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!
i thought that some people might benefit from these actions so i'm sharing them here. these are pretty generic sharpening settings, but i hope you find them useful.
action 01 | regular sharpening: works well with most gifs, pretty much the default sharpening settings
action 02 | noise sharpening: i use it mostly for kpop music videos, it gives the gifs a nice style, while helping the quality look better.
action 03 | smooth sharpening: if you want to go for a dreamy feeling, this is a great way to do it. i also find it useful when the quality of the footage is not great.
ELIEANDREWS + HISOURCES GIF SHARPENING ACTION SET (NEW VERSION!)
I thought I might share my latest set of sharpening actions for gifs with yâall, so here it is. I hope it works as well for you as it does for me! P.S.: Your gifs must be in timeline mode and converted to a smart object for these actions to work!
i'm actually still playing around with my sharpening actions but i highly recommend @heldisrps sharpening action as well as any of @svgarboo's sharpening actions !
hi! your gifs are SO pretty. may you can share your sharpening?
iâve had this ask on my inbox for so long, iâm so sorry!! i finally made an action for myself lol so iâm sharing it with everyone. the link is in the source.
gif making for lazy ones / a tutorial by osvaldrps
thereâre at least two types of lazy people: the first one would procrastinate till the end of an era and the second one would do every possible and impossible thing and invent the perpetual motion machine to do nothing later (or at least to shorten the time spent). if youâre the second type just like me, well, welcome to the club and letâs see what we can do to speed up the process making a few apps work for us.
* if your computer is old/slow, this might not work for you cause weâre gonna use some video rendering which depends on CPU and GPU speeds and RAM capacity.
** i use Windows 10 tho this should work for macOSÂ too.
*** iâm not explaining coloring here cause whatâs the point, every footage is difference, but you can see how i usually color my gifs here.
so, youâll need:
KMPlayer (or any program that lets you cut videos into clips and save them as .mp4 or .mov);
Adobe Premier Pro;
AfterCodecs plugin for Adobe Premier Pro +Â AfterCodecs Panel (links are in the source);
Adobe Photoshop.
part 1: clipping
launch KMPlayer and open your video. i have an episode of Elite on my laptop, so iâm using this one.
fast forward till the moment your fc shows up on screen and pause the video.
press Alt+C or right click on the player and go to Capture > Video: Capture... and click on the File Crop tab.
pick another saving folder if you want, change Format to mp4, check the box âCustomize video and audio codecs (could cause errors)â and change Audio to None.
hit the Start Time button. fast forward and press the End Time button when your fc leaves the screen.Â
press Start. repeat as many times as you need, close the player when youâre done and go to the folder you saved the clips in.
now launch Adobe Premier Pro and create a new project. i keep an empty one (âclipsâ on the screenshot) so i donât have to make new ones every time i use the app. settings of a new project doesnât matter, i just use defaults.
drop one of the clips from your folder to the timeline
right click on the violet line (itâs your clip) and pick Scene Edit Detection...
check the âApply a cut at each detected cut pointâ box and hit Analyze.
wait till itâs done, your video will get cut into smaller clips like this:
go through the clips using the blue bracket (or whatever itâs called) and delete all parts you donât need by clicking on them and pressing delete button on your keyboard.
since weâre gonna use a trial version of AfterCodecs plugin, weâll have to make sure each part is shorter than 500 frames. for that right click on video duration and choose Frames.
now youâll see frames count when you hover over any clip:
for me, gifs with 140+ frames look too long so i cut into parts everything over this number. to do so, press C on your keyboard or click on the Razor Tool button
and just click on the clip where you want it to be cut into two parts.
when youâre done, press the Add Markers for All Video Tracks button on the AfterCodecs Panel:
(if you donât see the Panel, make sure itâs checked in Window > Extensions)
when markers are added, go to File > Export > Media, or press Ctrl+M (for some reason this shortcut doesnât work if AfterCodecs Panel is selected, so click on any over panel first and then use Ctrl+M).
change Format of Export Settings to AfterCodecs, uncheck the Export Audio box, and pick MP4 Format for AfterCodecs Settings (in the bottom). if you click on Output Name (blue one), youâll be able to change saving folder (default is somewhere in \Documents\Adobe\Premiere Pro).
then click the Open AfterCodecs Settings button and check the Workflow - MultiRender box in the pop-up window. you can also change rendering quality there (default is 70%).
press OK and then Export. when itâs done, youâll see all the clips in the output folder. you can now close the app.
part 2: sharpening and saving
this is pretty same as iâve shown in my previous tutorial, but the action itself has a few changes (iâll link the download in the source).
launch photoshop and drag all the videos into the app (tho i donât recommend doing 10+ files at the same time if PS usually slows down your computer).
if playing my atn for the first time, expand the 268x150 one, scroll to the end of the list, double-click on Save and change the default psd saving folder cause the atn has my path in it which obviously doesnât exist on your computer:
also if youâre using Adobe Photoshop CC or newer version, make sure your Image Interpolation is âBicubic (best for smooth gradients)â cause itâs the best for my sharpening (to open Preferences, press Ctrl+K or go to Edit > Preferences > General).
then you can play the action. itâll ask you if you want to crop the picture, do it using vertical and horizontal scales on the upper menu and press Enter on your keyboard when youâre satisfied with the frame (if preview of your gif looks lq and pixelated, thatâs fine, itâs just a preview).
if you donât want the action to ask you to crop the picture, you can uncheck the âTransforn current layerâ step:
the action will autosave the file in the directory youâve chosen above and will close the psd after that. now you can run the action for the next gif.Â
if you have 10+ gifs opened in your window, you can just run the second action (268x150 for 10 gifs), this one basically plays the first action 10 times in a row.
and... thatâs it. all of the routine is done and you just now have to do the fun part - coloring.
