Anon asked how I created the motion blur effect in the first gif in this Boba Fett gifset, so here’s a 5-step tutorial. It’s very, very easy but also very late/early and I suck at explaining things like this so I hope it's clear!
What you’ll need:
Basic gif-making knowledge using the video timelines method (this won’t work with frame-by-frame animation)
I’m using CC 2020, but any version of Photoshop that has the timeline option will work
Tip: This effect works better on gifs with minimal movement
Step 1: Create your gif, sharpen/colour it, add typography, etc, and create a video timeline
Step 2: Duplicate the gif layer and position it beneath the original layer
Step 3: Make sure the duplicate (bottom) layer is selected. Go to Filter > Blur > Motion Blur. I used the following settings (Angle: 0, Distance: 120) but you’re welcome to experiment with whatever works for your gif.
It should now look something like this:
Now you're going to use a Layer Mask to erase a small part of the normal-looking layer to reveal the motion-blurred one beneath
Step 4: Select the original gif layer and add a Layer Mask to it
Here comes the fun part, erasing bits on the top section using a brush. What kind of brush you select and its settings really depends on your preference and your gif. My gif is 540x450 so I used a larger brush (hard round, size 90px, opacity 50%). Don’t forget to set your foreground colour to black/#000000.
Step 5: Begin painting the parts of the gif you want blurred so that your gif looks something like this
And that’s it! There you have the final result:
(Same thing with the text, simply follow steps 2-5 as above)
i was wondering if you had some sources for getting started giffing or if you just winged it. cause i'm used to professional editing programs but giffing is different and i'm just a bit lost. i don't know who to ask or if giffing is some kind of big secret people don't want to share but i guess it cannot hurt to ask someone right
It’s definitely not a secret!! I think every gifmaker I know is more than happy to share their knowledge and we love it when people get into it! I have to say I’m still a baby in terms of gifmaking (though I’ve edited pics with gimp for a long time), so I don’t know that much myself - especially the right terms lmao. Mostly I’ve done a lot of trial and error and went with what looks good! And generally from my experience, once you know the basics, it is mostly about winging it. I don’t know what your level of knowledge is so I’m going to put a very rambley explanation on the basics and some sources & tips under the cut!
Personally I started by buying Photoshop, I unfortunately don’t know how to get it the old yo-ho way (if anyone knows feel free to share in the comments or something). Some people use other programs and I jensen salute dot jpg them but I don’t know anything about those. Originally I wanted to try gifmaking with good old Gimp but for that I would’ve needed video frames ready as pictures instead of just the video, whereas PS can automatically convert the video to frames. To learn how to do that I watched a few videos, this one on youtube was probably the first one. It gives a basic look into how it all happens in practice. For my first gifs I kind of followed along to that.
Getting the footage can be different for people - some people download it, especially to get the HD footage, but I unfortunately can’t give advice on how to do that as I always just do screencapture with QuickTime on my Mac. I think for PC some people use KMPlayer for the capture?
To my understanding there’s two ways to edit gifs, frames and video timeline. Because I basically learned by that vid, I only know about editing on timeline (on the video, the frames are converted to video timeline at about 3:18). I think everything about this is explained pretty well in the vid but hit me up with questions if something’s unclear! After the gif looks like a gif on the timeline, there’s sharpening and colouring: I’ve mostly looked for tutorials and tips in the tumblr tags: gif tutorial, colouring tutorial, etc. Mostly it’s just about trying stuff!
Here’s an assortment of random tips! If something’s unclear, it’ll probably make more sense after you get a grip on the basics. For example I didn’t try anything flashy for my first gifs and even the colouring is pretty nonexistent, but it’s easiest to learn by just doing and trying. So:
Here’s a few links to places with resources: itsphotoshop, allresources, clubgif. If you find a gif maker you like, there’s a possibility they might have a tutorial too on their page. Otherwise, look for tutorials in the tags: here’s a great tutorial for colouring and here’s another one!
If you convert a video to frames, always check that there are no doubled or tripled frames before converting the frames to the video timeline. That way the gif is smoother.
Using a gradient map is great when you have a colourful gif: usually it preserves detail but reduces the file size (there’s an example of this on the video). I think 10MB is the max gif size for tumblr gifs so reducing the number of colours reduces the file size. Sometimes it’s a struggle, figuring out what to do so that the gif size is small enough for tumblr, but that’s just part of the life.
Apparently editing with video timeline instead of frames also makes the gif size bigger which is news to me and skejbgske idk maybe it’d be a good thing for me too to learn the frame method. Can’t help you with that though.
If you have a gradient map or a saturation layer for that purpose, remember to put it above the other colouring layers.
Photoshop brushes are great and from what I hear, deviantart is the best place to find cute brushes! There’s tutorials on youtube and for example in the ”photoshop brush tutorial” tag to get a sense of what brushes are etc.
Gifs on tumblr always look worse on mobile, which is why sharper gifs also look better on mobile. So sharpen a lot.
540 is the maximum width for a large gif on tumblr, other dimensions are 268 and 178 width. After converting the frames to video timeline, I usually sharpen the gifs, then change reduce the size of the canvas to what I want, before reducing the actual gif size and fitting it to the canvas as I want. But remember to make the gif at least a little bit bigger than the canvas because otherwise the gif will have like a pixel width of semi-transparency on every side.
Layer masks are your best friend <33 You’ll find out more on these when looking for tutorials. Basically, for example if you want to make a ”colour porn” edit where the gif scene background is a really strong colour: you add the colour layer and then add a layer mask to the colour layer (by right-clicking the layer and finding create layer mask). Painting black on the layer mask erases that part of the colour layer. This way you can have a colourful background and have a character’s face pop out with normal vibrant colouring. By changing the transparency of the brush when painting the layer mask black, you can blend the colouring better.
That’s probably everything I can think of right now. I know I’m not the best one to ask because I’m literally such a beginner myself, but tutorials are a great help and luckily there’s loads!! I hope this was at least some help and you get started: please feel free to tag me in your future gifs! :’) And please never be afraid to ask stuff, gif makers love to help!
Now if anyone has tips to share or something to add to/correct in my ramblings, please do in the comments or reblogs!
So, the lovely stubblehale asked me to make a tutorial, and well, how can I say no. So this is to show y’all my process for making something like this.
This will require some serious patience (seriously it can be super tedious the first time playing with these tools in photoshop). Mastery of what I call keyboard photoshop is really helpful here. Anyway, lets get started.
First of all you need to put together your final composition. The one I made here is pretty simple, but make sure that you are using shape layers and naming them as you go. For example I named each of my rectangle shapes based on where the are placed in the composition. Also, for the figures, I made all the adjustment layers (levels, brightness, gradient map etc.) and then I made them into a group and named after the characters contained, for example there is a “derek” group and the other one is called “sterek”. When naming things, it’s not important what you call them, just so long as you’ll remember it. Additionally, I created the type with each word on a different layer. Of course you won’t have to name that as they name themselves (thanks photoshop)
The other important thing here is using layer masks. Here I’ve used 3 masks that don’t have an effect on the final composition, but will be crucial in making this animation work. This is the point where you really want to start having an idea of what the animation will look like. By putting things all on separate layers, you’ve given yourself the most flexibility, but at this point, once you have everything where you want it, you’ll need to start making decisions about where things are going in the final product. This will determine where you place the masks. You can see the masks I’ve created here.
There is also a mask on the Sterek layer. Just to give you an idea, I wanted the bottom rectangle to look like it was sliding out from behind Derek, so I makes off everything to the right of him so that when it slides back into place it will only be visible on his left side. Also, it’s important to unlink the mask from the shape, that way you can move the object independently of the mask.
Ok, so once you have everything where you want it,you’ve planned what you think you want the animation to look like, and you’ve prepared any layer masks that may be needed for that, here is the fun part.
Open your timeline window (I think it used to be called animation in older versions of PS, I’m using CS6)
Now, with the move tool slide everything out of the image into the grey outside the frame. Make sure you move it in the direction you want it to come in from. This is where your layer masks will come in as well. For example the Sterek layer, I just moved it behind the mask I created so it looks like it’s sliding behind the white line at the top there. Same thing for the crown, I just moved it behind the mask. The only things that I left in the image were the rectangle on the bottom, and the word “king”. That one I actually just turned off the visibility of the layer.
At this point you should have a blank slate basically. At the bottom of your timeline window find the button that looks like a little earmarked post it note.Click it to duplicate your frame
When you’re done you should have this
2 empty frames.
Now, with the second frame selected, begin moving elements back into the image. like this.
Now some of the elements from the image are in the second frame, but not the first. The next thing is to tween them. Tween is the most important tool here, it’s how you will cause the shapes to move and not just appear suddenly without having to manually move each thing incrementally (and then hurling yourself off the nearest tall building, that would be AWFUL). The tween button is the one to the left of the sticky note one that looks like series of little circles fading in opacity. Select the first frame and then click tween.
These setting pretty much don’t change, with the exception of the number of frames to add. The more frames you add, the longer the animation (obviously) but also the smoother it will be. For this, I usually don’t mess with the frame delay very much (only for the last frame, or if I want something to be still for a few seconds before changing.)
Once you’ve done that, your timeline should look something like this,
See, photoshop just gradually moves the objects from how they appear in the first frame, to how they are in the second one.
Now, I like to have the objects kind of start off moving kind of fast and then slow down a bit before they stop. To do this, just select the second to last frame, and then tween again, this time with like 2 frames.
Once you are satisfied with this section of the animation, move on to the next elements that you want to appear in the image and repeat the process. If you want the next element to start sliding into place before the last one has stopped moving, you can make one tween’d (is that the word, I have no idea) section just have a part of the motion. Like move the line half way, tween, then with that last frame selected duplicate it and move it the rest of the way and move the next objects to where you want them ( forgot to take caps of that while I was making this and it’s kind of a huge pain to try and show anyway so I hope my explanation makes sense)
Also, if you don’t want the object to move but rather to fade into the image, the same thing applies, duplicate the last frame, but then rather than moving it into the image, you’ll just make the layer visible. That’s what I did with the word “king” here. Tweening will cause it to fade in slowly.
Anyway, once you’re done your frames should look like this
You’ll see the last frame has a frame delay of 2 seconds. Thats so that you can enjoy the final product for a bit before things start flying around again.
Optionally, you can actually have the whole process reverse itself. Simply duplicate the first empty frame and drag it all the way to the end and then tween it with your final image. All the pieces will fly back to where they were originally. You can also create a whole new “exit animation” where things go in a whole new direction. In this case you won’t duplicate the first frame, you’ll duplicate the last one and begin the process in reverse manually.
I hope this makes some sense. As with most things, the only way to really get a grasp is to practice. I recommend not starting with a complex composition. Try opening a blank canvas and dropping a few random shapes, and maybe some text into it and play around with moving them around in different ways. You can make all sorts of neat little animations with this and really add to the story you’re trying to tell with your image...
...or just do something fun to add interest to an image that might otherwise be kind of boring...
Hope this was helpful and if there are any steps that need clarification, or something I missed, just message me and I’ll try to explain
