Bowtiesarecoolright wanted a basic gif tutorial so here you are:
There are 2 ways I use to make gifs using Photoshop CS6 The
first
way is by
directly making the video into a gif
1.
You can do this by opening Photoshop. Then go to
file->import->video frames to layers
:
2. This should come up:
and choose which video you're making the gif from, I'm going to use one of the sample videos
3.
After you open the file this will come up:
Select what you want, if the video is long and you only want a small portion of it then click selected range and use the two black cursors at the bottom to select the part of the video. You can limit which frames you take but if you want a smoother gif I don't suggest you choose this option.
4.
Make sure you have the
timeline
across the bottom, it looks like this
if you don't have it then go to
window->timeline
Now all you have to do is save the gif, scroll down to see how
this is the outcome
-------------------------------------------------------------
The
second
way takes slightly longer and has more steps, but I prefer this method. This is the
screencap method
1.
Open the video you want to make a gif from in
VLC media player
: you can download it
here
if you haven't already got it
2.
Load the video to the part you want to gif
3.
Go onto
tools->preferences
4.
Click
video
5.
Scroll to the bottom and where it says the
directory
, change it to where you want the screencaps to be saved
6.
Slow the video down by clicking
playback->slower
Keep doing this to get a video to the right speed. You can use the
Slower (fine)
too to make it more specific. I usually slow it to
0.40x
or slower, the more screencaps the better the gif, but too many screencaps will make the .gif file too large. For this video I'm going to put the speed to
0.30x
. You can see the speed here
7.
Whilst playing the video hold down the Shift + S keys until you've got past the part you're giffing.
8.
Your screencaps should be in the file you set to your preferences. Check this.
9.
Now go into photoshop and click file->scripts->load images into stack
10.
Click
browse
and go into the folder you saved the screencaps into, select all the images using
Ctrl + A
. Click
OK
It may take a while for all the layers to load
11.
Make sure you have the timeline up, if not, go into window and click timeline so it appears
12.
Click this button
only one frame should load
13.
Go here and select
make frames from layers
if you're having trouble finding it, it looks like 4 lines with an arrow next to it
14.
Your gif may be reversed, if so click on the three lines again and click
reverse frames
MAKING YOUR GIF RUN SMOOTHER
You may notice that your gif is faster or slower than you expected or it only plays once. To change the speed of the gif
select all the frames
and change the
frame delay
to whatever you want
If the gif only plays once and you want to make sure it runs on a constant loop then change it here
SAVING YOUR GIF
1.
Go to
file->save for web
2.
Now we can change size, the amount of colours etc.
3.
These are the settings I normally use
4.
If you're saving these gifs for tumblr, remember they have to be under 1MB, the smaller the file size the better. You can see how big the file size is by looking here
as you can see mine is over 1MB, the limit for tumblr -----------------------------------------------------------
MAKING SURE GIFS ARE UNDER 1MB
There are many ways of making a gif file size smaller
The most obvious way is to delete frames, although your gif may not run as smoothly.
You can add adjustments such as hue/saturation, vibrance and brightness/contrast, which sometimes make your gif look better anyway. Play around with the adjustments to find what makes your gifs smaller.
Making a gif completely black and white can make file size go down dramatically.
Changing the frame delay in a gif won't change the file size
The number of colours you use for a gif can make a gif bigger too, the maximum number of colours is 256 but it may not look much different if you change it to 128 especially if it is in black and white. Change this when saving here:
If your gif is for tumblr, make sure you know the size dimensions, if you don't you can see them here, make sure your gif is the right size dimensions which you can change when saving here:
You can also change the dither which can make the file smaller, I tend to use pattern
after making some small adjustments, my gifsize is now small enough to be put on tumblr