After years of going through phases of making my gifs by either importing video clips or loading screencap files into a stack, I learned about the image sequence method and now I will never go back, so I'm here to share it! It's a simple change that can save a lot of time :)
After downloading your video, you need to make your screencaps. I use MPV Player - if you don't know how to screencap, I recommend this tutorial on installing, configuring and using MPV (and this one for installing on a pc). You can also check my gifmaking tag for various other tutorials including different screencapping methods/software.
Once you've made your screencaps, move them to their own folder. You will need an individual folder for each gif/import! I put them in a "screencaps" folder and within that label each sub-folder however works for what I'm making.
Open Photoshop and open (ctrl+o) the way you would any image. Find the folder with the screencaps you want and select the first image (technically I think selecting any of them works, but I always do the first) then tick the Image Sequence button in the bottom corner, then open:
4. You will then get a pop-up to set the frame rate - these are my settings and after setting it once it should save it for future, so then you can just click OK each time:
5. This will instantly open your gif in timeline mode with your gif made! I then just click where it says Video Group 1 in the layers panel and Convert for Smart Filters so that it can be edited easily (I actually have this step saved as part of an action to make it even quicker). It should then look like this:
And that's it! You can go ahead and do all your editing like normal. I find Photoshop runs quicker this way (especially when making several gifs at once) since it's essentially just linking to the file location instead of importing it all into PS!
It is important to note that if you delete the screencaps, your gif will no longer work. You can relink the file if you need to move the folder (when you reopen the gif it will prompt you to relink so you just find the new folder location and again select the first screencap in the sequence), but you have to be aware that if you want to delete your screencaps after finishing the gifs you won't be able to go back in and edit/resave them without redoing the screencaps.
WORKING WITH YOUTUBE QUALITY - HOW TO GET THE BEST RESULTS
helloooo, i recently feel as though i have found the key when it comes to dealing with youtube quality and i thought it was worthwhile sharing!
i'm finding that when you're stuck with 1080p videos only, (although there is a lot more 4k downloads these days, thankfully) the quality is pretty poor. BUT, this is speaking exclusively about the quality of youtube 1080p - if you use a site such as sharemania, that's usually acceptable and good quality and doesn't deliver poor results.
but alas, this is about youtube, so let's get into it! this process will simply go over all the ins and outs of working with youtube quality, and will not look into the entire giffing process. i'll be using photoshop 2025, but it should work on any version!
Download your video.
firstly, start by downloading your video with 4k video downloader. (<- this will lead directly to a dl of 4k video downloader if you don't have it already! link is all safe and official <3) i can't really think of any other downloader because i haven't used any apart from this one. it's safe and secure and does a really good job.
you'll want to choose the 1080p option that is the BIGGER file amount. not every video will have that, but i believe that the bigger file size is the youtube premium 1080p. take what you can get with them 😭
2. Load frames, crop, convert to smart object...
just get your normal prep work done! make sure to leave out sharpening. you should essentially just be here:
(if my process looks a bit odd or if, on the other hand, you'd like to know my process, you can check that here.)
3. sharpening.
THIS is the point that changes how your youtube file comes out. often times, you'll find the gif comes out with chunks, squares and overall poor quality. kind of like if i used my regular sharpening:
chunky! gross! trashy! i'm seeing too many pixels and things aren't looking the right way that i'd like. (tbh, it's not the worst i've seen - but you can definitely notice when there's light.) if i went on as it is now and continued to colour it, it would continue to look bad.
so, here's what you'll do.
i use multiple sharpening actions, for different purposes: one for hq downloads, so any movies, tv or downloaded/4k music videos, one making icons and the other for lower quality media and photos. the one that i typically use for youtube quality is @/anyataylorjoy's sharpening action (which many gifmakers use, so i wouldn't be surprised if you do already have it!) which is what you'll use. apply the action, using the 'sharper' lot.
^ that's the settings.
4. sharpening pt 2. (noise)
now, you'll need to add noise to offset how harsh the rest of the gif still comes up.
apply these exact settings onto the gif and ensure that monochromatic is enabled.
sometimes, 2% noise might make it look worse, or not be enough. i personally wouldn't go to anything more than 3%, (i don't think you'll ever want to use 3%) and wouldn't go lower than 1%.
it's grainy looking at the moment, just as is. from here, i'll colour it, and then if i think it's no good, i'll go back and clear the noise filter and toggle it. that's just how the process works, don't stress if it doesn't always go your way 😭 that's just gifmaking!
here's the final product!
and here's another example too, i know this one has a lot going on colour wise, so it can be good to look at it working on something with less bright colours:
as compared to before! before shows the gif was really smooth, as compared to in chappell's, were the lighting was just kind of messing with everything. you're more likely to come across videos that are that weird smooth quality, so i'd say that 7 times out of 10 you'll be applying these settings to something more along the lines of doechii's!
this is not the exact question but yk, good exuse for me to do an updated giffing tutorial!! so here's
PRINCEMICK'S 2025 GIFMAKING PROCESS!
for this you're going to need:
- OBS
- Adobe Photoshop
(doens't matter what version of the programs)
I'm gonna explain to you how to get a basic gif like this!
(with the 30 picture limit I'm going to ignore the colouring part for now, if you want to know my basic colouring process pls do tell and I'll make a separate post about that!)
this process is a 5 step process including:
- recording
- timeline
- shape and size
- sharpening
- exporting
step one: recording
I tend to screen record bc of live giffing and I prefer the control over frame rate so I use OBS. OBS itself is a pretty simple program, all you're gonna have to do is click on the plus in the sources panel
and click on display capture and here'e youre gonna have to select the screen you want to record and click on ok and thats it
then when you click on start recording it will record your screen. there are a few things you have to change when your obs is new in settings. in 'Output' you're gonna make sure your Recording Path is somewhere, you can find it back. all the other settings you can keep as they are they dont change much but these are the settings I use
then you're gonna go to video and you're gonna have a bunch of settings abt resulution, most of these dont need to change this should be auto linked to the settings on your monitor/screen. the only thing that I change and like is changing the fps values to 60.
step two: timeline!
now we've recorded smth and know where it's saved so we're gonna open Photoshop. when you open photoshop you can just drag your MP4 file on your home screen and your workspace is going to look something like this
then, what we're gonna do is look for the part were you want your gif to start and we're going to put our little slider on that part and cut it down to that like this.
next, we're going to click on the lil arrow at the end of our video file and change the speed percentage to 50%, this shows down the gif to a little bit slower then is natural which I prefer.
then, I make my gifs abt 2 seconds, this makes it long enough that it isnt to short but is also small enough for tumblr to be able to process it. the length of your gif you can see at the bottom of your timeline right there
I'm gonna turn this recording into three gifs so we're going to go back to our little arrow and change the duration to 6 and grab the little slider and slide it to our 02:00f marker. these sliders are the selection that you're going to be exporting.
step 3: shape and size
tumblr has a size limit and size preference. you can post gifs upto 10mb and it prefers pictures in 5:7 540 format. so to try and make the highest quality gifs we're gonna try and keep to those.
we're going to do that by clicking on our crop tool in our tool bar
your video should get those little selection lines, we're going to ignore those and go to the top of our workspace and click on the little ratio tab and click on the 5:7
when you do that your file should look like either of these. we're going to be making horizonal gifs so we're going to make sure the crop is like that, if it's not you can right click your crop and click on rotate crop box.
now, this might seem strange but we're just going to accept the crop and click on enter, even if its ugly we're going to fix that later. so your workspace should look something like this now
now we're going to to go image -> image size
when you click on this this space pops up
what we're going to do is stick to that 540 rule,we're working with a horizonal gif so we're going to change the width to 540, make sure that little link on the side is on
(if you're working on a vertical gif you change the height to 540)
now, your crop should've gotten much smaller and your timeline should now be purple. purple means your gif is now a smart object!
(you can manually zoom in or clic Ctrl + 0 for windows or Command + 0 for mac and it will instantly fill out your workspace)
NOW, you can move your crop around and zoom in/out by using Ctrl (command) + t to move it around to a crop you think looks nice.
step 4: sharpening
now we're going to move onto something that very much changes per person so if at any point of this you think my choices are ugly just move it around and change it to how you enjoy it but this is my sharpening!
what we're going to do is select our layer and go to filter -> sharpen -> smart sharpen
these are the smart sharpen settings I use for my first filter
then we're gonna go to filter -> blur -> gaussian blur and add these settings
then we're gonna go to filter -> noise -> add noise and use these settings
then we're gonna go to smart sharpen again and use these settings
then one last time we're gonna go to smart filter and use these settings
then your gif is gonna look like this!
step 5: exporting
now that we're done with out basic gif I tend to add a good few layers of colouring but bc of the picture limit I'm gonna skip that for now.
to export a gif we're gonna go to file -> export -> save for web (legacy)
aand these are the settings I tend to use.
and again, play around with these especially the top 3, they change with every selection you make and is very up to preference.
the important part is that the mb at the bottom of your workspace right here is under 10m
So, in the past year, I've been making gifs actively on this blog (admittedly as an escape from other things I should be doing lol) and though I had a three part tutorial on my process, it has changed quite a bit. I have learned new things, made other tutorials, and in the end, I believe that it is a good time for an update.
This is a general gifmaking tutorial. I managed to keep EVERYTHING within one part, which is huge for me, and I hope that it is still as intelligible as I wanted to make it come across, because I reached the 30 image limit p. fast.
I plan on deleting the original tutorials, so this will be the fixed tutorial from now on, and any updates (tutorials I make later on, etc) will be added to this post as links. I sincerely hope I NEVER have to redo this one, cause it's kind of a drag to write it all lol.
I also decided to screen capture myself making the gifs included in the tutorial, in case you just don't wanna read it.
Here's the video:
The SIENNA portion is a general gif making video and the L AND MISA portion is just me adding the subtitles, per what I show in the tutorial. No sharpening of the gif itself, just the text. The only things excluded from these videos are the capturing of the frames and the loading of them onto photoshop, so this is just the making of the gifs.
I have decided to leave the videos as they were (no cuts, no speed increase, just a super mario world song in the bg) because I wanted to showcase how long it takes for me to, realistically, make 1 gif (and how much I fumble and finesse them.)
Also, notice that these videos have no explanation and are just captures. You can use them as guides in case my explanation gets a little confusing, lol.
Making a gif from absolute scratch (how to capture frames included.)
Making two scenes (or two angles) work within 1 gif.
Subtitled gifs (and how I improved on that front.)
General tips.
Troubleshooting (a.k.a common gif mistakes and how to avoid them. This isn't about aesthetics, this is about the technical aspect, as I tried to keep my aesthetic opinions mostly to myself, only teaching you how to make the thing, so you can develop your personal style.)
I still make all my gifs using the KMPlayer, but sometimes the KMPlayer is not compatible with certain movies, so I also use the GOMPlayer. A problem I have noticed with the KMPlayer is that it sometimes desaturates your image, and therefore your gif. If you are someone who is adept to the vibrance coloring layer, like I am, this may not be a problem, but if you are not, then consider using only GOMPlayer, or other alternatives.
(Remember that the KMPlayer allows you to capture frames while the movie or show is paused, but the GOMPlayer doesn't, which to me is a huge deal breaker.)
Also, I originally recommended capturing PNG frames, but I have since then switched to JPEG, because I noticed that the difference in quality is minimal and it was lighter on my system. And while it is true that the ppi of the images captured is higher on KMPlayer than GOMPlayer, I frequently reopen my gifs on photoshop to alter the timing, which unfortunately damages the quality (making it go to 72 ppi.) That being said, I haven't, personally, seen a huge difference between the original gif and the altered-timing gif.
──── 𝐁𝐈𝐓𝐌𝐀𝐏 𝐆𝐈𝐅𝐒 (𝐚𝐤𝐚 𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫 𝐪𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐠𝐢𝐟𝐬):
Like I covered in my previous tutorial, you can also capture BITMAP frames. BITMAP frames are much lower resolution than the rest, but you can still make a gifset with it, and make it look good with coloring. For example, this semi-recent gifset I made of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, was made (erroneously, sorry) using BITMAP frames:
All in all, if you have a bad system, or a computer that isn't as powerful, you can still make gifs, you just need to finesse it a little more. I'll be going over this again later on, more in depth.
𝐏𝐇𝐎𝐓𝐎𝐒𝐇𝐎𝐏:
When it comes to Photoshop, you have to have one that allows you to have the timeline function. CS5 worked for me for years, 2020 also has it, and I'm assuming 2024 does too (but that one didn't work on my computer). I use Photoshop 2020. It doesn't really matter, because as long as you have a PS that has a timeline function, you can make gifsets.
𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒:
There are action packs that make the entire gif for you, if you look for them. I don't like them personally, as I think it's very roundabout and can lead to a lot of mistakes in the process, but if you don't wanna learn it (even though you're… here… for some reason,) look for an action pack.
Open your program of choice. I only know how to capture frames with the KMPlayer and GOM, and I'll be using the KMPlayer for this tutorial, so I'll be showing my KMPlayer Capture settings.
CTRL + G opens the KMPlayer capture window. These are my settings:
I'm Brazilian, so it's in Portuguese, but the numbers and settings don't change. Basically, all you have to do is alter the format to JPEG, make sure that you select the extration to be continuous (right there where it says "continuamente." The first option under the place you select JPEG.) Everything else is a factory setting.
Now, capture the scene you want. The KMPlayer is usually on your local disk, so after that, go to c:/KMPlayer (if applicable) and select the Capture folder (I usually have it on my fast access.) There, you'll find all your frames, which you can divide as you please. This is an example of how I do it:
('A' and 'B' are for alternative gifsets I already have the frames ready to go in. Within those folders, the frames are also divided into folders that are titled '1,' '2,' so on and so forth.)
If you don't have your timeline enabled, go on photoshop and hover over window (on the upper bar.) You'll see an option that says 'timeline,' right there at the bottom:
That's it. Timeline enabled, you're ready to load your frames. Going on the top bar again, select file> scripts> load files into stack, here:
Click on browse and there, load up the frames of the gif you wanna make at the moment. In my case, it's Sienna from Terrifier 2. I'll be using this gif also as an example of what to do to align angles in gifs. I'll get there later, though.
Once everything is open, your workspace should look more or less like this (with my apologies to Lauren LaVera):
Go to your timeline, click "create video timeline" and then select this option in the corner:
(blatantly using my first gifset tutorial's image here)
Now click here on the other corner and on "make frames from layers, to create the rest, like so:
(also, if you're wondering how I changed the color of my 'background' from gray to pink, just right click on the empty space beside the gif and choose 'custom color')
From here on out, everything will be done on the same window where you selected 'make frames from layers' on. Read it carefully, but know that the options you'll use the most will be (from top to bottom):
Select all frames.
Reverse frames.
Match layer across frames.
Convert to vídeo timeline.
(I'll also be showing you what to do with "copy frames" and "paste frames" later on, but for now, this is all you need to know.)
After you make your frames from layers, click on reverse frames. That way, your gif won't play backwards (as photoshop opens it in reverse.)
Now, this is usually the time when I set the frame delay, out of habit. To do so, select all frames, all you have to do is click on the seconds underneath your gif, and select other, like so:
The thing is that I always alter the frame delay after the gif is saved, because when I make gifs and save them for web, they always end up too slow (0,07 seconds) and not my preferred 0,05 to 0,06 seconds (and I don't know how to fix this in other ways.) So setting the frame delay here, at least for me, is more of a habit, though the last frame is always set to 5 seconds after the gif opens. This makes it impossible to play the gif, so you have to set the frame delay.
I, nowadays, usually set everything to 'no delay.' or '0,03.'
After this, I crop the gif. You can crop the gifs at any point of the process (before creating the frames, after the gif is done and you converted to smart object, etc.) but I like to do it here.
The way I crop the gifs is by using the pre-crop tool here:
So, the way the pre-crop tool works is that it will crop your image only in preparation for you to resize it. It will not resize the image for you, so your image will not be 540x405 (as it is in the example.) It will be ready to be resized to that height and width specifically, though.
Back in my day, it really mattered that your width/height were perfect, otherwise your gif would be blurry, but nowadays people use all sorts of heights for their gifs.
The ones I usually use are the following (for my big gifs):
540.
500.
405.
390.
505.
304.
(width is always 540 in my case, but I have experimentally made gifs even up to 800 in width (with 37 frames, so I could sharpen and grain it as much as I wanted) and they work just as well, looking sharp. This is all to say that I REALLY don't know how tumblr is managing their image size limitations. It seems to be on a trial and error basis, which makes sense as this is Tumblr.)
540 and 500 are the hardest to make work, because of the 10mb limitation. As I said, your gif needs to be smaller, and you can't sharpen it too much (so it works better on gifs that are made out of 1080 or 4K releases.)
405 is the most forgiving height, as it is one of tumblr's default expected heights (others being 540 and 304, for rectangular gifs.) You can almost always be assured that a 405x540 gif will be well under 10mb, so you can sharpen it as much as you want (and, sometimes, even add grain on a gif with 48-55 frames, which is a luxury.) Your gif will still be big enough that no major details will be lost, which is an added bonus.
As for the other heights, some quality can be lost (I mostly see it on 540x500 gifs,) and to fix that problem, I just oversharpen when possible.
For my small gifs, I pre-crop them the same way as I do when I make a big gif (so width of the crop tool being 540 and the height being whatever,) and then just resize the gif until the width is at 300p. You can also make regular big gifs and set them side by side without any quality loss, but tumblr itself will hitch and you might get complaints about your gifset crashing the editor, so I prefer to make them smaller in size. I don't often do this, though, so I am not an expert.
Ok, back to the original programming.
Once cropped to your heart's desire, you can do two things: Color your gif or resize it. The order here doesn't matter at all. For the sake of this tutorial, I'll be resizing my gif here.
Go on image>size, like so:
And upon clicking on it, you'll see the actual img. size window.
I have done all sorts of resizing experiments: Going from 1900 to 540 straight away, doing it in several increments (for example, in this case it would be from 1440 to 1000 to 800 to 600 to 540…) and nowadays my usual method is to size the gif down only three times. This preserves the image quality much better because resizing it to 540 right away might blur the image too much, to the point in which sharpening won't work) On the other hand, resizing it too many times makes it oversharpened when you get to the last step of the gif.
So, from here, I'll resize like this:
From 1440 to 1000.
Then 1000 to 800.
Then 800 to 540.
Sometimes a gif has a width of 1900 or 2000+. When that is the case, I go from 1900 to 1200. Then, 1200 to 800, then 800 to 540. 800 to 540 is usually the way I always do things. I know other gifmakers have other methods (esp. those who use 4K, which I don't cause I hate 4K releases, to me they are never worth it) so you can check other tutorials to see how they do it as well. All of my recent gifs (from the end of last year 'til now) have been resized this way.
Ok, gif resized! Now we can color it.
When it comes to coloring, I have a separate coloring tutorial here, detailing my method in a much more in depth way than I could here, and PSDs available here, for free, which you can peruse at your own leisure.
There are also countless other blogs that offer PSDs (several other resource blogs, my most used being @/chaoticresources since I was a teenager) and if you search for 'psd coloring' you'll find several yourself (just make sure they are Photoshop psds, not Photopea psds, as Photopea is the online version of Photoshop, which you can't make gifs on. It's genuinely hearbreaking, I know.)
My honest recommendation is that you play with the coloring settings yourself, though. To start coloring, go to Layers>New Adjustment Layers and then anything you want, like so:
Ok so, for this movie specifically, because it is already a color graded, bright movie (the last of its kind) I will only be doing a very basic psd, so three layers at most.
Once done with that, and because this is a basic gif with no subtitles, you are basically done. Go to your everything window and select 'select all frames.' After that, make sure that all layers underneath your coloring, on the layer window, are selected as well, like so:
Do not select anything else---not subtitles, and not any coloring layers---just the frames.
Now, go to the window again and select 'convert to video timeline.' Once that is done, go on Filter> Convert to Smart Filters, like so:
Once it's all converted to smart filters, we can start sharpening our gif. Because I don't do that myself, I usually use this action here.
But how do you install an action?
First, you go to Window> Actions (or click alt+F9) to make sure Photoshop shows the actions window. Then, you basically download the resource you want (doesn't have to be the one I use) and drag it from the downloads folder to this actions window. There it'll be ready to use.
To ACTUALLY use it, all you have to do is select the setting you want (in my case the 'soft sharpen' one) and press the play button here:
This will play the action for you, on top of the gif.
(this action pack comes with actions that make the entire gif for you from scratch. I don't use those ever, but some people like it.)
I personally use the 'soft sharpen' settings of this action pack for 98% of my gifs nowadays (it's a recent development, as it started in the last three months or so.) The main reason for this is that this action setting helps breathe a new life into shittier releases, soften the edges (so it doesn't have that ugly pixel border you have to manually crop---which I never did so some of my gifs (like here) have it,) and make sure mistakes done in resizing are sharpenable (not a word, but you get it.)
Before I save my gif, I always add another smart sharpen on top of the Action, at these settings:
Sometimes I oscillate between 120 and 150 (even going up to 200,) but it's also a trial and error thing I do.
The reason for this is that this action softens most releases TOO MUCH, making it blurry and dreamy. You can play around with settings, with action packs, with things you get from tumblr.
──── 𝐎𝐍 𝐀𝐃𝐃𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐍𝐎𝐈𝐒𝐄:
I add noise mostly to the gifs I make on my more elaborate edits, like here, here, and here. A lot of these gifs are very small in comparison to the canvas, like so:
Which means that the size of the gif is not super altered. The main things that affect gif size are: Amount of colors, sharpening, and noise, noise being the biggest gifsize killer (sometimes even 1 of noise is enough to tank a gif.)
I also add noise on my smaller gifs, because usually those are from worse releases, and noise can sometimes make it seem like the image is crispier (like in the aforementioned Death Note Misa gifs, those have 2 of noise added to them.)
I personally love getting away with adding noise, so I will try it a lot of the times (without success :/) I usually add the noise on top of all the other smart sharpen settings, BUT I can also sometimes add it in the middle, so the noise looks even more pronounced.
How do you add noise then? Simple, go here:
Then select how much you want it based on how you feel about it. Usually, anything over 3 in regular gifs is too much, but my Longlegs edit gifs had 5 or 6 added (those are special gifs, though.)
───── 𝐒𝐀𝐕𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐖𝐄𝐁:
Your gif is done, sharpened, noised, whatever it is you did! How do you save this now? Because I use the shortcut, I usually just hit CTRL+SHIFT+ALT+S automatically, but here's where you go to do it manually:
(I know this is a different gif, but bear with me, it's just an example photo)
Here is where you see your gif size, how many colors there are (up there, 256. You can alter this, but I'll go over it later.) These are the regular settings, I believe, but as it is here they are. All you have to do now is check to see if the gif is under 10mb and save if so. That's it.
Anyway, this is the general gist of how I do a very straightforward gif.
Now onto…
Now, the dreaded two angled gif. This gif we are working on is one of these, which is why it only had 25 frames originally.
The two angle thing I'm talking about is this: Sometimes, there are scenes where one character talks on the right and the other on the left, a classic cinema trope, but you still have to make it into a singular gif.
So, how do you make this work and be symmetrical at the same time?
Basically, you will first load one side of the gif, in this case Sienna looking at the fire, as one gif. Then you'll load the other scene (the fire) separately, as another gif. Now you'll have two gifs instead of one.
You'll then make these gifs (up until the coloring) separately. You'll crop them the way you want them to look (centered, at the preferred angle) and you'll join them (in the example video, I joined them before I resized them.)
Go to the second gif (chronologically) and select the 'Select All Frames' option. After that, click 'Copy Frames,' like so:
Then, go on your other gif, and click 'Paste Frames' on the same window. You'll be greeted with this (yes, it's a different gif, I had to improvise here):
Select 'Paste After Selection' (which is why it is important you do this chronologically,) and then your gif will be one continuous thing, at the exact angle you want. Remember that you cannot recrop it anymore now, so the gifs need to be perfect individually before being joined.
Another thing is that the coloring comes AFTER the pasting of the second gif, because otherwise the PSD gets buried in the new frames and it is sort of annoying to retrieve it from down there, so it's easier if you add it only afterwards.
Are there other ways of doing this? Yes. You can load the entire gif, then select the frames you want to transfer, copy them, open a new document with the width you want, transfer them to said new document (by creating video timeline and making frames from the singular layer of the new document, then pasting the frames OVER selection, not after,) resize them using the transformation tool, delete the frames on the original gif, and proceed as usual…
But this is a beginner tutorial and I didn't want to burden you with a harder, more roundabout way of doing things just because.
Anyway, here's the (full) gif we made (together!):
How do I add subtitles to my gifs? I'll be using a DN gif as an example for this.
Basically, do the gif as usual, all the way to the coloring, leaving it ready to save. Before you do, though, select the text tool (making sure that you are on frame 1 when you do this,) and draw a box on top of the gif like so:
(I use Arial Rounded MT Bold, but I have also used Arial Bold Italic for ages.)
Replace the Lorem Ipsum (that doesn't exist on PCS5, lol) with the text you want. In my case, it's 'hello!' Then, if you click on the 'fx' there at the bottom, like so:
You'll be taken to a little window. The only things you will use will be the stroke and the drop shadow. Once you click on stroke, you can choose how thick you want the contour outside of the letters to be. Mine is always at 1, and the color is '282828' or approx. (always a darkish gray, as it is a personal preference of mine.)
Now, for drop shadow, my settings are always changing. Here they are now:
But frequently I use no 'spread' and no 'size,' leaving it pure black and at a distance of 1 or 2.
Ok, after this, make sure the text is centered (again, always on frame 1 so your text will be the same in every single other frame. In case it is not, just go on the window where you do everything and click on 'Match Layer Across Frames' with the text selected in your layer box.) Convert to video timeline as usual, sharpen your gif, and then sharpen the text individually with other settings (converting it to smart filter in the proccess.) In this case, instead of it being 100+, 0.3, like the last sharpen I add over ALL of my gifs is, I use 32, 0.3, to make the text just SLIGHTLY sharper. It's not perfect, but it's what I've been doing. Different heights demand different sharpen settings, though. (For example, H: 405p usually demands a sharpening setting of 22 instead of 32, which I forgot for the example gif lol.)
Like everything else, play around with it and see how you feel about things.
Here's the gif, done:
Ok, so now the thing is that the 'hello' is there even when Misa's not talking. Now, in 2015 or so, it was common practice to make gifs with text only appearing when the character was talking (so the subtitle would spontaneously appear on top of the gif at the appointed frames where it was relevant for it to be there.) I personally don't like that, because it can make it confusing in systems where the gifs take longer to load (like mobile, for example,) buuuuuuut, here's how to do it.
Let's retrace our steps to when we just added the text, the drop shadow, and the stroke on top, making sure the text is centered, etc. Select the frames on the timeline where Misa is NOT talking. Then, click on the eye icon next to the text layer, like so:
Do the same for the other part of the gif where she is not talking, and then you'll have her text only when her mouth is moving. Here's the end result:
I think this is a very good example as to why people don't do this (but here is a very inept gifset I made of My Best Friend Is A Vampire that exemplifies it further.) Also, you can't sharpen text that is like this, only text that is the same across all frames, so your subtitles might be blurry.
Bad, imo, on all fronts.
MAKING GIFS (THAT ARE HUGE) WORK UNDER 10MB (somehow):
ALTERING AMOUNT OF COLORS:
Remember when I showed you the save for web window and showed you the color amount (by default, 256)? So, you can alter that. You can put any number you want from 0 to 256, and that way you can (easily) make the 10mb size drop---but your gif quality will suffer, so use it sporadically.
ALTERING THE AMOUNT OF FRAMES:
When altering the amount of colors is not enough, sometimes you have to hack at the gif. No other way around it. Go back and delete until you have 48 frames. 48, imo, is the golden number for this, because it's not a super short gif and not a super heavy gif.
GIFS USING BITMAP AS THE FRAME FORMAT:
Ok, so I wanted to talk about this here, after I taught you how to make a gif, to make it easier for you to understand what I'm explaining.
It'll be brief.
Basically, because BITMAP is so much lighter, older systems have an easier time grabbing frames. So, how do I make BITMAP gifs work?
First, you have to absolutely get the highest quality release possible (no 720p, nothing under 2GB…) Then, it's quite literally all in the coloring. You have to trial and error a lot to make sure the coloring doesn't fry the gif and make it look like it's a low quality film. Because a lot of the movies I like are either underground or not remastered properly (A Simple Wish, the Death Note movies, even Antiviral,) I have certain experience with having to create workarounds to make certain media work.
─── Tips I have in your case:
Gifs that are too brightened show the low bitrate. Alternatively, too much vibrance does the same. My 'L Change the WorLd' gifsets are a good example of me deliberately going against this rule, and frying the gifs a little bit (especially the subway scene here) (https://www.tumblr.com/theunmarkedtombstone/819474393317146624/l-change-the-world-2008)
Try to make it a little darker, a little more opaque. My 'Death Note: The Last Name' Misa Amane gifs are a good example of me following this better, especially the one in which she finds her parents killed. (https://theunmarkedtombstone.tumblr.com/post/819824228147822592/death-note-the-last-name-dir-shusuke-kaneko)
See if the gifs wouldn't behave better as 300p in width instead of 540p (or, alternatively, 304 in height, preserving the movie's natural aspect ratio, only resizing it.) I know we all want to make huge, lavish gifsets, but unfortunately the media we love isn't always up to speed (my Misa gifs are also a good example,) so we need to make do with what we have. This is a tip that is mostly geared towards low quality releases than BITMAP gifs, but it's good to see if you can get away with at least a smaller gifset. The vantage being that, at 268-300p (approx.) you can get more frames in and make more detailed gifsets.
Something else I have to say is that the action you use to sharpen can make or break your gif. The soft sharpen setting I use does save a lot of lower quality releases, and if you have smaller gifs, you can add noise to them. I love noise. It's up to you, though.
─── 𝐓𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐁𝐋𝐄𝐒𝐇𝐎𝐎𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐆 (aka common mistakes, and how to fix them):
─── Mistake 1:
I converted my gif into smart object, but it ended up not moving when I saved for web, being well under 10mb (usually 150k.)
Solution:
This is because you forgot to hit "convert to vídeo timeline" again before you converted it to smart filters. If you can still see the frames on the timeline as if you were still in the middle of making the gif after you turn it into smart object, you need to retrace a step. I used to do this one all the time, so I get it. The hastiness of it all.
─── Mistake 2:
My new edits need to be manually added on each frame of the gif, so I have to keep clicking "match layer across frames" every five seconds.
Solution:
You have to make sure that 'propagate frame 1,' is always selected, especially on Photoshop 2020 (where this matters the most, since in CS5 you have to do everything on frame one.) Propagate frame 1 is located above your layers on your layer tab.
─── Mistake 3:
Propagate frame 1 IS selected. I'm still facing the same problem as above.
Solution:
Make sure that, a little underneath "match layer across frames," the option "new layers visible in all frames" is also selected.
─── Mistake 4:
My entire gif is the same frame. I have no idea what happened.
Solution:
You probably clicked on the 'eye' icon next to any of the frames of your gif (the same I showed you on the subtitle portion of this tutorial,) which made only one frame visible. The only way to fix this is by CTRL+Z-ing your way until this isn't the case anymore (sorry :/)
─── Mistake 5:
There is a blank frame on my gif when I save for web, what do I do?
Solution:
Save, reopen, delete the ghost frame (but you'll lose that frame.) Alternatively, you can CTRL+Z all the way back if you want, but some edit choices cause a blank frame at the end, unfortunately. This is how I deal with them.
Ok, so this is it! Thanks for reading it so far. If you have any doubts whatsoever, feel free to send me an ask, I'm not realy cagey about my methods. These are gifs on tumblr.com the website and the app. And I want people to have fun with them.
See ya!
Would you ever be willing to do a gifmaking tutorial? Or do you have any that you followed when learning? :)
sure! I learned how to gif through tumblr tutorials, so it's only fair that I make my own. my gifmaking method might be kind of dated now, because I learned how to do it around 2016 (I think?) and then took a few years of hiatus from making gifs to focus on school, so there are probably better techniques out there that take advantage of new photoshop features I don’t know about. I also don’t use presets or actions, technically, even though those would probably save a little time and improve this process. overall I’d describe the way I make gifs as pretty lazy compared to what I see in other tutorials
under the read more, I'll briefly show how I get from the first gif to the second gif:
here's a list of programs/websites I use regularly:
photoshop
obs studio - for screen recording
cobalt tools - helps with downloading social media videos
ezgif file optimizer - keeps larger gifs under the tumblr file size limit
basic steps of my process:
capture a clip from the stream by screen recording with obs window capture setting — the higher quality, the better! this is crucial. it’s like how the taste of tea you brew depends on whether the water is good. you can add all of the cool flavors you want later, but the end result won’t be nice unless you have a good starting point
1b. extra info: usually I have the stream playing on my laptop as the game is happening, so I can just rewind espn+ and clip the relevant moment when I see it happen. I also like to have the game playing on a second screen so I don’t miss anything while I’m going back for the giffable moment
2. import video frames to layers and limit to every 2 frames
3. adjust frame timing — usually I double it (so 0.02 seconds becomes 0.04 seconds)
4 and 5. convert to timeline, then convert to smart object
^ this button converts the frames into a timeline that looks like this:
then you need to select the layers and convert them to a smart object:
this will leave you with a timeline that has one smart object layer:
6. crop and resize; when I crop I usually scroll through the timeline to find the highest and lowest points that need to be included in the gif, so I can make sure these aren’t cut off. so if a player is leaning down on the bench and sits up halfway through the clip, I’ll find the part where he sits up and make sure the cropped area includes his head
^ this step gets rid of extra bits of the window that was captured during screen recording
now I have something that would look like this without any further editing (except I skipped ahead and did step #9 to bring the file size down):
7. smart sharpen - everyone uses different settings for this, and you might adjust it based on the sharpness you already have in your source video
the new gif looks like this:
8. open reference psd with standard adjustments contained in a folder and drag that folder into the new gif’s psd — functionally this is similar to an action or a preset, but it’s just a folder of like twenty adjustment layers in a trench coat
my standard sharks psd looks like this:
I usually just drag the "sharks" folder into the new gif and then make adjustments as necessary. without any other changes, the new gif with the standard adjustment looks like this:
the colors are brighter than I want them to be, because this is an away game in an arena with different lighting. so I'll go in and hide one of my brightness layers (by clicking on the eye symbol, so it goes away):
now the gif looks like this:
I'm still not really happy with the coloring, so I'll use selective color and a little bit of vibrance and brightness to make adjustments on top of the existing layers. during this step, I'm just looking at the gif and making a judgment call about which colors need to be adjusted:
I could probably still make improvements here, but I think this is better than it was! so I'll keep going with this coloring.
9. cut gif so it begins and ends on specific frames. a lot of imported clips that become gifsets end up having multiple cuts to separate the individual gifs. I like to get all of the gifs ready in one psd to start with, because that makes the frame timing and crop/sizing consistent between gifs. once I’m finished, I’ll save copies of the psd for each additional gif with names like “gif 2, gif 3, gif 4,” open the new copies, and delete the parts of the timeline that don’t relate to the specific gif in the file name. I’ve updated this part of my process since I originally made this tutorial! I realized you can make an entire gifset in one psd file and just adjust the work area to export the specific frames for each individual gif.
it’s important to double check the work area of your timeline when you do this step so you don’t end up with blank space at the beginning or end of the exported gif
the button to cut the gif looks like this:
10. when you're ready to save the gif, go to file > export > save for web
the gif needs to be under 10M to be within tumblr's file size limits. if it's bigger, I sometimes try using the ezgif optimizer to bring down the size. I might also go back to step #9 and cut more frames off of the gif
a few notes on coloring:
this is the most fun part, and it’s where you can really develop your own style! I love when I see gifs on my dash and recognize who the gifmaker is before even looking at their username because there’s a distinct coloring style
there are lots of great coloring tutorials out there, and most of them take a slightly different approach. I’ll link a few below for reference so you can choose whichever one works the best for you! it’s really up to personal preference. when I’m coloring a gif from scratch, I usually start with a few basic layers (curves, brightness, vibrance) and then add extra adjustments depending on the colors in that specific gif:
@kitnita's tutorials here and here
I also did a quick google search for tutorials that seemed helpful for beginners: one, two, three
So you want to make gifs but have no idea where to start? I'm here to help!
In this guide I'll go over how to get videos, what software I use, the basics of gifmaking and editing, and how to post your sets to get the maximum interaction. This is an incredibly detailed guide that might all seem really intimidating but I promise with a little patience and practice you'll soon be making all the gifs you want!
A few things before I start:
Everything in this guide is based on my own style of gifmaking and what I personally use to make them. I will include some other options here and there but this guide will be primarily focused on what I do/use. Feel free to explore programs and styles to find what fits you best
I'm by no means a gifmaking expert. I still have lots to learn and I welcome imput from other gifmakers.
All gifmakers do things a little differently. There's no wrong way to make a gif. Feel free to experiment and find the ways that work best for you. This guide is just the ways that work best for me.
I wanted to add more photos to help illustrate my points but I am hindered by tumblr's stupid 30 image limit. Annoying
I'm happy to answer questions. If you're trying to make a gifset and get stuck and need help feel free to shoot me a message. If I can help, I will.
Table of Contents:
What you need
Getting your videos
Taking screencaps
Making the gif
Editing the gif
Saving the gif
Uploading gifset to tumblr
As this got very long it is all underneath the cut
1. What Do I Need?
There are three things you need to make gifs. You need a way to download videos, a screencapping software, and Photoshop (or an online program that's similar).
Video Downloader - There are several ways you can download your videos such as torrents, direct downloads from streaming sites, downloading using a computer program, downloading from a website using an browser extension, etc.
Torrenting. I dislike using torrents because my internet connection is unreliable and can't sustain a VPN and I can't afford to pay for a good VPN anyway so I don't use torrents. Torrenting is, however, the most popular way to download videos so that's definitely a good option if you have a quality internet connection and a good VPN
If you're like me and can't torrent, try online direct downloading. Some websites I use have a direct download button that can be pretty reliable but be wary as they can contain malware. Otherwise I use a third party extension/program to download a video directly from a website
I use the chrome browser extension Cococut to download videos off of streaming sites. I don't know if this is available on other browsers or not but I'm sure there are other video downloaders on them you can use too. Cococut downloads in high quality. It can be a bit slow but totally worth it in my opinion. Cococut also has a youtube downloader
Downloads programs are also an option.
4K Video Downloader is a good computer program option to download 4K youtube videos.
DVDs are also a great option
KMPlayer - a video player that will easily allow you to take consecutive screencaps
I love this video player because it plays a variety of formats like mp4, mkv, wmv, avi and more.
Free to download
Very easy to make screencaps with very few steps
Photoshop - I use Photoshop CC 2014 on a Windows laptop to make all my gifs.
You can get it directly from Adobe by paying for it or...
You can be like me and get it through a little 🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️
There are tons of links to download photoshop throughout tumblr. The one I used is no longer working but if you do a search on tumblr you can find links for a variety of versions like this post here or this blog.
It doesn't really matter what version you download so long as it has video timeline available.)
First of all, to make a good quality gif, you need a good quality video. Nothing less than 720p unless you really really can't find anything in higher quality. I prefer 1080p or higher but 720p is acceptable.
Note: MAKE SURE YOU HAVE AN ADBLOCKER WHEN DOWNLOADING FROM STREAMING SITES!!!
So where do I find videos?
DVDs
Dvds are always good if you already have what you want to gif in dvd. Check your local library if you don't. If you don't have a dvd of the video you need then you've got other options.
2. Torrents
Now I don't torrent so I can't speak to this much and I know the big torrent site is gone now. I'm not sure where the new places are. Torrenting is the easiest way to get super high quality videos to gif from and is the go to way for a lot of gifmakers. But it does require another program to use as well as the need to have a VPN.
To learn more about torrenting click here. or read this guide
3. Screen Recording
Screen recording is my last option to get my videos because it often results in lower quality, choppy, inconsistent videos if your internet isn't that great and that makes giffing harder. But if you can't download in any other way this is an option for you.
You can use VLC to record your screen. See this tutorial for that.
I use a browser extension called REC - high quality screen video Recorder which is super simple and does a pretty good job.
4. Direct Downloading
Your other option is to download from either youtube or a streaming site.
The streaming websites I use changes all the time as they get shut down (rip soap2day i miss you) but the ones I'm currently using (as of november 2023) are sflix.to, fmoviesz.to, goojara.to, bstsrs.one, and 123movies (literally lost the site that I use all the time while i typed this jeezus). Reddit is a good place to look for new sites if these aren't working for you.
Okay so my go to for downloading videos is either direct from the website or Cococut. Let me show how I do that.
Bstsrs.one is a websites that provides links to watch your episode/movie. Mixdrop is my favorite link to use because you can right click and save or use the download link provided safely. I've never had a problem with mixdrop
The other sites are streaming with a few server options to choose from. I tend to go to one of those and cococut to download the video.
So let's do this!
We'll go to sflix.to and I feel like making some Leverage gifs so we'll do a search for Leverage and find the episode I want. We'll go with The Tap Out Job (good ole beaten up Eliot)
Once you've chosen a server (the first one is usually just fine) and clicked the play button, click the cococut downloader extension button. A little window will pop up with options to choose. On the first link click the first button:
This will open the page for the downloader. Now you just have to wait for it to finish downloading. As you download you'll see a progress bar and a pause and resume button. When the download is done those two buttons will change to a green save button. Click that button to download the file to your computer
And tada! You've downloaded your video!
---------------------------------------------
3. Screencapping
So when using photoshop to make a gif you have two options which is either A) import video frames to layers which is when you upload a video and select the portion of the video which photoshop will then turn into frames for you or B) load files into stacks which is when you load screencap images of the scene you want to gif. In my opinion loading files into stacks/screencapping is so much easier. When you try importing a video and the video is huge it can be really really hard to narrow down the specific scene you want and then it can take forever to upload the frames. Screencapping makes it much easier to narrow your focus on just what you want to gif and doesn't take as long to upload.
So we are going to learn how to screencap our video.This is where KMPlayer comes in.
Open your video in KMPlayer and pause it while we get all of our settings ready.
Right click --> Capture --> Frame Extract (or you can hit Ctrl G for a shortcut)
This box is all your screencapping settings. Feel free to just imitate mine. Select your destination file where the screencaps will be saved, give a name to the individual files, make sure it's set to every frame and original size. I often use the "every # frame" option as well if I domt want every si gle frame giffed which can take up a lot of space. Feel free to do this option too just set the number to 2 and it'll take every other frame instead of every frame. There's really no difference in gif quality but I find it can be better for storage space and for uploading frames to photoshop.
Once all that is set up click outside the box to make that go away (Don't hit the close button cause then you'll have to start over when you open the box again) and find the location of the scene you want to cap keeping the video paused once you've found it. When you've got the video set to where you want to start capping reopen the box using Ctrl G and hit the start button. Then go ahead and start playing your video. Your box will go away when you hit play but it's okay it's taking the screen caps. You can open it at any time using CTRL G to see it. When you've reach the end of the scene you want giffed pause your video, reopen the box again, and hit the stop button.
Double check that it worked by opening up the file location
Congrats! You've just made screencaps!
---------------------------------------------
4. Making A Gif
There are few different programs you can use to make a gif. I will be going over how to use Photoshop because I think that's the best way to get a quality gif. However if you don't have photoshop and are uncomfortable downloading it I do have a few alternate websites you can take a look at.
Photopea is like a web version of photoshop and you can find a tutorial on how to make gifs on it here
ezgif.com, giphy.com, imgflip.com, and makeagif.com are all super easy to use gifmaking websites that let you use either a video or screencaps. The only thing about these sites are that they are very limited when it comes editing and there will be a watermark of the website somewhere on the gif. It decreases your quality a bit but all are are wonderful, quick, easy ways of getting started in gifmaking. I made my start with ezgifs before I got photoshop.
Now I use Photoshop CC 2014 to make all of my gifs so this guide is gonna focus on using that program.
Loading Screencaps
Open photoshop and select File --> Scripts --> Load files into stacks
2. Click "Browse" and navigate to the location your screencaps are saved in. Select all the frames you need and click open. I try to keep each gif between 30 and 80 frames. 50 would be ideal. Anything more than 80 increases your chances that the gif will be too large to upload to tumblr. Sometimes 80 is even pushing it depending on the coloring and editing layers. This is why I tend to cap every other frame. Helps keep it all in one gif. So shoot for around 50 images.
Click okay when you've got all your screencaps in the box
3. Wait for all the images to load. This can take some time depending on how many you've selected. You can see them all uploading in this box here
Turning Files into Frames
1. Next up we need to make this stack of images into something that will move. So click the button that says Create Frame Animation.
If your version of photoshop started in video timeline you'll need to switch it to frames first and then switch it back to video timeline. Let me show you how to do that just in case. Click the button of the timeline area on the left (circled in red) which will switch it to frame animation.
You could also use the drop down arrow next to the Create Video Timeline button and switch it to Create Frame Animation
Continue to the next step.
2. To get all our frames showing hit the menu button on the upper right corner of the timeline area which is the bottom portion of your screen (it's got a bunch of horizontal lines and is next to your layers box) and then click on Make Frames From Layers.
Now we can see all of our frames!
3. But uh oh! it's backwards! So click the menu button again and then click Reverse Frames to put everything back the right way
Much better
Setting Speed
1. Next up we are gonna set our speed. I always do this early because it's super important and doing it now is much easier than attempting to do it after we've edited the whole gif. Select the first frame then click the menu button and click Select All Frames
2. Next click on the drop down arrow on one of the frames. The one next to the "0 sec".
3. Select the Other option. Here you have a little leeway to do what you like best when it comes to the speed of the gif. I usually go with .1sec if I screencapped every other frame. The norm for a lot of gifmakers, especially if you've capped every frame, is either .05 or .07 secs. You can try all 3 and see how the speed works for you. To change the speed set the delay to either ".05", ".07", or ".1" and hit okay.
To see how the speed works click the play button. If you like your speed great. If not go ahead and repeat the previous step to try another. Try any number between 0.0 and 0.1 to find a speed you like. .05 is the closest to actual normal speed which is why so many of us use it but sometimes it just inst right. So trial and error it until you've found one you like.
Save your File
This is a great place to save your working file. This is important in case Photoshop crashes or something happens and you need to recover your file. Go to File --> Save As
Pick a location, give your file a name, make sure the file type is PSD and click save. Now your file is saved just in case.
Be sure to periodically go in and click File --> Save to keep your progress safe from Photoshop/Computer crashes! It will not auto save. You have to be sure to save it every once and a while.
Cropping and Resizing
Now it's time to resize our gif. Let's start with how to crop. Sometimes you'll have a gif that you want to cut down to reduce the amount of empty space or because there's black bars around it, or because you have a certain style in mind and need just part of the image. That's when we crop.
First thing to do is make sure you're using the select tool. That's the tool on the side that looks like a dotted line square box. Click and drag around the portion of your image you want to keep to mark where you want to crop your gif. Everything inside the dotted lines will be what gets kept. Everything outside is getting cut.
Be sure to check the whole gif to make sure you're not going to crop something important out. Don't hit the play button for this because then you'll lose the crop marks. Just select various individual frames to look.
When you are satisfied go to Image --> Crop and your gif will be cut down to your outline.
Now our gif is still huge and tumblr won't like that. In fact, tumblr has very specific dimensions when it comes to photosets that will maintain the quality of the image. These are the current dimensions to follow.
These numbers are the width of the individual images. The height does not matter. You can have any heigt you'd like. So for one image the width is 540px. For two images next to one another each gif would be 268px wide. Three images are each 177px wide. Of course you can have every single image 540px wide if you'd like. That's what I do. Then each gif is big and can be enlarged if you click on it. Just try not to go over 540px wide.
It is important to note that if you're going to put two or three images next to each other, make sure they are the same dimensions as each other. Otherwise tumblr will crop the larger image in the preview to match the smaller one and we don't want that. So keep the gifs the same size
Okay so to resize your gif to fit tumblr's dimensions click Image --> Image Size and this box will open.
Make sure that little chain link to the left of "width" and "height" is selected. That keeps the proportions of your image. If you only change one size it'll automatically change the other to match the current proportions if that is selected. We want that.
Make sure the box next to the "width" and "length" numbers is on "Pixels" and nothing else. That's important.
Change your width to 540 pixels and click okay.
Turn Frames into Animation
All right our gif has now been resized. This next step will prepare it for editing. We need to turn our frames into a video timeline. Timeline mode allows us to easily sharpen and add adjustment layers to our gif. It also makes it easier to add text and gives a lot more freedom to decide when things like text and certain coloring editing layers show up. Timeline mode gives us a lot of versatility and saves time which I love.
Click the button on the bottom left of the timeline. Just under the first frame. This will turn it into a video timeline for us.
Next up we need to turn all of our layers into a smart object so that our edits will affect every layer. To do this click Select-->All Layers then click Filter-->Convert for Smart Filters. Click okay if another window pops up.
Don't skip this step! It's very important to ensure all the future editing works properly!
This is where we can really get creative and which I find to be both the most fun and frustrating part of gifmaking. Editing!
Sharpening
First step is to make our gif a bit more sharp. I know a lot of people use Smart Sharpen here but I have not quite gotten the hang of that myself so I stick with the preset Sharpen. It's not failed me yet and does a good job at sharpening my image for me with no work on my end. So go to Filter-->Sharpen-->Sharpen
Next I like to add a little bit of Surface Blur. To me, this just smooths out the gif a little bit and I like the look. You can skip this one if you like.
Coloring
This is the hardest part of gifmaking in my opinion. But it's also the most creative part. Coloring. For this we are going to utilize the adjustment layers. There's tons of different options here to adjust brightness, colors, and more. The adjustment layers can be found under Layer---> New Adjustment Layer. Or in the quick box on the right hand side of the screen under the Adjustments tab. Hover over each symbol to see which one is which.
The very first thing I do is to brighten up my gif because every scene is always so darn dark and dingy. So let's brighten it up.
Next I use the Curves layer. The curves layer will allow you to isolate the white point and black point (what you want to be the darkest and lightest values).
Start with the Exposure layer. Go under Layer ---> New Adjustment Layer ---> Exposure (repeat for all other adjustment layers). Or you can use the shortcuts in the block to the right under the Adjustments tab. Use the sliders and just a tiny bit up the exposure so it makes everything a bit brighter.
Click on the eyedropper on the left. The bottom one is your white point, the top one is for the dark point. I usually start with the white point. Once you've clicked the white point eyedropper click on the brightest part of you image. In this case I chose the white spot on the ice pack. Next click the black eyedropper and then click on the darkest part of your image. I chose the part of Eliot's hair right next to the left side of his face.
The next adjustment layer I do is the Levels layer. This is also to brighten my gif. This one just takes some experimenting so slide the little arrows until you like how it all looks. It's gonna be different with each gif you make.
After this I add a layer of Brightness/Contrast. I don't always need more brightness but I tend to at least add a little bit of brightness. Then I add always add some contrast to darken the darks a little more and even out the coloring some.
Next up is the adjustments in the colors. I always like to add a Vibrance layer to make my colors really pop. But the downside is it also brings out colors I do not want to pop. That's when I add a Selective Colors layer.
Selective Colors allows you to adjust specific colors in your image. The idea behind selective color is that each color has its counterpart: cyan-red, magenta-green, yellow-blue. Adjusting them will help isolate certain colors in your image. In this case I want to reduce the red in Eliots face so I'm gonna go to the Red section and adjust those settings. Add as many layers for as many colors as you'd like to get the result you want. Also, doing them in separate layers helps if you need to go find the layer and make changes.
Finally I added a layer of Color Balance. This lets me adjust the colors in the highlights, midtones, and shadows. With a little experimenting you can smooth out or completely change the colors in your gif. It's really useful.
Once your done coloring select all your adjustment layers and add them into a folder. This is also a step you can skip but it makes it easier to copy all your coloring if you want to replicate it in another gif. To do this hold down Ctrl and click on each layer. Then click the little folder button at the bottom of the screen. I have it circled in this image. After you click the folder all your adjustment layers you've selected will be grouped together and look like this:
Text/Subtitles
So your gif is looking beautiful but what do you do of you want to add some dialogue or other text to you gif? I can help!
Click on the text box (the one on the left side that looks like an T) and drag the dotted lines in the area you want your text to be.
Typey type everything you want
Font, size, color can all be chosen in the circled areas below. Just highlight the text and change your font type, size and color to fit your liking. My go to font when I'm making subtitles for a 540px gif is Calibri Italic and I go with a size between 18 to 21.
Once your satisfied with the text, the size, the color, the placement and all that double click on the text layer in your layer box on the right hand side of the screen (circled in red in the image above). Make sure you are double clicking in the blank space and not in the text area of the box. You want this box to open:
Check the box next Stroke and match my settings. This will put an outline around your lettering and make it pop a bit which in turn makes it easier to read. Click okay.
Make sure your text layer lines up with your gif layer in the timeline. So you're going to see this:
Your gif layer is the very bottom layer. The editing layers, all grouped together, is above that. The text layer(s) are at the top. Double check that all the layers are the same length and that your text layers aren't going past your gif layer. If you only want the text to show up for part of the gif you can control the length of the layer on the timeline. Just grab one of the ends and move it to your start and end points. For example, if I only wanted one of my text boxes to show up in the middle of the gif I would move both sides until it looked like this:
Another good thing to know about timeline mode: There are two brackets, one on either side of the layers, that tell you this is the beginning and the end of the gif. Anything outside of that will not show up when you save the gif. You can move those to cut your gif rather than trying to cut frames. You can also move those to cut off hanging portions of your text.
One final note for adding text, in your layers section on the far right side of your screen, put the Text Layer at top of all your other layers so it's unaffected by your coloring edits. Just click and drag it up to the top.
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6. Saving the Gif
Exporting Gif
Now you're ready to save all your hard work!! Congrats!
Go to File-->Save for Web
A new window will pop up. The first thing you should do is check the size of your gif. Tumblr images cannot be over 10mbs. So check to make sure that size is less than that. That can be found on the left hand side just below the image of your gif. I've circled it in read in the next image.
If your gif is too big (bigger than 10mb) there are a few things you can do. You can get ride of a few frames by move the beginning/ending brackets in the timeline. That usually does it. If you absolutely have to, you can resize the gif down but I don't recommend this because once you get out of the 540px things in the photoset get funky. But it is an option if you need it. You could also crop your image some.
The next important thing to make sure you do is to ensure that your gif loops forever. In the bottom right, circled in red, you'll see looping options. It's going to be set to once. We don't want that. Click it and change it to Forever so your gif never ends.
Also make sure you are set to "gif" rather than a jpg, png, or wbmp. We want gif. See the final red circle at the top for where that is.
Feel free to copy my settings here. I tend to keep it at Adaptive and Diffusion and no dither.
You can click the play button beneath the looping options to check the final version of your gif. Make sure everything runs smoothly, the text (if you added any) is visible when you want it to be visible, and that the end isn't blank or anything weird. If you have any problems just hit cancel and go back and fix things.
Once that's all done click save, choose your save destination, and give your new gif a name!
Congratulations! You've just made a gif!!! WOO!!
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7. Uploading a Gifset on Tumblr
Okay now that we've got our gif (or gifs) we are ready to upload them to tumblr!
Select the photo icon, click the upload from computer, find and select your gif(s).
Wait until they're all loaded then click, hold, and drag your gifs so they're in the right order for your photoset whether that's all stack on top of one another or side by side. This can be tricky because tumblr sucks and changed things so now the post box jumps around as you try and move images. Just be patient and move slow and pay attention to where you are in the post. Or you could upload each gif one at a time.
Don't forget to add a caption! The caption is the perfect place to put what it is we're seeing. You can add a quote or a description but be sure to add the name of the TV Show and the episode or the Movie title so everyone can easily see what this is from.
TAGS
Tags are so so important because without them no one will ever see your beautiful work. Tumblr pays attention to the first 20 tags so these are the most important when it comes to visibility. The best things to add for tags are the general fandom and character tags, edit tags (like marveledit or whumpedit), source blog tags, user tags, and trigger tags.
Next add your trigger tags/trope tags. This is important for the whump community because we gif a lot of things that can be very triggering for people so it's vital we tag for it so people can block it if need be. When in doubt if you should tag it for a specific trope, tag it.
For example if I was posting a whump gifset since I am a whump focused blog I'd first add the two main tags for whump gifsets. Those are #whump (our gen tag) and #whumpedit (our community tag for art/gifsets/edits/videos). The whumpedit tag is so important because this tag is specifically for whump visual art and other edits. The #whump tag is important because who do not like whump will block that tag so be sure it's in there so people can easily avoid triggers.
After those tags add your fandom and character tags. So for this gif I'd add #Leverage and #Eliot Spencer. You can also add the edit tags for your fandom so I could then add #leverageedit and #eliotspenceredit. Please don't forget the fandom tags! Not only does it help people know what the gif content is actually from so they can find it for themselves if they'd like to watch it but it will then add it to the fandom tags so people looking for content from this show/movie will see it. Increases your audience because people are more likely to search for a name than an edit tag or user tag.
Other things you can add in the tags are user tags and blog tags. A lot of big gifmaking/source blogs track a specific tag. They then go into that tag and see everything people made and can then reblog it. So feel free to tag your favorite blogs that you think will like your post. For example, I track the tag #aceofwhump. If you want to add that tag there's a chance I'll give it a reblog and reblogs are great for visibility.
So in posting this gif I would tag it as the following:
That's about it! Now you're equipped to make all the gifs could ever want! Go forth and have fun and if you run into any trouble or have any questions, my inbox is always open 😊
By popular demand (ie, 7 people who voted in this poll), here is a tutorial on how to do the glass shatter effect I used to create the first gif in this set.
I use Photoshop CC 2015 (yes I know it's old) for my gifmaking, but you should be able to apply everything to newer versions of Photoshop. For this tutorial I'll be assuming you know the gifmaking basics, but if not, I would recommend this tutorial, which is the process I use to make gifs. Note that this particular process involves saving all of the frames, importing those frames into Photoshop, and then using an action to convert to a smart object.
Keep reading below the cut to learn how to do this effect!
Before I could start making this gif, I needed three things; the two scenes that I wanted to use, and a video of the glass shattering effect. I already knew the scenes I wanted, so then I took to YouTube to find a video which I can't for the life of me find again (edit: thanks to add1ctedt0you in the replies for linking this video!), but it looked like this:
Something like this is what you want. Ideally the green part would be entirely white, but as long as there are two clearly different colours you can usually work with it.
This looks a lot slower than the gif that I made, but that's not because of the frame rate - which is exactly the same above as in the final gif - it's just because there are extra frames in this slower one that I cut out. In the video I used, the glass shattering happened very slowly. I didn't want that, so I ended up skipping several frames when I loaded the frames into Photoshop before using my gifmaking action. I just did this by manually selecting one frame, skipping the next several before selecting another frame, and repeating this until I had selected 60 frames.
After using my gif action, I had a smart object of the glass shatter effect that looked like this:
That's a much better speed! It still wasn't quite where I needed it to be though. I needed this in black and white, so I slapped a hue/saturation adjustment on the smart object and set the saturation all the way down to -100.
Okay great, I could start putting the gif together now.
First, I made a copy of the glass shatter smart object, because I'll need that later. Then, I pulled in frames from the scene that I wanted to appear in the hole after the glass shatters, and I used those to create a new smart object with my gif action (we'll call it Scene-bg). I pulled Scene-bg into the same window as the glass shatter objects. Then I created a new smart object by combining one of the glass shatter objects with Scene-bg, which I did by selecting both layers right clicking, and selecting "Convert to Smart Object".
I renamed this smart object to Shatter-fg. I opened it by clicking on the little icon next to the layer name in the layers window here:
The most important thing here is that the shatter effect object should be the top layer, and I set the mode to "lighten". This will make sure that the lightest colour of either this layer and the layer behind it is displayed; that means that anywhere that's white in our shatter animation will still show up, but anywhere that's black we'll see what's in the layer(s) behind it.
Then I threw some adjustment layers between them to get the colouring I wanted. I used a curves layer, a hue/saturation layer, and I also added text with an outer glow layer effect. Here's what the layer order looked like and the settings I used for each layer:
After this process, Shatter-fg looked like this:
Okay nice, this is starting to look like something! I saved this and went back to the main file with the other glass shatter object.
I needed to invert that other glass shatter object. There's a weird quirk with the version of Photoshop that I use where it doesn't like it when I apply specifically an invert adjustment to a smart object (it appears correctly when editing, but not on export) so I did this by creating a new smart object which included a separate invert layer, but if you have a newer version of Photoshop you can probably just apply the invert adjustment directly. Just note that you'll need to do one of these options; it won't work if you add a separate adjustment layer in the main file, it needs to be applied specifically to the smart object (which we'll now be calling Shatter-bg). It looked like this after I inverted it:
Once that's done, I made sure Shatter-fg was the layer directly above Shatter-bg, and set the mode of Shatter-fg to "darken" and Shatter-bg to "lighten". Since Shatter-fg is set to darken, it will be visible only when it is darker than the layer behind it. By setting Shatter-bg to lighten, I've guaranteed that the layer behind it will always be lighter (ie, white) in the places we want Shatter-fg to be visible, and will be black otherwise. Once I update those settings, this is what the gif looked like:
This is all there is to the glass shatter effect itself. Next I pulled in frames from the second scene to fill in the black areas. This layer needed to go below both glass shatter layers, so that it only shows through where the black. Then I added adjustment layers and some text. I used curves, hue/saturation, and vibrance adjustment layers, and I also added the "archer" text below the glass shatter layers so that it would be hidden to reveal the "prey" text. The other text I added above all of the layers, since I wanted this to be visible all the time. Here is the layer order and all of the settings I used for each of the layers:
I also grouped Shatter-bg and Shatter-fg and shifted them on the timeline so there would be some time to see the background gif before the shatter effect starts.
And that's all! Then it''s just a matter of exporting the finished product:
This is the first gifmaking tutorial I've ever made, so I hope I was able to be reasonably coherent and helpful! I'd love to hear if you make anything by following these steps, or even if you just feel like you've learned something reading through this. And if you have any outstanding questions, feel free to reply or send me an ask and I'd be happy to answer!
ok here’s a quick tutorial how to split text on two gifs like I did in this gifset:
fellas, it’s suuuper easy. read below:
So, you make two separate gifs, but obviously make sure they are equal on number of frames and frames delay (sorry I made this tut with whatever was in my drafts))
Its 35 frames each with 0,05 delay here.
Convert them both to timeline.
Then you go to the canvas size of your first gif (the one you want to be the upper one in the gifset) and set the height of the canvas double of your gifs size + 5px.
Both my gifs are 400 px height, so I set it 800 + 5px (distance between big images in the gifset) = 805 and clicked the upper arrow in the anchor to place the gif on top of the canvas:
...and voila!
Now you copy your second gif on here:
...and move it down the canvas with ctrl+T tool. Make sure bottom edge of the second gif hits the bottom edge of the canvas, of course! Like this:
Pew-pew! now we have two gifs on the same canvas with a 5px empty space between them. see?
Now add your colouring/sharpening... whatever your prefer to do in your gifmaking process)) I usually add my colouring before placing the text, and sharpen everything in the end, so here:
And now we add the text as a top layer and do whatever we wanna do with it (idk, set opacity or choose blending mode, or color, or whatever you choose to do)). mine here is just plain white
Then sharpen your gifs (if you haven’t already) and...
just pick a crop tool and set it to the original gifs size (540 x 400 here). and crop!
first gif first - crop it to original size and save it.
then redo back to two gifs on one canvas and crop the second one!
