDs of gif colorings that you are free to use!
coloring PSD folder
Here's a list of the adjustment layers I usually use, in the order I add them: Exposure, Levels, Curves, Brightness, Vibrance, (then i make a new folder for just the coloring layers) Channel Mixer, Color Balance, Hue/Saturation x many, Selective Color x many
If you take a look at the Louis file in the PSD folder, than you can see all the layers I used to go achieve this coloring:
Add captions
Next, add captions and anything else you want on your gif. This is the font I use for captions:
Arial Rounded MT Bold
Here are the text settings I use. In order to add Layer Styles, right-click on your text layer and click 'Blending Options'.
Export and fix gif speed
Now that the gif is ready with all of the right layers, export it by going to File -> Save for Web. (This takes a while to load as photoshop is putting everything together.) These are the export settings I use:
When the window pops-up, make sure to change the looping option to forever, and then you can save your gif. I also highlighted the area where it shows the final file size of the gif. This needs to be under 10MB, or else tumblr won't allow you to upload it.
This result is good, but when you first export it, the speed of the frames is wrong.
In order to fix the speed: open the .gif file in Photoshop, select all the frames, and change the speed to 0.05 seconds. Repeat the Save for Web step, and overwrite your previous .gif file when you save it. (You can also double check that the gif loops 'Forever' at the very bottom.)
And here's our final gif!
Repeat these steps as needed for the rest of the gifs in the scene. Remember to check out my action pack to save a lot of time on repeated steps!
Here's some additional tips and tricks for giffing to make your life easier:
Tips for skin tone
I often spend a lot of time ensuring that the skin tones of the people in my gifs look natural. It's very important to represent people's skin tones accurately, and it's not acceptable to whitewash or colorwash people of color's skin tones.
Here are some tutorials I've found very helpful:
fix orange-washed characters
channel mixer tutorial
A lot of shows these days have really pale and muted palettes, so Vibrance really helps to add saturation and dimension. If the subject looks too pale/whitewashed, increase the saturation and deepness of the Yellow and Red colors using Selective Color layers.
this is the before/after impact of two layers, Vibrance and Red Selective Color:
If the subject looks too yellow or orange, neutralize these tones using Selective Color and Hue/Saturation layers:
before/after:
Tips for recoloring
I recently posted a small tutorial that goes over my recoloring process, such as in the example below of changing the background from neutral yellow to blue. It also goes over some more complicated gif effects.
coloring + moving film strip tutorial
Other tips and tutorials
For Curves layers, I don't use the eyedropper method. I just click on the line to adjust it myself, making the darks darker and lights lighter. This gives the gif a lot more dimension and contrast.
Selective Color tutorial - change the color of shadows
Text effects tutorial
Usergif tutorial directory - tutorials for basically anything you want to learn!
Every gif is different - sometimes, even two shots of the same person in the same scene can have drastically different lighting and color-grading from each other. I recommend playing around with the values in the adjustment layers a lot to fit your gifs as needed. You can also reduce the opacity of layers to lessen their effect, or duplicate layers to increase their effect. (I often reuse coloring layers and make these changes, so it's a real method!)
THANK YOU SO MUCH for reading my gif tutorial, I hope it was helpful to you!! My goal is to spread the love and resources for gifmaking far and wide, so everyone can make gifs as beautifully and easily as possible. I hope you have a nice day and don't hesitate to send me any questions you might have about any of my tutorials or resources! 🥰
Hi! Happy 4k celebration 🥰 Can you share how you make your gifs or make a gif tutorial?
hi !! tysm <3 i'm more than happy to give you a little tutorial on how i make my gifs ! of course, my process is not the same to other gifmakers and may not always work for everyone but i hope it helps !
for this tutorial, i'm using the most recent edition of photoshop (2023) on my mac. full explanation under the cut.
full disclaimer: most of what i've learnt about photoshop and the giffing process is through pure trial and error. this won't work for everyone and others may think it's a little weird, but this is just how i make my gifs !!
1.find your scenes.
finding your scenes is sometimes very time consuming but you want to get it right the first time !! for this tutorial, i'm using a music video in mp4 format.
2. loading your scenes.
to load your scenes, you want to go: 'file' > 'import' > 'video frames to layers'. i know that this step varies on the user because some people like to go to timeline first, but i'd advise starting in frames first !
after that, a screen like i've depicted below will pop up. i've also annotated everything for you as well.
so, select your desired range, press 'ok' and then it will all load into ps !
3. setting up your gif.
i'm grouping this all into one step, but it's broken down into a few things.
the first part of this is: cropping. the recommended dimensions i follow are on this guideline here, but for the sake of this tutorial i'm just going to crop my gif 540x540 (as a w x h setting). the crop tool is on the left hand tool bar.
now, my gif looks like this. from here, i'm going to click on the timeline (the space along the bottom that has every frame). from there, click on the three lines to get this menu (i've circled where to go + what you'll click):
from there, go 'select all frames' and then click on any of the frames NUMBERS (where it says 0.04 with an arrow besides it, or whatever yours says) then change the frame rate. with most youtube videos i will use 0.08 as my desired frame rate, but when i'm gifing a show or something, it loads in as 0.02, so i change it to 0.05. 0.05-6 on any normal screen cap should be fine, but obviously you can change it depending on if it looks right or not.
from there, you've basically done the first half of the basics. now, you'll want to click on this button:
and now you'll be taken to the video timeline ! from here, select command + option + a (this is for mac, i think it would be control if you're on another device) then, right click on your layers and go 'convert to smart object'.
from here, i'll sharpen my gif before i colour. for this step i have two alternative sharpening settings first one by anyataylorjoy (rb to download !) and the other by maygrant (please ask !). the first one is tuser maygrant's and the second one is tuser anyataylorjoy's. i typically use morgan's for all my basic gifs but anyataylorjoy's for creative sets. every user has a different preference but just find what's good for you !
4. colouring your gif.
definitely the most tedious, this can be a little bit of a hassle depending on the scene. if the colouring isn't riddled with heavy yellows or cyans, colouring is usually a breeze but if it is, it can be hard.
CURVES
the circle with the arrow dropdown and that's half grey-white is the circle you want to click on to find curves. it'll open a menu and curves will be at the top.
you'll see a little menu like above appear. now, select the dropper i've indicated as being the "light point" and then, using the zoom tool, we're going to zoom in and find the brightest point on the gif. this is typically where the light source is.
in this section here, i can see a couple of bright points. using the dropper, i'll click on the closest to white (note: i find that white rarely changes the colouring of the gif, so if there's like, a really really light yellow, for example, click on that) and then i'll do a similar process with the "dark point" dropper, finding the darkest spot, which is usually in shadows or in the corners. unlike with the light dropper, you want the closest to black, whether that's a dark dark brown or dark dark blue.
now, we can see how the colouring has changed:
optional: you can change the white line on the curves menu, which can make it lighter, or darker in different points of the gif.
LEVELS
levels is an optional step, but i recommend it on very light gifs, or if you want to add a little more depth. probably don't do it on an already very dark gif.
the levels menu looks like this:
the far left slider adds shadows and the far right slider makes it lighter. on this particular gif, i only need a little bit of depth to her face and i only need to contrast that a little bit. by just dragging the slider a little bit:
this is the result:
with levels, it can very quickly alter skin tone/make your gif look bad !! with levels, i don't think you need to go above 1-12 in adding depth.
OPTIONAL: BRIGHTNESS/CONTRAST
brightness/contrast is optional !! only add it if it's necessary :)
COLOUR BALANCE
a colour balance layer is great for fixing the tones for the gif !!
this one's pretty self explanatory. if you want it to be more yellow, slide it towards yellow. if you want it to be more red, slide it more towards red, etc etc. i've attached some gifs showing how i change tone:
but just play with it until it looks right. be very careful with skin tone !! colour balance can very easily whitewash/colour wash and that is not something encouraged, in the slightest.
SELECTIVE COLOUR
a selective colour layer is basically a "final touch" to colouring. where colour balance just kind of does an overall change of the gif, selective colour allows you to alter your specific tones, ie. reds, magentas, blues, etc. for me, i'll do the bulk of getting my desired colouring with colour balance, but if it overcorrects reds, for example, i'll add some cyan to red tones in selective colour, to diffuse that.
currently, in my gif, it's very red/yellow heavy. to balance that out, i want to add cyans. so, on the drop down list of the selective colour menu, i'll select 'red' and then i'll ADD cyans (so move the slider to the right, not the left to decrease) and then repeat that on other tones that i want to correct, with different colours.
with each of the sliders, just add or decrease how much of that colour is in that tone. once again, be mindful of skin tone and whether it is appropriate or not.
with selective colour, if there are any standout colours (eg. in my gif, there's a big patch of cyan) that don't interrupt their face (eg. reds and yellows are always in faces) and change the way the subjects look, you can change those colours to make it more vibrant. so, in this gif, i'll enhance the cyans and blues and magentas to make the colours pop more.
5. saving your gif
once your happy with the colouring of your gif and done what you need to do with it, save it as a smart object with all your colouring layers, then go to 'file' > 'export' > 'save for web (legacy)...' . play back your gif, and it should be all good !! congrats on making your gifs !
i've included a playback of each layer, which is staggered to show each layer come into effect.
i’ve updated my giffing process (tutorial coming soon i promise lol) so i’ve also updated my previous action pack to reflect those changes! quick shoutout to @redbelles for literally changing my life love u meg you giffing queen
this pack includes two actions for that will take you all the way through sharpening after you’ve cropped and resized and a save action 💜
If you download, please like or reblog. Explanations for each action are under the cut, and as always if you have any questions please let me know!
Hi! I don't know if you've already answered this but this gifset post/787288241632083968/legolas-greenleaf-long-under-tree-in-joy-thou-hast was absolutely stunning so I was wondering if you could share what sharpening you used and coloring? It looks so clear and sharp at the same time, if that makes sense.
Thank you so much! for the sharpening I used my normal sharpening that i've posted an action for before but here is where you can get it and for the coloring that's a little more complicated because it's one of those sets that i color each gif individually and didn't use the same psd...
i did my best to recreate two of the colorings since they might work on something else if you adjust settings, here they are if you want them 💚 i would say 85% of the coloring is done with the selective color layers
hi, you have some of the best sharpening i have ever seen on this website, particularly for movies! I was wondering if it was possible at all to share some tips on your sharpening settings or some actions you use (if you do)? particularly for your rose titanic gifset and bcs sets? thanks so much in advance!
Thank you so much omg 😭 I've answered what my sharpen settings are here but I mess with settings for 1080p depending on the quality of file i have but for 4k files I pretty much always use my normal settings but here are the 2 main actions i made/use.
For that Rose set though I'm pretty sure I just used my normal settings not my 1080p one and for BCS I think I used my normal settings for everything in S5 because I have it in 4k but for S6 I used my 1080p settings 😵💫 (upping the radius in the smart sharpen setting usually makes it look more crisp 🤌 but if the amount % is too high it can be too much so it's kind of a personal preference thing that you have to mess with)
I've answered this on a side blog but i'll answer it here too so people actually see it 😅, my settings are a little long but here you go these are my main settings:
Two smart sharpen filters:
then I do a gaussian blur filter with a radius of 1px and set it to around 50-60% opacity
then two more smart sharpen filters to sharpen the blur:
and then one final gaussian blur filter with a radius of 1px set at 10% opacity
And lately, sometimes if I have a 1080p video that's high quality but grainier (like succession 💀) i'll do something more like two of these smart sharpen filter settings:
but i set the second one somewhere between 40-60% opacity and then add a gaussian blur filter at 1px set to around 30% or lower and then add a final smart sharpen layer of this:
for 1080p videos though i really mess with these settings a ton because it totally depends on the video, but i also will use my main settings for 1080p too it just depends on what i think looks good 🤷♀️
thank you for being so nice and helpful for the icon and other tutorials! do you have a basic psd where the coloring just looks nice and neat (on people)? many gifs look just very crisp and like the colors are enhanced without changing too much. :) thank you again!
Yeah! I have my updated base psd here with the coloring process i use pretty much every time i gif, but here are couple psds ive saved over the last few months that have different lighting but still aren't drastically different from the original scene (they're probably going to be slightly scene specific but they might work on other stuff!)
They also might look different depending on the video quality/sharpen settings you use
Hello! I haven't made a generic PSD in a while and I've updated my coloring process a bit since then so I thought I'd make this 💫 This is the coloring process I use on all my gifs I just edit certain layers (quite a bit tbh) to fit each scene. I tried to make notes on the layers as much as I could but the main layers that will need to be adjusted are:
the top 2 curves layers
the (optional) channel mixer layers
selective color layers (mainly in the neutral and red drop downs but if you want a specific color to be highlighted use the drop down for that color as well)
hello! im a newby gimaker and i want to follow your tutorial on sharpening but i dont know how you got to the photoshop page you started from where it looks like a video timeline. can you tell me how you got there? <3
Hey!!
Welcome to the wonderful world of gifmaking <3 yes i can lead you through to that point. I have a mac so this might look different for you, but all the steps stay the same - I just shifted from windows to mac so i know this xD
I'm going to show you how to do this on this gif:
I prefer to use screenshots for my gifs (I also don't know how else to make them), so I use Mplayer for that. I used to use MPV player but that stopped working with my new computer system.
First, you want to make sure that you're using a high-quality file. If 1080p is available to you, use 1080p at the very least. This will make sure your gifs are crisp and sharp.
Open your file with Mplayer. Then find the bit that you want to gif. I sometimes search forward by frame by using the ">" key. Once you're at the start point of your desired gif, pause the video. Then, Cmd/Ctrl + Shift + S to start screenshotting. The video will start to play slowly as the screenshots are captured. (They go to the desktop automatically but you can change that in interface settings).
The rest of the tutorial is under a cut:
Once you get your screenshots, you're going to go Photoshop. File > Scripts > Load Files Into Stack.
You're going to get a dialogue box. Click Browse and load the screenshots that you want. This is what that looks like when you finish:
Next, you're going to crop your gif, using the crop tool. You can press C on your keyboard for this or use the tool with this icon in the sidebar.
For this, I'm using an aspect ratio of 540 x 400:
Click that checkmark to crop. Once you do, we're going to resize the image. Use the Cmd/Ctrl + I function to bring up this box. For tumblr gifs, you want to change the width. The height doesn't really matter but if the width doesn't match up, Tumblr is going to fix it for you and it'll look funky. Per row:
1 gif , we use 540px
2 gifs, 268px each
3 gifs, 177, 178, 177 px
We're just doing one, so I'm using 540px.
Now, you want to make sure you can add the timeline. In the top bar, go to Window > Timeline
This will bring up the timeline.
From there, click "Create Frame Animation" (you might have to press the arrow in the timeline bar first.)
It's going to look like this:
We're going to use those three lines in the corner of the picture above. The first option we'll select is "Make Frames From Layers"
That looks like this:
Now, when these load in, you may notice that they're all in reverse. To make them go back in order, we're going to go back to that menu and click "Reverse Frames."
Then, in that same menu, click "Select all Frames." We're going to change the animation speed. You want to make sure you have the first frame selected. We're going to click the arrow next to the "0 sec"
When you click that, it will give you a menu. Click, "other..." You should get a dialogue box that says "Set Frame Delay", just like the one below.
You want to use anywhere between 0.05-0.1 seconds. I find that anymore more is just too slow, so I prefer 0.06. This is fully changeable at the end of my sharpening tutorial, and you can use what you want, but that's what I prefer.
When you do that, it'll change the frame speed of all the gifs.
Now, go back into that little menu, and click, "Convert to Video Timeline."
This is what it'll look like:
Now we're going to select all the layers in the right-hand pane. Once we do that, right-click and select, "Convert to Smart Object."
And you're there! Now you can use the sharpening tutorial to your liking.
Pro tip: Make an action with all these steps so you don't have to do them by hand with every single gif you make.
Hope this helps and it wasn't super long winded. Let me know if you have any questions <3 Happy giffing!
Hello folks! As someone who never did any celebrations nor tutorials for giffing, I decided it's finally the time now. So thank y'all for putting up with my horror shenanigans, 8k is just amazing and I hope y'all will keep enjoying my blog and posts!
PHOTOPEA GIF TUTORIAL
Moving to Photoshop after years of using Photopea, I can say while they both work very similarly, they're also different. Photoshop is far superior, you can still make very HQ and nice gifs in Photopea too!
This post aims to show you my personal way of making crispy gifs while also covering the basics of getting the frames and uploading them to Photopea. (If you're looking for more detailed beginner tutorial, there's plenty of those out there, amazingly done!)
Photopea is completely free, video player is completely free, downloading movies is completely free. Only thing it'll cost you is your time.
WHAT YOU'LL NEED:
- photopea
- potplayer
- good quality movie file ( i go for the highest GB ones, above 10gb is amazing. Sometimes I get 40gb and prefer 1080p source. Note that higher file doesn't immediately mean higher quality - if the movie looks weird just download another one)
GETTING THE FRAMES:
Once you get your source file and open it via PotPlayer, find the scene you want to gif. Using D and F keys you can go backwards or forward by single frames. When you get the perfect frame where you want the gif to start, I always go back 10 frames because PotPlayer tends to cut those out. It's better to get more frames than you need as you can always delete those extra ones later on.
I'll be giffing scene from Longlegs alongside the tutorial.
PRESS CTRL + G. This will open the frame capturing window. Fix the setting to match these:
and press "START". Click back on the PotPlayer to bring focus back on the window and hold or press the forward key - F - to play the scene and capture the frames. You can see the frames number going up on your other window. If it stays on 0 you're not capturing anything. Once the desired scene is over, press "STOP" on the frame capturing window and voila - you have your frames in your selected folder. Delete any extra or unwanted ones. The amount of frames usually sits between 40-80 depending on what ratio you'll use later on for the gifs to fit the 10mb Tumblr upload limit.
Now it's time to open PHOTOPEA.
FILE > NEW: you have to write down the exact dimensions of your frames. This action will create a new file with single background. Go back to
FILE > OPEN AND PLACE > SELECT ALL YOUR FRAMES and upload them. Depending on the size of the frames, this could take a while or even lag your browser. Make sure to not click anywhere within the app before all frames are done uploading.
Now lets finally make the gif. The following were my most used gif making steps in general, play around other options and find out what works - every gif or scene is different!
Delete the original empty layer at the bottom and then select all the frames (clicking the first/last layer and then click the last/first layer while holding shift to easily select all) and by pressing CTRL+G, group them. Select all layer again and
RIGHT CLICK (on the layers) > RASTERIZE
LAYER (on the upper taskbar) > ANIMATION > MAKE FRAMES
Now your frames should have _a_ in their names. CREATE NEW LAYER
and select all your frames again.
CROP the whole project to whatever ratio you want, Ill be using 64x44 ratio for wider gif.
By pressing ALT+CTRL+I open the RESIZE window. Tumblr gif dimension is 540px wide max (heres tutorial for other dimensions and why correct sizing is important) so using that and "bicupic sharper" option under resample, resize the gif.
Now you have the base gif done.
Its dark, muddy and unclear. We sharpen it and give it the clear crispy look using noise.
FILTER > NOISE > ADD NOISE and set the Amount to 1% and select monochromatic
FILTER> SHARPEN > SMART SHARPEN > 150% amount with 1px radius
FILTER> SHARPEN > SMART SHARPEN > 50% x 10px
Now its time to bring the gif to life. Create NEW ADJUSTMENT LAYER. This is where all the editing options are.
For this specific gif Im doing:
BRIGHTNESS/CONTRAST
+50 brightness, +10 contrast
VIBRANCE
+20 vibrance, +10 saturation
HUE/SATURATION
master -50 , red +50, cyan +50, blue +50
(the reason i tune all colors in master down by 50 is to mute them all down. Adding back on colors you want is making them stand out way more! It works on gifs with dominant few colors but if the gif is very colorful, you're better off leaving this option out completely and rather work with selective colors. As I said, try it out and see!)
another layer of BRIGHTNESS/CONTRAST
+20 brightness
CURVES(those are something I didnt use much in Photopea as in general youre just fine with brightness and selective color. Just move the point on the curve and see what it does! For this gif I went with Curves like these and it enhanced the gif nicely.)
another layer of SELECTIVE COLOR > black: black: +2%
Now Im satisfied with the gif and want to save it. Clicking
FILE > EXPORT AS > GIF
will open this window:
Make sure the quality is at 100%, the size in darker numbers lower than 10MB. Speed in Photopea is quite tricky for some reason, but 180% - 190% is the "normal 100% speed" of the gif.
Enjoy giffing and feel free to ask anything if unclear!
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;
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!!)
i know its like rly HARD to color gifs from 480p videos and make them look really high quality as it can be, how do you color gifs from 480p quality videos? i hope you could share what steps/tricks you could do so i could learn D:
Hi there ^^ I understand that sometimes 1080p or at least 720p are not available for some videos and we’re stuck with 480p videos (or even 360p). I personally try to avoid them altogether no matter how much I want to gif something because I really like my gifs sharp and crisp, but I purposely downloaded 480p videos for this to give an example ;u;
tired of waiting a minute for your screencaps to load into stack? try the DICOM method!
this method lets you load even up to 150 frames into photoshop in under 10 seconds. DICOM is by far always the fastest way to load caps into photoshop.
depending on your hardware loading files into stack can take even longer.. so, let me show you the way of DICOM below, all you have to do is change your .jpg screencaps into .dcm files 🙇🏻♂️🙇🏻♂️
here's how to convert your .jpg or .png screencaps into .dcm files, which is really all you have to do!
once you've screencapped the scene you want like normal you go into your screencaps folder.
– STEP 1: you click on the little folder icon
– STEP 2: after clicking it it'll look like this:
– STEP 3: type in cmd as below and hit ENTER
– STEP 4: your commad prompt window will open up like below
– STEP 5: type in "ren *.* *.dcm" (without the quotes) and hit ENTER
all done! now your files are .dcm files (below is what they look like) and you can load em into photoshop!
once you have your command prompt open you don't have to keep retyping ren *.* *.dcm for each scene you convert, you can simply press the arrow UP button on your keyboard and hit ENTER again :)
– HOW TO LOAD INTO PHOTOSHOP
– Go into FILE > SCRIPTS > LOAD MULTIPLE DICOM FILES
– choose the folder you have your DICOM files in and click select folder.
it will always say "No items match your search." you do not have to select the DICOM files themselves you ONLY have to click on "Select Folder" even when it says "No items match your search." this is normal!
Alright y’all, today is the day that I’ve finally managed to make a tutorial! I’m going to be showing how I created the effect in my lotr and the witcher sets!
For this tutorial you need to know how to make gifs and have a lot of time on your hands!
i’ve updated my giffing process (tutorial coming soon i promise lol) so i’ve also updated my previous action pack to reflect those changes! quick shoutout to @redbelles for literally changing my life love u meg you giffing queen
this pack includes two actions for that will take you all the way through sharpening after you’ve cropped and resized and a save action 💜
If you download, please like or reblog. Explanations for each action are under the cut, and as always if you have any questions please let me know!
