My CC creation has been stalled for the past year or so, due to many, many failed attempts to get my old Photoshop CS6 to work on Linux. Thanks to a little tip from @fracturedmoonlight I decided to check out GIMP, and it's... surprisingly easier to wrap my head around? So, now I have to redo my CC hoard, what better time to go on a hair recolour spree?
Only problem is, most Photoshop hair actions I love don't have GIMP curve equivalents. What's a simmer to do? Mess around with all the settings until I find a workaround, of course!
In case it helps someone else, I'm sharing it with the community. To follow this tutorial, you'll need: GIMP, including G'MIC-Qt filter options; a swatch of the hair action you want to use; and a texture base.
Here I've opened two Volatile bases of different hair textures. I'll be using actions by @berrynooboos for this tutorial: Nebula and Firestarter, which I made swatches of with Photoshop before my Linux switch.
Now, with one of those bases active, I'm going to open one of the swatches as a layer by pressing Ctrl+Alt+O:
Browse to your swatch and select it. If it asks about the built-in colour profile, I usually choose "keep." And here's the Nebula swatch on top of the base texture:
Now go to the Filters menu. Right at the bottom, I can see G'MIC-Qt as an option. Select it.
This opens up a second window, where you'll see lots of filter types. Select "Colours." Scroll down until you see "Transfer Colours (histogram)" and select that.
Because the swatch was opened on top of the base texture, choose to use the top layer as the reference.
Click Apply, then OK. Delete your swatch layer - you don't need it until you recolour another base. And hey presto, you have a Nebula recolour of your hair texture:
I chose this swatch because it has a high contrast between roots and highlights. Here's how the same two textures look if I use Firestarter:
And there you have it! I wasn't sure if this is common knowledge among TS2 hair recolourists, so I hope it helps someone! (Yes, there will probably be hair uploads. I also managed to frankenmesh an outfit, so be prepared for a few CC megasets!)
I'm jumping off of @dalishious's Gaming GIF Tutorial (2025) post, which helped me immensely with my own gif making journey. If you have access to Photoshop, consider using their tutorial instead of mine! Mine will cover what to do if you only have access to GIMP.
STEP ONE: Video Capture
Follow Dalishious' tutorial if you want to know the best tools to use & how to get cool camera angles in cutscenes.
I personally don't do anything fancy. I use the video capture tool available through NVIDIA overlay and just record cutscenes as they play.
STEP TWO: Capturing Your Frames
Download PotPlayer so that you can use its Consecutive Image Capturer feature.
Open your video through PotPlayer and hit CTRL + G to open the tool. A few things to note before you begin:
Storage: create a new folder where you want the images to be saved. I like to make subfolders too if I'm making multiple gifs at the same time.
Numbers to Capture: How many images this tool will capture before automatically stopping. I like to make it a high number and cut excess photos manually
Every # Frame: I usually go 1-2 depending on the game. If you make this number too high, the gif won't be as smooth
Capturing your frames:
Go to the part of the video you want to capture. I like to start a little ahead of what I want, to ensure I get everything. Hit Start on the Image Capturer tool and then hit Play on the video. Once you have what you want, hit Pause on the video, and then hit Stop on the tool.
Next, go to where you saved the frames and cut any of the excess. I personally like to have 50 frames/gif, but will give myself leeway of +30/-30 depending on the scene. If you're making several gifs at the same time, move these frames to their subfolder before capturing your next frames.
STEP THREE: Editing in GIMP
Opening them in GIMP:
Once you have all your frames, you're ready to open them in GIMP!
Click File -> Open as Layers... -> go to where you saved your frames and select them all
If you're making more than one gif, click File -> New... -> repeat the same steps as above. Repeat until all your gifs have their own tabs.
Cropping:
You don't have to, but I like to crop all my scenes, usually by making the width and/or length a multiple of 10.
If I'm making more than one gif of the same scene, I also like to note the Position and will use the same position on all the others. It keeps your subject squarely in the center of frame, and makes it look better when clicking from one gif to the next.
If you're unsure whether your crop job will look good, you can always test to see what your gif will look like by clicking Filters -> Animation -> Playback... (note that it may take a while for this to load depending on how big your gif will be. Don't panic if it looks like GIMP has stopped working!). Hit play on the top left to see how the gif will run.
Once you're satisfied, it's time to....
Recolour:
My favourite bit! Time to go crazy!
Right click anywhere on your screen to see the Colors menu:
I'm not going to outline my own recolour process in detail. Not because it's my Super Secret Sauce, but because I do something different each time I make my gifs.
Some good tips, though, are:
Color Balance is your friend. Especially if you want to get rid of excess colours on your gif (i.e. if it's washed out in too much green, red, etc.)
Saturation can really make a gif pop
Curves for making the gif brighter
Exposure: I like to increase the black level a bit, and then add another layer where I decrease the black level. It helps make the gif size smaller because it makes all almost-blacks black, and also just makes the gifs look cooler imo. Below is an example of what I'm trying to convey:
Original -> Black Level Up -> Black Level Down
Okay. Here's the not so fun part....
Every time you make a change to the colour, you have to make that change to every frame underneath. Your recolour only affects one layer at a time.
You have to go down all the frames pressing CTRL + F to add each recolour to each frame. If anyone has a better way to do this, please please tell me!
If you have lots of frames, lots of recolours, and/or lots of gifs, this step will take a while.
Adding Subtitles or Additional Layers
I hate making subtitles, so I can't help you with the best font to use (if someone could tell me what the best font is, please do!). But if you want to brave those waters, click Layers -> New Layer...
Add your subtitles/gradient/whatever you want to the layer. Edit that layer as you see fit. Some tips for subtitles is to add a drop shadow and black outline to the words.
Once finished, you then use CTRL + Shift + D to duplicate the layer. Duplicate enough layers to cover each frame. They should be sitting above each respective frame.
I've changed my keybindings for this part. I used this site to learn GIMP keybindings & how to change them.
You need to Merge Visible Layers. Click on the layer you created and use CTRL + M (I changed this keybinding to numb. pad 2). Merge the rest of the layers that you created.
Sharpen
You're almost done!
Go to Filters -> Enhance -> Sharpen (Unsharp Mask) and just play around with Radius & Amount until it looks good. It's okay to over-sharpen a bit, because the gif might lose some quality after you upload it.
Same with recolours, you have to CTRL + F each frame.
Before sharpen -> After sharpen
Saving your GIF
Now all you need to do is click Image -> Scale Image and make the width 540px. Tumblr won't allow gifs any larger than that (if this has been updated, pls tell me lol)
Next, click File -> Export As... -> name your file (I usually just number mine..) but use the extension .webp ->
Yes folks, you've heard it here. I've been lying to you this whole time. We're not making gifs. We're making dreaded WEBPs. Oh the horror! (you can save them as .gif but the quality will be shit. I warned you.)
After renaming, click Export. A little popup will appear. Click As Animation and change the delay between frames.
For DA:V, if I've captured every 2nd frame from Potplayer, I like to have my delay be 80 milliseconds. It slows my gif down a bit, but it remains smooth enough. Nice for catching small details.
And that's it! You've made your not-gif(s)!
@maagisterpavus and @in-the-drowning-deep have expressed interest in something like this, so I'm tagging the two of you to ensure you see this!
Hi! So I thought I would make a tutorial on how I personally make my animated stamps in GIMP! With images to help!
Firstly, have your stamp base, I use old stamp templates I found or from my own stamps. Then you want to add your gif as a layer.
Once you've opened it as a layer, all the gif layers will appear! You want to first resize the background layer by scaling the layer.
This stamp has an interior width and height of 95x50 pixels, so I make sure to scale the layer to fit. Make sure width and height aren't linked because not all gifs will fit that size naturally.
Then it is very important to merge the background layer with the stamp template layer, this way when you make the gif it looks like a stamp!
Once that's done scale all your other layers to the same width and height so that they too will fit in the stamp! Then what you want to do once that is finished is to open filter > animation > optimise (for gif).
Then once you've done that you can click playback to see if the gif is all right!
Once that's done it is time to export it by going export as, now I always have to change my file to a .gif type in order for it to work. Once you've done that hit export.
Then it will show a pop up window, it is very important you hit check on animation! Otherwise it won't work!
Once that is done, you can now hit the final export and your gif stamp will be made! See my final product below!
"These tips are for GIMP, but I have been learning from tutorials for PS as well, and have been applying them in GIMP. I found these two programs to be quite interchangeable, which makes sense, because GIMP was made as a free alternative for PS."
Alternative title: how to use SVGs as paths in GIMP ▬ by Joy from @creativexspirit
Though I recently created a template for text messages, I didn't like how versatile it wasn't so, here's a little tutorial on how to create your own text messages for Gimp. This tutorial is meant to explore the Path tool a little.
This tutorial is made with Gimp 2.10.38. It uses a SVG I created just for that tutorial: [LINK]
Like or reblog if you download. Please don’t request as your own, respect my work. Don’t hesitate to tag me if you follow the tutorial! I would love to see your edits. If you have any question, my askbox is open.
Quick disclaimer: the following images are for a French Gimp version.
STEP 01.
Create or open the XCF project you want the text message in. You will now import the SVG as a path.
If you don't already, have the path window open. You can find it in Windows > Dockable Dialogs > Paths. On my Gimp, as I am in single-window mode, the Paths dialog window is automatically docked to the Layers-Undo dock as a tab.
On the Paths dialog tab, open the Paths menu and import the SVG by selection "Import a path".
If you've done everything correctly, you should see a new path named "Text Message" in your Paths tab!
STEP 02.
Now, you can modify the path with different tools according to your needs: transform, scale, rotate, flip... Just make sure you always choose the Path to be transformed!
You can select whether to transform a layer, a selection or a path on the tool options.
STEP 03.
After transform, it's now time to actually have a text message. You'll start by creating a new layer that will have the background color on it. I called mine "Text Message BG".
You will now go back to the Paths tab and create a selection from the path, by selecting the Text Message path and then choose in the Path options "Path to Selection". There is also a shortcut button at the bottom of the Paths tab.
Now, you will see the selection is only a border. You will need to add the inside rectangle to the selection.
You can do so by selecting the Rectangle option and putting it in "Add to Selection" mode. (You can also be in "Add to Selection" mode by pressing Shift while doing the rectangle.)
Now, you can fill your selection with a color! (Don't forget to change your foreground color with the one you want to fill prior to doing the fill!)
You know have a background for your text message!
STEP 04.
We will now add text. You might be wondering why in this SVG file there is an inner rectangle. It is actually meant to serve as a guide for your textbox and still have some padding.
To use the inner rectangle of the path as a guide, you have to toggle Paths as a guide. To do so, check the box in Display > Align on active path.
Now you can select the Text tool and create your textbox while following the inner rectangle. You should be able to feel that the textbox will naturally clip to the edges of the path.
Now customize your text as you want and you're finished!
Read more to learn how to make this text + image glitch effect on GIMP!
Things you need:
GIMP
Import your image and resize it to your liking. I'll be using this.
2. Then I'll pick a gradient color. The FG will be black (or the darker color) and the BG color will be the lighter color. Go to Colors > Map > Gradient Map and it will apply the gradient map on the image.
3. Create a text layer. RIght click on the layer in the layers tab and pick "Layer to Image Size". Use the rectangle select tool to select the top half of the text.
4. Go to Filters > Distorts > Ripple and use these values. Feel free to play around with the sliders to your liking. Hit OK and the Ctrl + Shift + A to deselect.
5. Copy and paste the text layer 2 times.
6. On the second layer from the top, go to Colors > Colorify and pick a cyan color.
On the first layer, do the same but pick a pastel red/peach color.
7. Use the move tool to move one of them a few pixels to the left and the other a few pixels to the right.
8. Move the initial text layer to the top.
9. You can also add some TV glitch overlays if you want to.
