- an editing program with a timeline (I’m using Adobe Photoshop) & familiarity with keyframes
- the Figtree font family [Google / Adobe Fonts]
- my PSD template [download]
For less experienced editors, I made a simple PNG overlay [download]. This tutorial will cover the PSD.
🙏 If you use either template, please link back to this post in your caption. 🙏 You can also tag #userreputayswift, I’d love to see what you make! :)
Animating Your Choices
Open the template and make sure Window > Timeline is checked. Press play ▶︎ on the timeline and you'll notice some of the graphics are already animated. Compare this with the final gif and you'll see we have some adjustments to make:
For this gif, we're going to hide the "Relationship Up/Down Arrows" and "Timed Choice" folders (click the corresponding eyeballs 👁️ over in the "Layers" window).
Now decide which choice your character is going to SELECT and click the arrow > next to that folder in the timeline:
This will open the folder. Now press the arrow > next to the image layer within this folder and you'll see all the keyframes I've added. Keyframes tell the program you want your graphic to do/look like THIS at THIS particular part of the timeline:
For the choice you're SELECTING, make sure the Playhead is positioned at or before the 100% opacity keyframe. Drag your cursor over both "OPACITY" keyframes and press "Delete."
Your gif should now look like this:
Getting closer, but we want to get rid of the glow around the UNSELECTED choices.
Open one of the choices you AREN'T SELECTING with the arrow >, then press the arrow > next to the image layer within this folder. This time we're going to highlight and delete the "STYLE" keyframes:
Repeat this with the remaining UNSELECTED choice and you're done!:
If you need to adjust WHEN these animations play, use the arrows > to open all the necessary choice folders and layers, hold CTRL and drag your mouse over each keyframe, then use your cursor to move them to the left or right in the timeline:
Animating Other Elements
Let's say you want to make the Gems glow when your character makes a Premium Choice. To achieve this effect, open (>) and select the "Style" keyframes on your Premium Choice. Then right click and press Copy. Center your Playhead with the first keyframe.
Then, scroll down and open (>) the "Gems" folder and the "Gem Count" layer inside. Click the Stopwatch ⏱️ to create a new keyframe at the Playhead, then right click the keyframe and Paste.
The glow should sync up with your Premium Choice:
You can use the same Copy and Paste method to replace the Relationship Down/Up Arrows with your own icons:
Go to File > Place Embedded > and open your desired icon. Then repeat the same steps as above to copy the keyframes from the "Relationship Up Arrow" or "Relationship Down Arrow" layer onto your icon layer:
If the sizing is off, delete ONLY THE "TRANSFORM" keyframes and center your Playhead with the first "Opacity" and "Style" keyframes.
Click the Stopwatch ⏱️ by "Transform" and shrink and position your icon in the top left of your canvas. Then center your Playhead with the last "Opacity" keyframe, click the Stopwatch ⏱️, and use your arrow keys to position your icon at lowest point you want it to reach.
To make the icon rise, simply swap the positions of your first and last "Transform" keyframes in the timeline:
Failing A Timed Choice
For this effect, we want the "Timed Choice" folder to be visible 👁️. Then, if you want your character to successfully make a choice before the timer runs out, just follow the steps in the Animating Your Choices section.
If you want them to FAIL, we don't need any of the keyframes currently on the choice buttons. Change the text on your speech bubble and choices before proceeding.
Now, drag the Playhead to the start of the timeline. Over in the Layers window, select your bottom choice, then hold CTRL or SHIFT to select all the visible bubbles and choices. Right click and select "Merge Layers":
These elements should no longer be animated:
In the timeline, open (>) the "Timed Choice" folder, click the arrow > next to "Timed Choice Meter," and copy the "Style" keyframes onto your new merged layer (as we did in the Animating Other Elements section).
You can stop here, or you can add a couple more keyframes to make the merged layer fade away. Center the Playhead on the central "Style" keyframe and press the Stopwatch ⏱️ next to "Opacity". Then, move the Playhead over to the last "Style" keyframe and set the "Opacity" to 0% in the "Layers" window.
And you're done!
That should be enough to get you started! Are there easier ways to do this? Probably. Feel free to send me an ask if you have any questions 🫡
HELLOOO someone asked me for a tutorial last week i think on a gifset i made and while i was drafting the tutorial it seems like i deleted the ask and i closed the window and idk what happened aaaaaaa i feel really bad about it so i'm posting it here hoping the anon sees this lol i luckily took a pic of the ask with my phone while i was drafting the response 😭😭
tutorial on how to make these gifs under the cut 💗 (from this gifset)
hiii, first of all thank you so much! i made this gifset like two years ago so i'm going to try and recreate it, i can't promise it'll turn out the same haha 😭 also my ps is in spanish but i'll use the words in english too!
so, for the first gif i made two separate gifs (540x480) and then blended them together so that i could put their faces closer/together in frame, these are the two base gifs:
put the two in the same working space, then while you're on the second gif (in this case, elizabeth's) set the blending mode to "screen"
then your gif will look like this:
to delete the parts of each gif that you don't want, you're going to add a layer mask to each gif, and with a brush set to black you're going to paint INSIDE the layer mask to "erase" (you can paint with black to bring back the parts of each gif if you erase too much):
then you color the gifs, this is what i did:
and then you add a new layer, select a brush in a lilac color, and you color the gif in any empty spaces (in this case, over the green or around their faces) and after that you set that layer to the blending mode "screen" once again:
the gif should look something like this now:
for the petals falling effect you can use any gif or effect, just search up "petals falling" on google images, i used this one:
you're going to open the gif with ps, paste it onto the gif of mr darcy and elizabeth, then you set that layer to "lighten" so only the petals show. then you adjust the size of the gif to whatever you need. it should look like this:
for the text i used the fonts AVENIR and HELLO STOCKHOLM (click to download). i set the text layer with hello stockholm to "exclusion" to give it that translucent effect, the text is in the color #e4b9eb. i also used drop shadow for layer style:
and that's it. i recreated it as close as possible lol but you can play around with all the colors!
for the second gif i started with this base gif:
then you're going to add a new layer over the gif, select the gradient map option, set two purples as the colors (one very light and one darker), paint over the gif, then set that layer to "screen" and the opacity to 70%. again, you can play around with the colors but the similar ones i found are #dfb7db and #a261cb:
gif should now look like this:
for the "old film" effect, i used this gif:
like with the first example, open the gif with ps, paste it onto the gif of mr darcy's hand, but set the "old film" layer gif to "screen" so only the white lines show. then you adjust the size of the gif to whatever you need. it should look like this now:
again, the font for this gif was avenir, use this pic to frame the text:
and this is the final result:
i hope this helps and if you have any questions feel free to ask more! i can go into more detail, i know i explained too "fast" but tumblr doesn't allow me to add too many pics and i can only add one video per post. i can do videos per step, but again, i can only post one per ask/post 😭 and like i said at the beginning, i don't remember exactly what i did dfdkjh i'm so sorry. whenever i gif like this i just open ps and pray for the best.
How to color with Hue/Saturation and Selective Color layers in PhotoShop
@jackarthurdavenport asked me how I am coloring gifs for my rainbow gifsets like this and this set.
This tutorial is really image heavy.
I don’t like using new layers and gradients for coloring, I think the gifs look more natural if you use the colors that are already there. So I will show how to use only the maximum of three layers for the whole coloring. For this kind of coloring you have to chose scenes that already have the color you want to achieve in the end, or it contains colors that can be easily modified. I am going to show how to color lighter scenes and darker scenes. The method is really similar, only the end is a bit different.
1. Young Assane + Green
This is the base gif we are working with, it was cropped and sharpened, but not yet colored. The yellows and the cyans in the background will help us to get to the light green we aimed for.
First step: brightening
For brightening I like use just a bit of Curves adding lightness to the scene. Most of my brightening happens with Levels and Brightness/Contrast layer. After adding more whites to the scene with both layers I always add some dark and contrast to make the colors pop. But you can do the brightening part as you wish.
This is how our gif looks like now. Brightening brought out a few colors we can use later.
Second step: Hue/Saturation
After our brightening Assane’s face became a bit too orange, so I took back the saturaion of the reds and yellows. In case of the yellows I first added some hue so even after taking down sat the background got a greenish tone. On greens I upped the sat and played with the hue to get the green I first had in mind. After this we can still see what other colors the scene has, in this case cyan was most prominent. I added more sat to the cyans so we can see where it is located in the scene and the alter it with hue, until it matches the other greens of the scene, I did the same with blues but reduced sat there, because his jacket also turned an unnatural color. And in the end I reduced magentas and altered them a bit, so his face wasn’t purple after taking away from the reds and yellows.
We are here now, we could leave it at this, but I also wanted to give some more greens to the background, so now come my favourite tool, the selective color.
Third step: Selective color
Since most of the background stayed white I went to the whites and added as much green as I could and darkened it. This move also turned part of his face and clothes a bit green so I added a layer mask and painted over those part. This works best with gifs that don’t have much movement, but with a white background some moving is no problem. As finishing I added one more selective layer and corrected all the colors a bit more. First the yellows so his face looked a bit more natural, then the greens to make the background pop. As a finishing I added to the blacks with just +3, to get more deepth.
Finishing step: Exposure
I like to add an exposure layer to all my gifs as a finishing touch to bring out the colors and add some more depth. And we got our gif!
2. Claire + Red
Our base gif already contains the red we are aiming for, but not everywhere. For this gif I will only show the coloring, because the brightening and the exposure layers are the same I used before.
Hue/Saturation
First of all I reduced yellows and altered the hue a bit to make it lean toward red a bit more. On this layer I am not doing anything with reds because I don’t want to mess with her face. As we can see other than red, the background contains three main colors, magentas, blues and cyans. On all these colors I upped the sat so I can see where are they exactly and played around with the hue until I reached a red look.
Not yet what we wanted but we are getting there. In the next step first I will correct her skintone and then with a new layer color the remaining parts that are not yet red.
Selective Color
For her skin tone I again reduced the yellows and reds and lightened it a bit to look more natural. Then added some black to get a bit of depth. After adding a new selective layer, we are working with our secret weapon, neutrals. Neutrals can color everything that don’t have a color yet, using it works similar like color balance, so we have to be careful if we use it for correcting colors. In this case most of our background is quite gray, so first we add red to it, to match the color we want. I wanted a vibrant dark red so I added a lot of red and black and corrected it a bit with green and blue to get a deeper color.
!But neutrals will also color her face too! So I added a layer mask and painted over her face and the area on the left side of the gif, since that was already red. Again this coloring method works best if there is not much movement. After adding a final exposure layer the gif is ready.
This method can work with almost every scene, but it still needs a base that is already close to what are we aiming for. I am using this kind of coloring for color palette gifs too, but there first I add a new layer and paint on it in one corner the color I want to have and then start coloring under that layer. If the colors match with the one on the new layer, I can delete that layer and the gif is ready.
I hope his was helpful and understandable. Please let me know if you have any questions!
Hi, I was looking at your Thor Valkyrie gifset and was wondering how do you isolated the colours only in certain parts of the gif (the capes) and left the rest is the reds and blues pale, I've searched and searched for a tut but can't seem to find one, thanks in advance! I'll appreciate this a lot!
Okay, so I made this tutorial yesterday but then lost it when I was almost done, so second attempt.
I’ve never done a tutorial before so hopefully it’s okay.
So we are turning this:
into this:
Start by loading your frames into photoshop, cropping, correcting frame rates, resizing, ect.
Then add a base PSD, ideally one that is vibrant and creates strong colours, particularly enhancing the ones you want to focus on. (Selective Colours is great for doing this!)
Now there skin tone looks a little weird from adjusting the red but that okay for now.
You then want to add a Vibrance/Saturation layer. Below are the setting I used but it will probably vary depending on what you are giffing, your PSD and what effect you wanted.
I wanted to keep the surrounding colours just mute them. Also keeping vibrance up but saturation down helped not white wash Valkyre.
You then want to duplicate the Vibrance/Saturation layer so you have one for each frame (make sure only one is visible on each frame as well).
Then get your brush, make it black. Your size can vary depending on what area you need to colour, and I usually recommend about 35% for your hardness. It helps make a smooth line/feather.
Now here comes the time consuming part.
Select the white page next to your Vibrance/Saturation layer. And then move over to the canvas and colour over the capes.
The black makes the selected layer invisible on those areas. You then need to go through and do this for each individual frame.
If there is minimal movement between the frames you can duplicate the Vibrance/Saturation layer as you go, this way each frame you only have to go through with your brush and eraser and adjust for the details.
Then just add your sharpen and whatever else you want and you’re done.
Hope this all makes sense, feel free to swing me a message if you have any questions.
hello, I love your gifs! may I ask how did you make the 2nd gif of this set of yours https://www.tumblr.com/magnusedom/784593710469005312/911-posters-season-eight-part-two-pt-1-font?source=share like how did you do the coloring?
hiii, thank you so much! 💗 i didn't save the psd so i cannot tell you exactly how i did it but i'm gonna try and recreate it for you here:
this is how the original gif looks like with no coloring:
first i add an exposure layer to brighten up the gif like this:
2. then i add a black and white layer:
now the gif will basically look like this, just a simple black and white gif:
3. now we add the color! i use a gradient map layer:
the closest colors i could find to match the gradient map of the gif i posted are these ones:
but tbh the color doesn't matter bc you can try with literally any colors to get the effect! this is just for demonstration purposes.
the gif will now look like this:
4. it's VERY important that you set the blending mode of the gradient map layer to "darker color" like this, ONLY the gradient map layer:
so now the gif looks like this:
and that's it :) basically a b&w gif as base, then a gradient map layer with any color you choose with the blending mode set to darker color!
i hope this clears it up!! let me know if there's anything else i can help with 💗
i’ve been asked a couple of times about how i color my gifs and if i have a tutorial on coloring, so i thought i’d make one. the only things you need for this are photoshop (i use cc 2018, but any ps will do!) and basic gifmaking knowledge, since this tutorial is only about coloring. i’m leaving the tutorial under the cut:
i wanna start this off by saying i’m not an expert and i’ve been giffing for less than two years, so i’m only sharing what i know/works for me. also, my first language isn’t english so i’m sorry if i get things wrong. if you have any questions feel free to let me know and i will gladly help in anything i can!
1. HOW TO COLOR YELLOW SCENES
we have this scene, no coloring:
step one: the first thing i do (and it works 99% of the time) is using a curves layer, clicking on the white eye dropper, and with it, click on the brightest part of the gif, which in this case, is the window behind isabelle, like this:
by doing this, the gif instantly looks like this:
as you can see, this is a huge difference and it gets rid of most of the yellow already. this is a “trick” that works with most yellow scenes. just use the white eyedropper in the curves layer, and click with it on the brightest part of your gif as shown above.
step two: after doing this, i use a levels layer just to bring a little bit of “depth” or “darkness” to the gif, most of the time i only use the black point slider from 3 to 8, depending on the gif, like this:
step three: since her skin is a bit too yellow still, i’m going to use a selective colors layer, in the color yellow. we slide down to -33, like this:
she looks like this now:
now you can color the gif however you like, but as you can see, there’s not much left to do. since this is just basic coloring, i’d just add a color balance layer, and slide to blue (opposite of yellow) like this:
as you can see, you can get rid of yellow tint and do a basic coloring with just 3-5 layers. the gif ends up looking like this:
most of the work is done by the white eyedropper on the curves layer. these are other gifs i colored by using that step:
for this i clicked on the wall with the white eye dropper and the circles are the original coloring:
then i used levels, reduced yellow again with selective colors, used color balance for more blue, and saturation.
another gif, where i clicked on the white parts of the boat:
and you get the gist :) this one step basically makes everything easier after. you just adjust the other layers to your liking but you don’t have the yellow tint there anymore, and if you do, you can fix it by the second step (reducing yellow with selective colors on yellow).
2. HOW TO BRIGHTEN DARK SCENES
first method: you can also use the white eye dropper on the curves layer for this. like this:
original dark gif
in this case we can click on the white circles on the right with the eye dropper. after doing that, you lift the curve a little, like this:
now we bring back some darkness with levels, we get rid of some yellow with selective colors, and user color balance for more blue:
and the gif ends up looking like this (the circles are the original coloring):
HOWEVER this won’t work for all dark gifs, because a lot of them won’t have a bright/white spot that you can click on, and if they do, they can end up looking weird or over brightened, so, for, those gifs, i like to use another method.
second method: an exposure layer
original gif, no coloring done:
what i do is i add an exposure layer and i move the slider in the first bar, like this, until i’m happy with the result. depending on the gif you’re working on you can move/play around with the other bars, but for this one i think this is enough.
the gif looks like this now, after a levels layer and a selective colors layer in red to turn down his redness a little.
and that’s how you can brighten dark gifs in two ways :)
3. HOW TO CHANGE COLORS ALREADY EXISTING IN A GIF
one way to do this is via layers of selective colors. what makes sense to me, is to first color the gif in a “basic” way, so that it’s already brightened or colored in the way that we like, with like 2/3 layers. after doing this, it depends on the colors that already “exist” in your gif. for example, this one:
we have blue and green behind steve. if we want to change the blue, we add a selective color layer in BLUE or CYAN. and if we want to change the green, we add a selective color layer in GREEN.
let’s give it a try with cyan. in a cyan selective color layer, you can turn blue to purple by turning down cyan and yellow to -100, and magenta to +100.
with this method, it doesn’t matter if ppl are moving / or if there’s movement in the gif, since the colors you are changing don’t affect skin tone. the colors “move” as you can see. when you have a strong color as background or in most of the gif, you can play around with other selective colors, like this:
and now the background is pink:
or you can turn it to teal/green:
you can do this with any other colors, just playing around with selective colors. like, if you want to change red colors, use a layer of selective colors in RED, then play around with the colors. if you want to change pink colors, use a selective colors layer in MAGENTA, and so on.
another method of changing colors, which works well with music videos, is to use a hue/saturation layer. for example, we have this gif here:
it already has a strong blue color, so, to change it, we add a hue/saturation layer and we turn it to BLUE, like this:
and we play around with the “hue” bar, and it starts changing colors, like this:
or like this:
and so on.
another method of making colorful gifs, is to ADD the color you want, but this method only works with gifs that don’t have a lot of movement:
4. ADDING/PAINTING ON COLORS IN A GIF:
as i said, for this method we need a gif where the person doesn’t move a lot, ‘cause we’re going to be painting on the color. the original gif doesn’t have to have a colorful background or anything. for example, a gif like this, after coloring it as you’d normally would:
step one: add an empty layer like this:
step two: on that layer, you’re going to choose a brush (a very soft one and big one) like this:
step three: choose a color (in this case i chose orange), change the opacity of the layer to 30-40%, and start painting around, like this:
and now the gif looks something like this:
you can change the opacity and colors to your liking!
with a gif with very little movement like this one, you can also color it by using a gradient map:
and choose the colors you want:
then the gif looks like this:
since his skin/clothes are now pink, you can erase the pink (or whatever color you chose) that you don’t want to be there, by clicking on the layer mask (the white square):
and then, making SURE you’re in that white square, choose a soft brush in the color BLACK. the size of it depends on whatever you want to erase, you will need to change it a few times for the little/big surfaces you’ll be painting on. so, with that brush in BLACK you will start painting the parts of the gif you DON’T want to be pink. in this case, the face and clothes. the brush in black is to erase on the layer mask, the brush in WHITE is to add/keep the pink (or whatever color you chose). the final gif looks like this:
so, these are the different ways i color gifs. i hope this is helpful! if you any questions feel free to let me know and i can clarify/elaborate on anything that i didn’t here. 💗
how i make a simple gif, for: the anon who asked me & whoever needs it 🤗 [under the cut]
ok this is really really simple, it’s just my personal gifmaking process, i’m posting it here cause there’s a lot of screenshots and for some reason i can’t post them all under the ask i received
i use the screencapping method, and the video player i use (and the BEST one in my opinion) is mpv player. you can find a tutorial on how to download and use it here. so, once i have my screencaps for the scene i want to gif, this is what i do:
step one: once you've opened photoshop, you go to "file", "scripts", and then click on "load files into stack" like this:
then this screen will appear, you click on "explore", select the screencaps of the scene you want to gif, then click "ok" like this:
and just wait a couple of seconds till all the screencaps load to photoshop. now your space should look like this:
step two: crop and resize. the width size for tumblr is 540px and the height can be whatever you want. i like big gifs, so i mostly make 540x400 / 540x450 / 540x480px gifs.
use the dimensions you want as long as it's 540 for width. if you're putting two gifs in a row, width dimensions should be 268px each gif (again, height is whatever you want), and if you're putting three gifs in a row then the first gif should be 177px, middle gif 178px, and the third one 177px again.
for this gif i'll do 540x450px, so click on the cropping tool and write in the dimensions like this:
if your movie / tv show file has the black borders like mine, make sure to crop them off, once you're satisfied with the outline, click on the check mark:
now for resizing you go to "image", "image size" this screen will appear, you add the same dimensions you made for cropping and then click "ok".
step three: make the screencaps into a gif
click on create video timeline + then click on the three dots on the bottom left:
your space should look like this now:
now click the three lines in the upper right (menu icon for the timeline), click “make frames from layers”:
but they’re backwards! now click again on the three lines menu icon, and click on “reverse frames”:
now they should be okay:
step four: fix the gif speed. click on the FIRST frame, then the three lines menu icon/button, and “select all frames”:
then on your timeline, click on any of the dropdown arrows on the frames, then click “other” and write in “.05″ which should be or is the standard gif speed. i sometimes use .06 but i think .05 is the widely accepted one, depends on what you think looks best, and click ok like this:
and that’s your gif moving when you click play!! now we need to sharpen it.
step five: sharpening. for this we need to click on the icon in the bottom left of the timeline, to convert again to video timeline instead of frame animation (where we are rn)
your space should look like this now:
now go to “select”, then “all layers” and they should be all highlighted like this:
now do a right click on any of them, and click on “convert to smart object”
and your space should look like this now:
it’s like they’re all “compressed” into one, so when you sharpen it will apply to all of them.
now select the smart object, go to “filter” then “sharpen” - “smart sharpen”, like this:
i sharpen twice, the first one is like this:
and then i repeat the process “filter - sharpen - smart sharpen” BUT with this amount now:
now i want to make clear that you can sharpen however you like, the amount that you like. i do it like this cause it works for me, but other gifmakers do 500 - 0.3 first. it’s all about what works best for you or however you like it better.
so after the two smart sharpenings, your smart object looks like this:
and that’s it! now we color the gif. i recently posted this tutorial / some tips on how to color if you wanna check it out here.
step six: coloring. since this is a very basic gif, the coloring is really simple. i just like to get rid of the yellow tint, brighten it up a little, etc.
i start with a curves layer, click on the white eye dropper, then click on the whitest/brightest part of the gif, which i think in this case is the collar of his shirt, like this:
result:
big difference! then i use a exposure layer to brighten it up a little more, like this:
then a levels layer to bring back some “depth”:
then a color balance layer, i turn up the blue a little (opposite of yellow, helps turn down yellow i think... lol)
now a selective color layer in yellow, and i turn down yellow like this:
and finally a saturation layer for some intensity, just a little:
and that’s it! final result: (the circles are the original coloring)
step seven: save the gif! click on “file” - “export” - “save for web”:
these are my save for web settings:
make sure to change the looping options to “forever” like shown in the screenshot above.
and that’s it, your gif is done! however, when saving the gif in video timeline mode like i do, photoshop changes the gif speed to .07 for some reason, so what i do is i reopen the gif
then you click on the three lines menu button in the timeline (like we did earlier), select all frames, click on one of the dropdown arrow, select “other”, write in “.05″ and then you can re-save the gif and nowww it’s finished.
some ppl say that reopening the gif makes it lose quality, but i personally don’t think it’s noticeable. do what you think it’s best, though! this is my personal preference.
that’s it, that’s what i do when gifmaking! i hope it’s helpful or let me know if you have any questions. i’m always happy to help in whatever i can/know.
IMPORTANT: i learned to gif with this incredible tutorial, i recommend it for everyone who is interested in learning to gif and i always link it when i’m asked about gifs, it’s super easy to follow and SO well explained!!!
