This is a really quick and easy mini-tutorial on how to make actions (like sharpening or Topaz functions) that you can reuse on gifs in one click. I have tons of these saved in my actions panel - Topaz Clean and/or Denoise for low-quality caps, like 7 different sharpens, etc. I love actions.
This tutorial assumes that you've flattened your frames into layers after loading files into stack.
The first thing you should do is make a new actions folder (to hold your own custom actions) - do this by clicking on the button circled in yellow. Once you have a new folder made, click on the button circled in pink to create a new action inside the folder.
It will begin recording as soon as you create the action, but if you're not ready to begin - just hit the square button. Round is record. Square is stop.
Now, we're going to make sure Frame 1 is highlighted in our timeline, and Frame 1 is also highlighted in our layer palette.
Once Frame 1 is highlighted, you're ready to hit record.
Once you hit record, execute your filter on the Frame 1 (and only Frame 1). For the purposes of this tutorial, I'm going to be using Smart Sharpen, but you could easily perform this with any other filter or Topaz function, or any other plug-in you have.
Go to Filter> Sharpen>Smart Sharpen. Play around with your settings until you get something that looks good. These are my settings this time around:
Hit OK. Let the action keep recording. Don't stop it.
Now, click on Frame 2 on your timeline and in your layer palette. Make sure they are both selected, so that they become part of the action. Your action should now look like this:
Your Smart Sharpen settings are saved into the action, so with animation Frame 2 and layer Frame two selected, hit CTRL+F. (CTRL+F replays your last used filter).
Highlight Frame 3 in both your timeline and layer palette. Hit CTRL+F.
Highlight Frame 4 in both your timeline and layer palette. Hit CTRL+F.
Highlight Frame 5 in both your timeline and layer palette. Hit CTRL+F.
Repeat these same steps for every Frame in your gif (when making actions, I usually use a gif with about 100 frames, even though there's no way I could actually upload it), and then hit the square button at the bottom of the actions window to stop recording your action.
SAVE YOUR ACTION. If you don't it could disappear when you close/reopen photoshop.
When you want to use this action on another gif, simply highlight the Frame 1 layers in the timeline and the layer palette, and press play. It will replay the filters on every frame so that you don't have to. =]
