Hi, first off, your gifs are incredible! They are so stunning, I'm in awe. I was wondering if you would be willing to share your process (without going into your personal settings, as I know that is likely private and not usually to be shared). Thank you very much.
okay, so funny i got this message because i was genuinely about to start working on a post to release my gif action, so thank you anon because you can officially consider this:
LEXI'S BIG BAD GIF MAKING TUTORIAL:
**(at least the way she gifs)
disclaimer: i use a mac so some of my settings might differ but should be retroactively the same.
1.download the media you're looking for. i use t*rrents and various accounts that post downloads. if you want to know what i use specifically, come to me off anon and i'll share them with you for legal purposes lmao. for reference, i'm using the film companion (2025) and sophie thatcher as my subject for the gifs.
2.once the media has downloaded on my laptop, i start creating folders for what i need. i leave one for 'clips' which are, you guessed it, for clipping and 'sophie gifs' for storing the gifs in one spot.
3. from there, i will open the file with the media i downloaded and start my clipping process. personally, i clip little by little for the sake of my storage so i usually clip every ten minutes in one minute increments, finish the set of gifs, and then move onto the next ten minutes of the media until i'm finished.
4. quicktime player is pre-installed on my mac so i don't have to use any external features for this, and trim as needed.
5. once i've clipped everything, this is how my 'clips' folder usually looks. imagine there's usually more, but i only clipped a couple for tutorial sake!
6. now for the fun part, we can finally open photoshop!
7. i usually the videos frames to layers to make my gifs, so you'll go to file -> import -> video frames to layers
8. from here, i'll use those little cursor bits to pick out what i want to gif.
9. and now we're finally in. this is what my personal setup looks like. if you're working with a default version, you'll want to play around with what you like, but you will absolutely need to have your actions, layers, properties, and timeline checked. you can find these in the window tab if they are unchecked.
10. now i'm going to apply my action by clicking on 'lexi's big bad gif action' and hitting the play button.
11. when this pops up, just hit cancel.
12. now we're going to highlight all of our layers by using shift + select. then right click and 'convert to smart layers'. your layers should now be condensed.
13. now we're going to go back to our actions. see how the smart sharpen is highlighted now? play that and just hit okay through the sharpening.
14. ooh, pretty! i apply my base coloring psd which looks wonky as hell because it isn't colored for this specific clip.
15. i'll open up that coloring folder and get to work. here are the specific colors i used, but all of this is going to be based on what you are coloring in specific.
16. now we're just going to crop and resize to our liking. i prefer my gifs to be 268x151 for gif packs!
17. look at that, you have a gif! from here, we'll save from web and i'll show you the way i have my settings for exporting. you can save from web by going to file -> export -> save for web.
18. it'll automatically throw you into a filter that says optimized, which i switch back to original.
19. now i'm just gonna save this to my 'sophie gifs' folder.
once you export, you'll have a little guy like this:
that's my entire process from start to finish. i've also compiled my action + base coloring in the source link! i truly do not believe that gifmaking or making gif packs should be gatekept, so if you need any help at all, please reach out to me and i'd love to hold you hand along the way!
hey!! so i’ve known the basics on how to make gifs for a long time now, but recently i’ve taken interested on how to improve them/make them quicker so i’ve been researching a lot of simple tips on different posts and videos/tutorials that helped me out so much! they might be silly common knowledge for some, but because i didn’t know about most of them until recently it may be the same case for other people! an anon asked me if i had any tips so i decided to put them all in one post. here we go:
you know the pain of trying to find the right parts of the video to gif? especially when it comes to longer files like episodes or movies. instead of importing the whole thing on photoshop, download VLC media player first and open it there. get to the part you want to gif and click this magic button, then click it again once the scene is over. it’ll record it and save into a different file, that you can now import and it’ll be a million times easier to get the right frames!
actions!!! took me a long time to finally understand how much they make our lives easier! when it comes to making gif icons, it can take forever to resize and convert and everything else, so actions makes everything much quicker. this is the one i use, by @mintrps. you download it and open it on photoshop. then you click on window, and actions. all you have to do is click the selection and then play it! first i pick the timeline, choose the psd (you can use the psd after you convert, but i find it easier to do it before, so i don’t have to readjust it in the timeline) then click convert, choose the size (i use 80px for gif icons), sharpen and that’s it!!! i also use a pattern on top but that’s optional.
this one may be a big common knowledge, but i’ve found out about it recently and it changed my life!!!!!!! yes the drama queen. so i knew you can use the free transform tool by pressing ctrl+t on the keyboard, but it might mess the entire thing when you try to adjust it. SO, i’ve now learned there’s this other magic button you click after pressing ctrl+t, and now you can use it without messing with the proportions of the gif! i use this tool after i choose the size on the actions, it’s a lot quicker and easier.
👏 sharpen 👏 your 👏 gifs!!!!!! i can not stress this enough. i really wanna go back in time and kick myself everytime i see my old gifs, cause it makes SUCH a difference!! there’s a sharpen action in the one i linked above that works great, but i use this one on my gifs, by @captaincoloring. here’s an example of an unsharped gif vs a sharped one:
annnd that’s all i got. these are all based on the idea that you know the photoshop basics when it comes to making gifs, but hopefully it can help someone out there. special thanks again to @mintrps and @captaincoloring for the resources!!!
edit: i recorded the actions process here, in case it helps!
