Hello! Welcome! This is a Jemily-centric Criminal Minds blog. They are my main ship and I will primarily make gifs focusing on them and their dynamic but please know that I will make gifs, and you are encouraged to make requests, for anything in the show so long as one of them is featured*.
Requests are always welcome but I can be admittedly sporadic when posting to this blog. In saying that, the more specific you can be the more likely it is that I will get to it.
I don't need time code specifics but episodes are really helpful, it makes things way easier and quicker if I at least have a starting point, especially if you request particular outfits etc.
MOBILE TAG SEARCH EXAMPLES
Seasons: s1, s2, s18, etc.
Episodes: 3x09, 17x06, etc.
Dynamics have JJ and Emily named first for example: JJ x Rossi, Emily x Tara, JJ x Penelope, etc.
BAU Team is used to tag posts with 3 or more team members.
Click here for full desktop tags page →
*I probably won't ever gif anything from 14x15-Mid s15 re: JJ/Spencer but happy to gif Spencer w JJ or Emily outside of that arc. I am also happy to gif JJ/Will scenes.
This blog will be active again throughout the new season and as always, I am happy to take requests.
I do always prioritise the stuff that I wanna make and will try my best to get through as many requests as I can but this is all for fun and gif making is very time consuming so I hope y'all understand if I don't always get to everything.
If you have non Jemily or non JJ and Emily adjacent requests, you are also welcome to send them to my main blog @pagets but I typically only post Garvez or Tara stuff there so no guarantees.
Heya!! This is not a req so I’m sorry if it’s not allowed!!! I have two questions!
1. Would you be interested in making a tutorial on how you GIF/your process? You’re my favorite GIF maker and they always look so sharp
2. I know some people use Topaz to up their quality, and was wondering if you use that as well? I’ve noticed with Criminal Minds specifically that GIF’s get weird looking artifacts once you even use a little bit of brightness (which is often needed) but yours don’t seem to have that?
Thank you and sorry again.
Please do be sorry and thank you so much for the compliment. I am more than happy to talk about this. I've been making gifs for like over 15 years at this point and it's a constantly evolving, fun and at times maddening, process.
Even in the last few months I've been experimenting with different settings so this will just be what is currently applicable as of September 2025 for anyone who stumbles upon this going forward.
And no, I don't use Topaz!
Firstly, let me direct you to this tutorial by @kylos. This matches my process in regards to how I screencap with mpvplayer* (on pc) and how I import into Photoshop (I'm using Photoshop CS6, I was using the current version of Photoshop CC until around the beginning of this year and I decided to make the switch back, I can't explain it but there is just something about the look of gifs when using the older versions of Photoshop that look better to me.)
*Using mpvplayer might seem a bit intimidating at first and there are alternatives in both tutorials I've linked here but once you've got it set up it's so simple and effective.
This tutorial from @hayaosmiyazaki great in general but is a guide to how I create the animation, set frame rate etc. as I do not use an action. My general advice would be to look at both and seek out others and just figure out what works for you.
Now for sharpening, I will explain what my current settings are but I want to give credit where credit is due because they are a modified combination of this sharpening action from @whichcouldmeanothing and this sharpening tutorial from @newavengers! Two amazing gif makers!
MY SHARPENING SETTINGS
These setting apply to pretty much all of the gifs I've posted in the last month or so! This is a side by side with no coloring:
This is what the Smart Filters look like in the Layers Panel. Take note of the slider icon on the right hand side of each layer. When you see me say "Blending Options", you can double click that icon to access the panel shown.
Going in reverse order, from bottom to top:
Filter > Sharpen > Smart Sharpen: Basic > Amount 500%, Radius 0.4px > Check More Accurate
Filter > Sharpen > Smart Sharpen 2: Basic > Amount 30% > Radius 0.4px > Check More Accurate
Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur: Radius 1px / Blending Options: Opacity 40% (I usually play around with this, it can sometimes be 20% or 30%)
Filter > Other > High Pass: Radius 0.5px / Blending Options: Mode Overlay > Opacity 60%
Filter > Noise > Add Noise: Amount 1% > Distribution Uniform (I usually have this set to 2%, for darker scenes or scenes that are very grainy to start I will drop it to 1%)
I really like the look of grain on my gifs, that's a personal preference and completely optional. This also factors into my export settings where you can see below I have Adaptive > Noise selected. This is another thing that will be different from tutorial to tutorial. I used Selective > Pattern for many years and will now sometimes use Adaptive > Pattern.
I'm not going to post a full colouring tutorial but I will give you my two biggest tips/things that changed how I approach colouring and that make the biggest impact in my opinion.
#1 Exposure!!!!!!!!
This is the first layer I add to any gif, it's the layer that most impacts the lighting of the gif and can give you a more neutral/more well lit base to work from. I don't mess with Offset but think of the Exposure slider as "brightness" and the Gamma Correction slider as "contrast."
I still use Curves, Brightness/Contrast and Levels Layers but they are for minor tweaks. The Exposure layer is doing all the heavy lifting.
#2 Channel Mixer
This will change your life, especially if the lighting in some scenes looks too cool or too warm. Knowing a little bit of colour theory can help here but I wouldn't get too bogged down in it, smarter people can explain it better than me (and I have a film degree!), just play around and you will see how what you change effects the image.
Colour Balance can also help with this and the same advice applies but I will primarily focus on the Channel Mixer here.
I wanted to make the skin tones a little less pink (but note that light skinned people should typically have pink/magenta skintones when we're talking about colour grading so this is all just aesthetic preference in terms of gif colouring.)
I was happy with this but it was looking a bit too warm and "flatter" at this point so I added a second Channel Mixer layer and played around mainly with the Blue Panel to bring some colour contrast back to the highlights.
I really want to impress that neither one is right or wrong it's all just stylistic choice and personal preference. A better example might be something more drastic like the super yellow-green scenes from "200".
Both of these are "good colouring" in my opinion. I would use both of them it would just depend what I was making, what the other gifs were etc.
I hope this was helpful and makes sense but my ask is always open :)
