Hi Cleo! Your work is stunning and always looks so effortless. If you don't want to take the time for my question I understand, but would you consider explaining how you make your blend sets with such distinct separation of color in a way that looks clean like in this shauna set you made: /post/788528358334119936/
I've always wanted to create blends like this but have never been able to achieve it. The colors when overlayed blend together and just don't look like this in all of my experience with creating blends. If you could ever provide some kind of walkthrough example with some tips on how to get this look, I would be forever grateful. Otherwise, thanks for sharing your beautiful works with us to feast our eyes on, you are so talented ✨
thank you so much nonny, that is so sweet of you. i'm always happy to talk giffing, and sorry this took so long, personal shit and all
i'll go over my colouring for that set so you can see how it all looks underneath the colour layers, but i think the trick to making the colours both pop is to have a lot of contrast in the gifs, both before you add the colour layers, and within the colour layers themselves.
we're gonna go over this gif. since both gifs are from the same scene, they both have the same adjustment layers, just a different colour overlay.
this is what i'm starting with. pretty dark, doesn't seem to be much contrast
the first thing i always do is add a brightness/contrast layer, and set the blend mode to "screen", which gives us this.
i can tell her face is going to become too red when i add other adjustments down the line, so i'm gonna add a channel mixer layer and move it underneath the the b/c layer. in the red channel, i'm gonna reduce the reds to +93, and in the blue channel i'm gonna raise the reds to +4 and the blues to +3.
which gives us this. her skin is a lot more neutral.
the next thing i always do is add a curves layer, and use the white dropper. there's not a lot of spots to click with it—the door is the lightest object but it's still too dark, which will whitewash the gif too much, so i'm gonna zoom in and click one of the pixels in her eyes, which really brightens up the gif and evens out the whites.
to go with the white dropper, i add a second curves layer and use the black dropper, and click a spot in her hair. it doesn't do too much to darken the gif, but it does even out the blacks.
now, i need the gif to be a little more brighter overall, so i can add the contrast later. i'm gonna use a levels layer, dragging the top white slider to 229, and then the bottom white slider to 249, just to keep the white from becoming too glaring
which gives us this
colouring looks good, so i'm gonna add the contrast using a black-to-white gradient map, and set the blend mode to "soft light" and then adjust the opacity to 50%. this is my preferred way to add contrast as it retains the original colouring best. if i used an actual contrast layer, it would make her skin too red.
her skin did end up a touch too red, but that was more to do with the red that was already there. i could go back to the channel mixer layer at the bottom and adjust it further, but removing the red with the channel mixer ends up darkening the area as it neutralizes it, and i find her face is already a bit too dark. so instead i'm going to add a selective colour, move it beneath the gradient map and in the red channel i'm gonna reduce the blacks to -24. now her skin is bright and even.
this is the other gif with the exact same layers
the final step is to add the colour layer. i prefer to use gradient maps over solid fills, as i find they add a bit more dimension to the colour.
these are the two gradients i'm using, both of them with the blend mode set to colour.
which gives us these two gifs.
and when i put them together, i get this
the pink stands out nicely, the orange not so much.
so i'm actually gonna rewind to when i added the colour gradient maps. i colour 99% of my blended gifs with frame-by-frame colouring, and since it's a bitch to add more adjustments after i've already duplicated it 40 times, i always add a black-to-white gradient map underneath the colour layer. if i don't need it, i can just turn it off, and if it makes the gif too dark, i can just adjust the opacity.
in the case of the blended gif above, that is with both the b&w maps turned off. now, i don't need to use the one underneath the orange map—by virtue of the pink gradient being lighter, that gif will always be the brighter of the two, and in this case the orange gifs background is darker.
the pink gif can definitely be darker though, and this is how it looks with the b&w gradient turned on and at 100% opacity
the orange is much more distinct now, and bonus, the blend where her face moves looks a bit better too, as the background where it moves over isn't as bright.
here's another example from an earlier set
i'm not gonna go over the base colouring for it, partially because looking back i don't like it much lmao (i was still getting the hang of colouring season 3).
this is the gif with the b&w layer underneath the colour layer turned off
very bad colour blending happening, the purple is lost in the green, the hand even ends up tinted green, and just in general nothing stands out.
but if i turn on the b&w layers, we get this.
we have purple! and distinct blends! and a non-shrekified hand!
and so that's how i do my two-coloured blends. hopefully this helps you with your future blending endeavours.
would you mind talking about how you manipulate background colors? it's always done so seamlessly even in sets that have more movement in them
thank you nonny!! and sorry this took so long, i've had the plague
i do have some bad news. about 95% of my coloured gifsets are done by hand colouring each frame. i can give you some pointers on that if you'd like, but it isn't much more difficult than "paint around the person"
the good news is, the other 5% of the coloured gifsets i do are done with colour manipulation, so i do have some tips. i hope they're helpful
the most important thing is, obviously, the background of the gif. cool-toned backgrounds—blues, purples, greens—are best because they're far from skin tones. orange and yellow are sometimes workable, depending on the hue. neutral backgrounds, or grey, backgrounds can be manipulated, but it usually involves darkening the gif, so it doesn't always work.
the 3 adjustment layers i find most helpful in colour manipulation are, colour balance, and hue/saturation, and selective colour, usually in that order.
colour balance
with colour balance, i most often use it to on darker/neutral backgrounds, where i will increase the cyans and blues in the shadows, since blue/cyan is the easiest colour to change into other colours; blue/cyan can be turned into red much easier than red can be turned into blue/cyan. it's usually a large adjustment, in the 30-50 range, occasionally higher.
the other times i will use colour balance is usually if there is yellow in the background that i want to adjust. then i will increase the cyans and blues in the midtones and/or highlights, depending on lighting. this is usually a small adjustment, around 10, occasionally up to 20 but rarely ever higher. this is done to make the skin tones a little cooler, and hopefully help with the next step
hue/saturation
i'm gonna give a quick overview of this adjustment, along with the secret trick i didn't know for the longest time
the main dropdown menu chooses which colour you are affecting; the first slider changes the hue, or colour, of the affected colour; the second slider changes the saturation, or how bright/dull the affected colour is; the third slider changes how light or dark the affected colour is, all the way to pure white or black
the final slider, with the four notches, is the range of the affected colour, because a colour is never purely just that colour. in the red channel, the range shows that red is also made up magenta and yellow. adjusting this range is how you can more concisely affect a certain colour
to best way to change a colour is to crank the saturation level up to 100, which will let you see every pixel that will be affected, and then adjust the range sliders, using the outer two notches, until only the pixels you want to change are lit up. then bring the saturation back down to 0, and adjust the hue.
selective colour
after using the colour balance and hue/saturation to adjust the background, i then use selective colour to make the colour brighter/deeper/etc. if you're making extreme changes using selective colour, it's good increase the blacks in that channel as well, to stop the colour from being too saturated.
here are some examples to see these steps in action. i'm gonna direct you to my basic colouring tutorial so you can understand the initial colouring steps i do for each gif without me having to go over them again here.
example 1
this one is easy because there's no skin tones to account for, but it also is so grey it's almost black and white, so in this case we're more adding colour
the first thing i do is add a brightness/contrast layer and set it to screen, and then add two curves layers and use the white and black eyedroppers to even out the blacks and whites, making the whole gif brighter and crisper.
next step is to add a colour balance layer, and pump up the blues and cyans in all the channels, with the most adjustment in the shadows, as those will more heavily effect the gif.
last step is to add a selective colour layer and crank up the blue and cyans to 100 in both blue and cyan channels, then a hue/saturation layer with the master channel increased by +20 in the saturation slider, and then a final selective colour channel, with the cyans and blues set to +21/-52 in the blue channel, and set the blues to -15 in the cyan channel
example 2
This is a little more complicated, as we're turning yellow to pink without affecting skin tones.
as always the first steps are a b/c layer set to screen, and 2 curves layers with the white and black eyedroppers used, though i've also added an additional curves layer after the b/c layer and used the auto curve button, just to make it a bit brighter.
next step is to add a colour balance layer and set the midtones to -10 on the cyan/red and +10 on the yellow/blue. this cools down the overall tone of the gif, making the next step easier
next step is to use a hue/saturation level to change the colour of her dress. after raising the saturation level, i change the far left range slider from 15° to 37°
there are still some yellow pixels on her face, plus the ones in her hair, but if i adjust the range more, it risks losing pixels on the dress itself. this could be a problem depending on what colour i want to change it to. something like blue or green probably wouldn't work, but since i'm changing it to pink, it might work.
with the shade i've changed it to, there's virtually on discernible change to her skin, but her hair has gained a pink hue. i could use a layer mask on the hue/saturation layer so it doesn't affect her hair, since there's minuscule movement, but i've decided i like the look with the hair so i'm gonna leave it.
however, i don't like the colour to the left of her. with the colour change affecting it, it's gotten more grainy. so i'm going to add a black-to-white gradient map, set the blend to "soft mode" and drop the opacity to 50%. this increases shadows of the gif as well as the overall contrast
as a last step, her face has too much of a green tint, so i've added a selective colour and set the magenta to +30 in the yellow channel
example 3
this is an interesting one, because it's one of the few times i've managed to change a red background
i'm starting the gif a little bit different. with it already being cool toned, the darkness of it is gonna help with adjusting the red, because once we lighten it and smooth out the whites and blacks, it may add to much red to his skin tone to be able to properly adjust the background
so the first layer i'm gonna add is a hue saturation, and in the red channel, i adjust the hue to +44 and increase the saturation to +68, changing the door to yellow. this still leaves some red on the left, so im gonna add another hue/sat, and change the red hue to +33.
next i add a colour balance layer, and set the shadows to 6 red and 7 yellow. this is to help add some warmth to his skin tone later on.
now i can add the regular brightness and 2 curves layers
next i'm going to add one more hue/saturation to adjust the last of the red, setting the hue to +20
now i'm going to add a channel mixer layer and set the red channel to blue +5
next step is a selective layer and increase the blues/cyans settings blue to 59 cyan and 78 blue, and cyan to to 61 cyan and 81 blue, because it's easier to brighten the blue before turning it green, as opposed to turning it green and then brightening it.
a final hue/saturation to turn the blue to green, setting the cyans to -40, and blues -102
the last layer is a selective colour, to enhance the green, seting the greens to 33 green, 100 yellow, and 51 black
and there's some of my methods of manipulating background colours! i hope they help you in some way, even if it's not quite what you were asking for. feel free to come back if you have any other questions
Could make a tutorial for creating subtitles on Photoshop for beginners! Thank you so much, continue the amazing work!
thank you nonny! i'm glad my tutorials are helping at least one person.
creating subtitles is quick and easy. i'll go over simple subtitles, and also making subtitles appear partway through a gif. once you know how to make them i recommend saving an action for it, for your most common gif sizes, that way you can just press one button and then type in your subtitles.
Font Overview
it's good to have a go-to font. i use Calibri Bold Italic, but any clean, simple print font can work
these are my font settings below. quick rundown of each option
A- this your font family
B- this is the specific font; light, regular, bold, italic etc.
C- this is the font size
D- this is the spacing between each row of text; it's default setting is [auto], which uses the built-in font spacing, but all fonts have different spacing and you could end up with a huge gap between rows. the spacing pt's also don't necessarily match up with the font size, so experiment to get the spacing you want
E- this is the space between letters; if you think the letters are too close together then increase the number into the positives, if you think they're too far apart then decrease the number into the negatives
F- this will "stretch" the letters sideways; not really used for basic subtitles
G- this will stretch the letters up and down; not really used for basic subtitles
H- this is your font colour
the setting above are my go-to for 540px gifs, though i occasionally adjust the font size between 18-22, and then also adjust the row spacing to match. for 268px gifs, i'll usually use a font size of 16px
Basic Subtitles
to make the subtitles, select the text tool the left hand toolbar, the icon that looks like a "T", and your cursor will turn to a text selector line in a dotted square. put your cursor at the bottom left of the gif; it doesn't have to be exactly on the corner, but so long as it's close the the edge of the canvas it will "lock on" to the corner.
click and drag to the right side of the gif, and up as big as you want the "text box". there will be a pop-up tell you the width and height of the box you're making. width should be the full width of the gif, and for the height i've set it to 40. the top of the text box will be the very top of the letters on the top row.
the size of the text box can always be adjusted later by clicking a side and dragging.
type your subtitle into the new text box, and then click anywhere outside the workspace (the canvas and the grey area behind it) to "exit" the text layer
now the text looks pretty good here, because the parts of the gif under it are dark. but a different gif might be lighter, or you might be using a different text colour. to make sure the subtitle is visible and readable on any gif, you're going to go to the menu on the bottom right, with the text layer selected, and click the fx button. any option in the menu that appears will open the same box, just on a different option, i always just click blending options
the layer style box will open. all the options on the side are various effects that can be applied to the text. the ones with a plus sign will allow you to add multiple instances of that effect on the same text. the 2 we'll be using on the subtitles are stroke and drop shadow, so one at a time click on the row for both and a check-mark will appear in the box. you'll also see that effect labelled under the text layer
this is the menu for stroke. stroke is simply an outline of the text/object
A- this is the size of the stroke, the width of it
B- position can be outside, inside, or centre. for subtitles it should always be on outside
C- this changes the blend mode of the stroke, which will have essentially no effect if the stroke is black or white
D- the opacity of the stroke
E- you can have a stroke made of a solid colour, a gradient, or a pattern
F- the colour of the stroke
this is the menu for drop shadow.
A- blend mode, again, doesn't do anything if the colour is black or white
B- colour of the drop shadow
C- the opacity of the drop shadow
D- the angle of the shadow
E- make sure this in unchecked, otherwise it can screw with the angle
F- this is how far from the text the shadow will be
G- this makes the edges of the shadow sharper or harder
H- this makes the overall shadow sharper or harder
the options under "quality" i never adjust
click ok on the layer style box and you have your basic subtitles!
Fade In Subtitles
now maybe you have a slightly longer gif, where the character isn't speaking at the beginning of it and you want to time the subtitles with the speech. so we're going to use keyframes!
keyframes do various things, by setting two (or more) points on the gif, and the gif will automatically change between those two points, depending on which keyframe you use. (hopefully this will make more sense a little further down)
first play the gif a few times in the export preview window to see when the talking starts and then move the frame tracker (the red line) to 2-3 frames before the speaking begins, in this gif the character starts speaking at frame 50, so move the frame tracker to frame 48
when you click the arrow at the start of the layer, it opens a dropdown of the layer and gives various options to use keyframes on, depending on what kind of layer it is. clicking the little stopwatch will create the first keyframe
transform- this lets you change the size/orientation of the text
opacity- this lets you change the opacity of the text
style- this lets you change the layer style of the text
text warp- this lets you animate the warping of the text
when you click the stopwatch, a keyframe will appear on the timeline on the frame selected, and next to the stopwatch two arrows with a keyframe point between them will appear. the arrows move you from one keyframe to the next, and the point between the arrows will add a keyframe on the selected layer, or remove the keyframe if there is already one there. if you click the stopwatch button again, it will remove all keyframes
while the tracker is on a frame that has a keyframe attached, anything you do that falls under that type of affect while on that frame will be recorded by the keyframe. on opacity there's only the one thing that will be recorded—opacity.
since we want the text layer to be invisible when the gif starts, turn the opacity down to 0, while on the frame with the first keyframe. now move the tracker to the frame where the speaking begins. add a new keyframe on frame 60 using the new keyframe button. then turn the opacity on the text layer back up to 100
now the text layer will go from 0 opacity to 100 opacity over between the 2 keyframe points, and gradually appear as the character begins talking. if the timing isn't quite right, you can click and drag the keyframe points along the timeline.
A Few Random Notes
some people use white for an entire gifset, even if more than one person is speaking, and some people use different colours to show who is speaking. you can have set colours for speaker #2, #3, etc. but when possible, i like to use the eyedropper to select a pixel colour for the other speaker that is already in the gif, but not prominent where the subtitles will show, so i don't add a colour that wasn't already present, and reduce the number of colours in the gif itself
if the subtitle is long enough to go on two lines (or more) try and cut it to be somewhat even i.e. don't have the top line stretch from side to side, and the bottom line only had 1 or 2 words; if there's a comma or semi-colon in the text, splitting it there as a natural gap/pause
if there are two people speaking in 1 gif, and you want to show their dialogue at the same time, you can put the two different speakers on separate lines of the same text box, highlight one of them, and change only that colour
hi! i love your icons, i was wondering if you could do a tutorial on how you remove the backgrounds? the lil hair details you have is so good idk how to word it 😭🩷
thank you rachel i'm glad you like them 😊
removing the backgrounds is a pretty simple process, but depending on the shot you choose, it can take a bit more work. i'm a visual learner, and tend to over-explain, so there's a lot of images
make sure to sharpen your image first, but don't resize/crop, or at least not too much, i find it easier to work with a large canvas. also, add a solid fill layer underneath your image layers, set it to a bright colour, we'll use that later.
Option A
if you've a got a shot with good contrast between the character/hair/clothes and the background, we have the quick option
copy your image layer, we're gonna work with the top one first
the image already has good contrast, but to make step 4 easier, we're gonna add a brightness layer, crank the brightness way up, and add a little contrast. then i also added a curves layer and just played around with the lines till i felt the contrast was enough
as you can see, she's ugly. but that's okay cause we're gonna get rid of that colouring later
3. select the two adjustment layers, and any other adjustment you added, and also select the top copy of the image, the merge those layers layer/ merge layers (that is not your default merge layer shortcut, don't use it, i don't remember what it originally does)
4. take the magic wand tool, and with the now merged layer selected, choose "select subject" from the top toolbar
your image should now look like this, with the person outlined. if the outline isn't completely perfect don't worry about it right now
5. now select the bottom copy of the image, click create folder, and with the new folder selected click "add layer mask"
now delete the top merged copy, and you should be left with this
very dark
6. right click on the layer mask and select "disable layer mask" and you'll be left with the the original image.
7. you can now do all your base colouring for the icon. make sure the adjustment layers are inside the group you just made, so when you make your background underneath the group, your adjustment layers don't affect it.
colouring tips: toggle the layer mask on and off as you colour, because sometimes colouring that looks good in the scene doesn't look so good without the background. i tend to make the colouring brighter on icons than on gifs, so the character stands out more against the background.
now she looks pretty good, ready to be cropped and have a background added. but maybe the character outline wasn't perfect. the solid fill layer is to help see any errors in the outline. if there is we move on to step 4 of Option 2 and fix them
Option B
if the image you've chosen is darker or has little to no contrast, do steps 1-3 from option A first
4. add a blank layer mask to your merged layers (if you're coming from option A, use the layer mask you've already made) and select the paintbrush. for most of the image you'll want to use a brush between 20px and 50px, with a hardness of 50%. and now the not so fun part, paint over the background. toggle the layer mask off and on as needed to check what's background and what's character. make sure the layer mask is selected before you paint
painting tips:
-paint the outline first, then you can use a much large brush to quickly cover the rest of the background.
-move slowly, but smoothly.
-work in sections; don't try and paint the entire background with one mouse click, because if you mess up and use undo, you lose all the work.
-sometimes you should paint over parts of the character/clothes/hair to make it more cohesive. in the above image, the shirt juts out oddly on her left arm, and can pull focus without the original background, so i would paint over it to make it look more like her right arm
-for hair, use a smaller brush around any loose bits you want to keep. remember that the canvas you're working on is much larger than how the icon will appear when used, so you only need to paint over the parts where the background is very obvious. zoom out if necessary to see how it will look
5. when finished painting, right click on the layer mask and select "add mask to selection", then continue with step 5 of Option A. you can always adjust the layer mask after the final colouring if things don't look quite right.
and that's how you remove backgrounds for icons! probably made it seem more complicated than it is, but i'd rather tell you something you already know than assume you know it when you don't and leave you without crucial information. come back if you have any more questions
Wait wasn’t the mattress naked ? I don’t know if they had sheet but I bet he humped the bed sniffing it afterward tho
the mattress was naked but they had a top sheet. idk if the sheet was on the bed while they were fucking or if they grabbed it afterwards to sleep, but i'm choosing the believe it was on the bed and buck sucked tommy's cum and sweat out of it while jerking off after he left
My Bucktommy thought is that they were so fucking cute during the hook-up scene the way they were laughing and pulling each other close the way the couldn't keep their eyes and hands and lips off each other bc they've been yearning to have this back and they finally did!!! They had it back they had their joy back 🥺🥺 and soon they'll get over the underlying anxiety that is creating this hurdle for them being together and then THEY WILL HAVE THAT JOB BACK FOR GOOD
SO SO CUTE!!! they were having fun!! we need to see them happy and giggly more, and by the gods we will!
Tommy wearing his hoodie backwards so both kittens are tucked against his chest and he can have easier access to give them kisses
he first did it because he was doing housework and the vacuum scared the kitties, and after finally getting them out from under the couch he didn't want them to go hiding away again, but then they were just so happy and snuggly in there tommy left them the whole day, and then the next day he was sitting on the couch when they climbed up him themselves and burrowed into his hoodie, so he turned it around so they wouldn't get squished, and that's how tommy's backwards hoodie became a cat nap
