first of all: sorry, i’m not good explaining things.
what you’ll need:
photoshop (i’m using cs6);
basic knowledge about using photoshop and how to make gifs.
please like or reblog if you find this tutorial useful
p.s.: english isn’t my first language so sorry for any mistakes.
LEVELS: the first thing i usually do is work with levels. i think they are simple and easier then curves, ‘cause it will brighten or darken the whole gif, not just specific parts.
RESULT:
SELECTIVE COLOR: i add a selective color layer to give more life to the colors.
RESULT:
HUE/SATURATION: now i increase the reds and decrease the yellows
RESULT:
COLOR BALANCE: the gif looks too red, so we’re making it look more natural. in shadows, i go for the blues and cyans, ‘cause i want to cancel the red tones at the background and shadows. for the midtones, i increase the reds and decrease the yellows, so we don’t lose the skin color
RESULT:
GRADIENT MAP: noise usually comes from too much saturation. to solve that, some people add a brightness/contrast layer and decrease the contrast. i use gradient map, i change the blending mode to “exclusion” and change the opacity to 15% or 20%.
RESULT:
HUE/SATURATION: i add another layer increasing the reds bc gradient map took some of the color
RESULT:
SELECTIVE COLOR: in this house we don’t stan whitewashing, so since asians have yellow undertone, we’re increasing the cyans (if you decrease the cyans, it will look more red, and that’s not a look we’re going for) and yellows, and decreasing the magent, so it won’t look pinkish.
you can see that mix’s hair is kinda red, so we fix that with blacks, increasing the cyans and the yellows to cancel this red. i also increase the the black color, bc when you save your gif, it won’t create noise.
RESULT:
LEVELS: ok, this is finally the last step. i feel like it was too bright, so i moved the black arrow (the first one) and the gray arrow (the middle one) to the right
RESULT:
ok, this is it y’all. hope you guys have learned anything. you can use this as a base and change whatever you want. and most important: you can always change the layer’s opacity or even the psd’s opacity if they look too strong. if you need any help or have questions, just ask me!
