#em.gif

[katebeckets]

I know some people find it ridiculous that gifmakers would like credit for their gifs since "it's not like it's their show" or "it's not that hard" or whatever, and maybe there are some gifmakers who truly don't care. But it's really about respecting the time, effort, and love that goes into making gifsets. And I think tumblr should understand what a long process it is so that they understand why it matters that, when you use someone else's gif, it's easy to direct them to the original post.

Here are the things I personally do for every basic gifset I make:

1. I find the material I want to gif. Sometimes that means taking time to figure out where the moment came from (like if you remember the scene but not the episode) or downloading the video. 2. I screen record the part of the video that I want to gif because the format is not always compatible with what I use to gif (Photoshop). I make sure that the screen recording has no skipping or lagging, which usually means recording multiple times. I would say on average, when I'm recording scenes to make gifs, it takes me about 2 hours (if not more) to record 10 scenes. 3. I watch and rewatch the scene to transcribe the caption, often looking ridiculous (I turn the volume up and put my ear to the computer). I often compare the captions to the subtitles and to transcripts I find online if I'm not entirely sure I got something right, and even then, I have made mistakes before. 4. I figure out how to break up the gifs. This includes figuring out how much dialogue to include, how many facial expressions or cuts to include, and what clips I add the dialogue to. For example, sometimes I end up with long gifsets because the actors gaze at each other for eight million years and I don't want to cut any of the minute facial expressions out. Other times I choose to leave some of it out (and usually agonize over this, but I'm a very indecisive person lol). 5. I open Photoshop (can take anywhere from one minute to five million years) and make the gif. At minimum this includes deleting excess frames, cropping, resizing, sharpening, and coloring. There are often more steps as well, depending on the complexity of the gif. I also will sometimes redo all of these steps if I finish it and decide I don't like how it turned out. 6. I make sure each gif is under 10 MB. If it isn't, I have to go back to step 4. Save and upload to tumblr.

And here are some before and after comparisons:

If, after reading this, providing sources for gifs that you save feels like too big an ask or an unreasonable expectation, then I encourage you to try making your own gifs and using those instead.

If you're not sure, just ask! And if you like a gifset, please reblog it! Write in the tags, leave a comment, send an ask, interact with the creator. Gifsets are created for the love of something and finding others who also love it through the creation of those gifsets is beautiful ♥️

[super-license]

fabio quartararo back in the garage after his crash and shoulder dislocation | italian gp 2025

[venus-vault]

◇ here you go!! @harrrrow ◇

[plainwater-pdf]

Paul Newman as Chance Wayne

Sweet Bird of Youth (1962)

[goldenbrendonurie]

Mama, can I get another amen? 

[flutterphil]

britains next top model

[katebeckets]

reminder to appreciate your local gifmaker

[katebeckets]

hi, this beautiful gifset made me wonder how you blend this way? would you please share a tutorial,

https://www.tumblr.com/katescully/804168395138498560/the-x-files-emotion-in-color-happy-holidays?source=share

hi! thank you so much <3 The blending is actually fairly simple/minimal, I'll do my best to explain! I'll use the blue gif for my example but the process is more or less the same for every gif. if this is helpful, please like and/or reblog <3 it’s nice to know since tutorials take time! and if you try this out you can always tag me using #emilyblr.

if you’re having trouble seeing, click on the pictures to see the full image!

i. make your individual gifs

Make and color your individual gifs. After you've done that, make sure to group your gifs (explanation on creating groups in this tutorial). As you'll see, I group mine and use the episode number as a name, but use whatever makes sense to you. IMPORTANT: Make sure each gif has the same number of frames (for this gif I had 54 each).

ii. layer gifs

Gif 1: Mulder Gif 2: Scully I put gif 1 over gif 2 by selecting all the frames of gif 1, copying them, moving to gif 2, selecting all the frames of gif 2, then selecting paste over selection. Gif 2 (Scully) will then be hidden by gif 1 (Mulder) until the next step.

Immediately after pasting the frames from gif 1 over gif 2, change the blending mode from pass through to screen. The reason I say to do this immediately is because then all your frames will already be selected and you won't have to worry about the blending mode changing for only one frame, but you can also just make sure you select all the frames yourself and then change the blending mode.

Here is what we have now:

Gif 1 (Mulder) over gif 2 (Scully), blending mode set to screen, no masking.

iii. add layer masks and blend

LEFT: First I add a black solid color layer and move it to the bottom (underneath all other layers). RIGHT: Add a mask to each gif by selecting the gif's folder and pressing the mask button.

TOP: Make sure you have the mask layer selected. I am first masking gif 1 (Mulder). MIDDLE: These are the brush settings I use for my initial masking. The size varies, but basically it's the soft round brush with 0% hardness set to a fairly large size. BOTTOM: Using black, I paint over the parts of gif 1 (Mulder) that I want to hide.

Here is what we have now:

I mainly focused on making Scully more visible.

Although I always start with black (completely masking the gif), I usually end up adding grey and white back into the mask so that it's a smoother layered effect.

I turned off the other layers so you can see what the mask looks like. As you can see, it's pretty transparent in most places, and I added back in some white where Mulder's face is because I want him to be visible as well.

Here is what the gif looks like now:

Now I move to gif 2 (Scully) and repeat the process.

As you can see, I mainly masked the part of the gif that overlaps with Mulder so that his face is more visible. I started with black but then used a dark grey to mask so that it was almost completely erased, but you can still faintly see Scully.

I decided I was happy with how the blending looked, so here is the gif before I start adding in layers of color:

iv. add coloring

For this gif in particular, I added a gradient. It's much more typical, though, for me to add color with a brush (as I show here). That said, I'm using the gradient for this tutorial since I'm showing you how I made this specific gif.

I created a gradient fill layer on top of the gif. You can see my settings on the right. The reason I used a gradient is because this was a text-heavy gifset, so the coloring I added was more opaque than what I usually do.

And here you have the finished gif before I added the text! For the text tutorial, you can go here.

so there you have it! hope that helps. my tag for gif-related things is #em.gif and there are some other tutorials and tips there if anything is confusing, but you’re also welcome to ask questions!