Have you ever struggled with your cropping decisions because the scene you were giffing from had too much movement? There's a quick and easy fix for that! 💜 key frames 💜
This is hardly a tutorial, but rather a tip post for gifmakers who never thought to do this before (because really this is beginner-type stuff) but it's actually life-changing if you haven't.
In my first example above, Katherine is in the same center starting point in the beginning in both gifs, but in the original footage, she drifts off out of frame with this crop.
Most of you have worked with key frames in timeline before so I'm not explaining the in-depth details of that here but, did you know... you can use key frames on your gif layer to stabilize panning and keep your subjects centered?
This especially comes in handy when you're trying to make big gifs, or gif from footage with a wide aspect ratio, but you don't want a wide aspect crop.
So onto my quick examples of the gist of it:
The original set I made featured large gifs of thizzy going at it but the only way to achieve giffing this scene in these dimensions was to key frame the layers because they moved out of frame a lot with this close up kiss.
👆 These are the same exact gif but the second one has key frames that center the focal point:
Transform is your buddy for this. Each key frame is an adjustment to the movement of the document from side to side.
So taking a look at this wide aspect crop:
In this shot, Natalie is far left and then slowly the camera pans to center her, but what if we wanted a big gif of her in this scene with a 1:1 crop?
Imagine this doesn't do it for you, let's center her. To do this, place your first frame at the point right before the camera starts to pan left, and the last one where it stops panning (if it doesn't stop panning, the last key frame would just be placed at the very end of your gif).
For the second key frame, click and drag with the move tool, or use your keyboard arrows to skew the document until she's centered. And result:
If you're working with something that jerks back and forth or pans quickly, you're going to have trouble centering the subject it in a way that looks natural, as more key frames would have to be used and they would have to be closer together which can quickly start looking messy like this example of Sinners (click to see bigger).
Obviously the original (left) is fine and doesn't require this because he's still very much in frame anyway but for scenes like this, key frame at your own discretion.
Additionally, you could create a pan where there is none and an example of when this might be helpful is when you are overlaying two+ gifs that just don't sit exactly right together, so you can experiment with that.
That's it, just wanted to put this out here as a concept although it's so simple because it saves my sets occasionally and I hope it helps someone.
The very lovely @elyonholic asked about how I did the color isolation in my latest Merlin gif set. There were two different things I did in this set so I'll cover them both.
I’ll explain what I did, but I wouldn’t call it color isolation, I’d call it enhancement. I knew going in, the earlier the season the more difficult to quality color without pixelation because the earlier seasons aren’t as good. So I started with Nimueh. I capped a bunch of scenes and played around with what I wanted to show (power) and what had the length for the gif. Going back through the episodes I saw the last episode and was like YESSS. What worked is that is that she is surrounded by a pretty solid one color background and she’s not moving around much.
First I focused on Nimueh’s colouring and not blowing out the color of the fireball she’s holding. Below you can see the subtle differences.
I noticed the teal was becoming the most obvious color. Opening up a Gradient Map, I tried out different gradients in the Greens folder and settled on Green_31. Clicked the Reverse box and set the layer to Color. Then used a soft brush to mask her out. It looked a little too saturated so I lowered the opacity to 70%.
At this point, I want to make the it all a little less yellow, so I opened another Gradient Map, played with the blues and settled on Blue_27. Again, clicked the reverse box. Set it to Soft Light and lowered the opacity to 25%.
Lastly, I really want the vibrancy to POP so opened a Vibrance Layer, Vibrance +44, Saturation +7. At this point I crop the gif and start playing with the second scene that’ll be on the gif.
All I knew was that the “other” Nimueh would be in black and white. After trying various scenes I settle it down to two, the one I used and another close up from the same episode. I found that the natural cropping of the gif centered her too much, it interacted with the 2nd Nimueh in a way I didn’t like. At this point, I just moved the fireball Nimueh a bit more to the right until it was something I liked and set it to Lighten.
Then I colored the 2nd Nimueh.
Then fiddled with the text. The key in this method is having at least one of the scenes you want to use be stable with little movement. Or be willing to hand color the background (which I have done).
The only one that’s any different is the first Morgana gif. I knew exactly which scenes I wanted. Coloring the one where she’s sitting and I know the background is too bright to blend with after coloring.
Adding a black Gradient Fill, brush off the part that goes over her dress.
It’s not quite enough so I open a new layer take a medium soft brush and brush over the areas that aren’t dark enough. I highlighted the additional brushed areas that I added in orange so you can see.
Adding the close up of Morgana set to Lighten with the black & white coloring.
Her dress picks up the teal similar to what’s in the Nimueh gif but we need a but more so I added some black and used a Selective Color layer to take the blues into proper teal color, just using the Blues section.
It was close but not quite right so I took the Eyedropper tool, get the same teal and brush it over her sleeves and the background and set to color.
Added the text, a Gradient Fill of (black to white) set to Soft Light, 55% opacity and masked out the area over the Morgana in color.
And done!
I hope this is helpful, it's a lot of trial and error in my experience, I've made a lot of sets that I'm not happy with later on. But the more you practice and play the better you get at it. Let me know if you have any questions! Also thank you, no one's ever asked me how I do anything so it made my month. =D <3
Would you please post a tutorial on how you did blending & colours for the last gif.
hi, thank you so much!!
here is the gifset anon is talking about.
this tutorial is assuming you have basic photoshop knowledge of coloring and gifmaking.
first i started with the base gif i'm going to use. (here and here are some tutorials for help with the ripped paper effect.) here is a great overlay tutorial as well.
these gifs are colored as i typically would. next, i added a basic black & white filter. you can play around with the colors until you like it.
then, i added a gradient fill layer. this should pop up. if you click on gradient, you should be able to change the color by clicking on the bottom left little square. you can see the second half of the gradient is transparent. if it isn't, click on the 'basic' preset drop down. choose the 2nd one. then, you should be able to change the white square to the color you want to use.
this is what the gif will look like after the gradient fill.
after this, i saved the gif to web and opened it in a new tab. i also opened a new gif that i'm going to overlay in a new tab. this is the gif that i used - you can usually find these in free to use texture packs or on youtube.
i copied the frames and pasted them onto the current version of the gif (making sure you have the same number of frames in each gif). you'll want to make sure you paste the frames over the selected layers.
with all the frames still selected, i converted the frames to video timeline and made smart objects of each of the gifs. when you're done, it should look like this.
now, i selected the top layer and changed the blending mode to 'screen'. it should now look like this and you can move the overlay to wherever you want!
after that, i added a border to the gif using the rectangle tool. i added rectangle with white fill and the blending mode 'difference' for the fill behind the text. the text on top of it is also white, using the 'difference' blending mode as well.
and now you're done!
i hope this made sense and lmk if you have any questions!!
I’m still very much obsessed with the gif set you made to the Helpless lyrics. It’s so pretty and I love that you used yellow. Question (because I’m still unfamiliar with a lot of tools in Photoshop), but how did you get the coloring when making those? Did you have a PSD you used, or if not what coloring tools do you play with to get that effect?
hii!! thank you!! i do have a psd i created so i can tweak but no two scenes are the same so its really just adjusting and finding what works. as of currently, this is the set up and the base for a purple gif.
two of my favorite tools are hue/saturation and selective color
right now it's purple but if i wanted to make it...yellow, i change the blue/cyans (current setting for purple). blue/cyan because the pitt, at least for season one, had more blues in the background (be careful, though, because this will affect langdon's eyes lol) and with the set up, i just tweak the last hue/saturation layer. it's important to note that all other colors should have the saturation turned down to 0 to make it easier (with the exception of master/red/yellow because that usually affects faces and skin tone color)
to
if it's not as yellow as i'd like it to be, that's when i play around with selective color and all the other hue/saturation layers (i will go through each and every one of them, play around with the sliders until it's what i want. for hue/saturation, i only touch the blue/cyans + maybe saturation, but for selective color, i try and just use the yellows.)
it's all trial and error, really but i hope this helped you!
Can I ask how you do the color overlay/backgrounds on your color palette posts? Specifically the rose tyler one.
Sure nonnie, sorry it took me a while to get to I had some other colour palette requests and wanted to make a little tutorial for you using one of them when I got to them. So I'm gonna use this gif from this gifset because I really liked how the colours came out. I'll be honest I have no set colouring pattern for these, the colouring differs from gifset to gifset but it follows the same basic steps. (also a little warning, I tend to ramble when I'm making tutorials so hopefully it makes sense)
For this tutorial you will need:
Basic gifmaking knowledge (I make mine on the timeline option on PS but it works with frames too)
Your gif prepared with your preferred colouring and sharpening
Knowledge of using layer masks when gifmaking (if not don't worry i'll show where to find them)
So here's the gif before all the colouring;
and here's the gif after I've put my normal base psd on and made the adjustments to it;
Now we come to the fun part, like I said before what I do varies from gifset to gifset so just play around with it. A good tip though I've found for changing the background though is choosing a scene that has a lot of blue or cyan because I find them easiest to change the colour of, but it works with any colour to be fair.
For this gifset I started by adding a hue/saturation layer and setting the cyan and blue (or whatever the main colour of you gif is) and setting them to -100, it's not an essential step but it does help if the blue/cyan route is the way you went.
that make the gifset look like this;
All the blue and cyans have turned have turned to gray so now we can start experimenting with our colour overlays. So I created a new layer and filled it with my desired colour, which was this lovely purple colour here;
And i set the layer blending mode to soft light.
And got this nice result, the parts that were gray now have a purple colour to them, but it's not quite the same shade I'm trying to get, so I duplicated the colour layer, keeping the same blending mode.
We're getting there now, but I want to try making the purple a bit brighter now, so I duplicated the purple layer again, but this time I set the blending mode to lighten, and turn the opacity down to 12%
It's a tiny difference, but it's perfect for the shade I'm trying to get, but like I said above it's all down to experimenting with different blending options. Now my only issue is I want to bring back Dustin and Erica's natural skin tones that have been given the purple shade due to the layers. That's where layer masks come in. To get a layer mask pick the layer you want and and click the little icon I've circled underneath where your layers are, which brings up the mask as a white box next to it.
With the white box selected I select the brush tool and make sure the colour of the brush is set to black and paint over the areas of the gif I want to take the purple shade away from (note this step works better on subjects that don't show a lot of movement in the gifs, but there are other tutorials out there that show key frame colouring and stuff that I'll link at the bottom of this)
So now the mask should look like this;
Then I need to apply the ayer mask to the other purple layers, for that I press ctrl and click on the layer mask (not sure what that would be on mac sorry)
It should look simular to this, the outer area selected is where the purple colouring is the the circles are the are you're trying to change, with that select your next colour layer and apply layer mask, that will then give it the same altered layer mask from the pervious layer. Then repeat these steps on all your colour layers.
They should all now look like this leaving you're gif looking like this;
And here's the final result, Dustin and Erica have their normal skin tones while the surrounding areas of the gif are now the colour I changed them to. I hope I explained things clearly enough, if not don't hesitate to ask me any follow up questions, here's some other tutorials for changing colours in gifs:
my own colour gradiant tutorial
gradiant colour map blending
key frame colouring
gradiant fill layers
colour manipulation
Just remember to be creative and mess around with it, there's all sorts of results you can get from different blending options that might work better for you ;)
so i’ve been on tumblr since forever and took a break and then recently came back! however i'm still very much stuck with 2012 tumblr trends (lol) when graphics and picspams were just *chefs kiss*
i know trends change and all buttttt i really miss the creativity and beauty of picspams and graphics so...here is a picspam tutorial for y’all! stay tuned for more tutorials to come!
step 1: pick your screencaps
make sure they’re high quality
colorful/vibrant already
easy to mask (masking is really important here)
also figure out what color scheme you want to do! personally i like to organize it by warm colors on one side and cool colors on the other side but you can mix and match like this picspam
step 2: cropping
you can def choose whatever sizes you’d like but for my picspams each cap is 270px by 150px and the full size is 540px by 600px
step 3: getting textures
ok this is where the fun starts! although colorings are important, textures i'd argue are even more important and can elevate your picspam to a whole new level! and can even be used as a coloring (will explain later)
light leak textures / gradient textures such as:
textured textures (yes you read that right lol) such as:
step 4: base coloring
always start off with a base coloring on your cap which essentially just needs to be things like brightness, contrast, and/or vibrance etc. also a neat trick i learned is duplicating the cap layer and setting it to screen which can be used as a base coloring
example of duplicating layer + setting it to screen (it just brightens a bit)
step 5: the colorful coloring
so here is an example of taking a dull cap and making it super duper colorful <3
here are all the adjustments used:
vibrance: +100 (adjust as needed for your particular cap)
selective color: this is REALLY important so based on the color you want to bring out click that selective color. so for this cap i wanted to bring out yellows so i clicked the yellow tab and set it to +100
basic brightness/contrast. i usually like to add more contrast as it makes colors pop
another selective color layer
then a layer of a soft brush of yellow or a light leak on the corner and i set it to screen (screen is your bff here)
and then a few more layers of color balance, i just shifted it to be more cyan so i can bring out some greens + brightness etc,
this is what I mean by soft brush or light leak (adjust colors as needed):
step 6: coloring but also using textures
for this, same as before, have a base coloring and i also added a layer of solid yellow color and set it to ‘color burn’ so you don't even need to color anything!! the layer of yellow + color burn or even dark, multiply etc will do that for you
next, slap on a texture of your choice and set it to multiply and you’re done
tips:
always always use a mask on every layer so you can easily erase adjustments where it shouldn't be
if you want to add more colors use gradient map and set it from black to whatever color you want and then set it to soft light or screen and adjust opacity as needed
selective color if your bff here
light leaks go a long way! using light leaks or just soft brushes and setting it to screen or soft light make picspams pretty :)
use topaz labs if possible to sharpen! it just looks super clean
color fill is also great to use to make a cap more warm or cool toned
you can use light leaks, gradient textures, gradient maps, or solid colors and set it to multiply for a hassle-free quick coloring
this is my first tutorial so apologies if it doesn't make sense! im happy to answer questions just shoot me a message <3
and don’t forget to tag me in your creations folks! i'd love to see them
I’ve gotten some requests to make a tutorial for the effects I’ve used in these sets here and here. Hopefully this all makes sense and is actually helpful! This tutorial is made assuming you already know how to make gifs and will be done using photoshop on a mac. If you have any questions or any other requests for tutorials please send me an ask! I used this tutorial here myself to learn, but I wanted to make a more step by step tutorial for those who are more visual learners like myself.
tutorial under the cut, please help me out by reblogging ♡
STEP ONE: PREPPING
First of all, you’re going to make your two gifs with whatever coloring and sharpening etc. you usually use. I like to use this effect when I’m transitioning to a sad gif so I make one gif black and white. You also need to make sure you don’t use too many frames per gif because you’re going to be combining them in the end. The caps I’m using here are 20 frames each so when put together it’s a total of 40. I use anywhere between 20-30 depending on the scene. Here I’ll be using these two gifs I’ve made:
Now that you’ve made your gorgeous gifs, you’re going to convert to frame animation so your workspace should look like this:
STEP TWO: DUPLICATE
The first thing you’re going to do now that you’re ready to get to work is select the frame and corresponding layer that you want to make the glitch effect on. I like to use four frames for the glitch effect myself so here I’ll start with frame 17. NOTE: Make sure to pick frames at the end of the gifs you’re using so that it flows well!
You’ll know what layer corresponds with the frame you’re working on based on the little eye icon.
Once you’ve chosen the frame and layer you want to start on, you will right click on the layer and choose duplicate layer.
This window will then pop up and all you will have to do is click ok.
The result will be that you now have two layers with the eye icon!
STEP THREE: GLITCH EFFECT
If you’re still with me, congrats, you’ve reach the part of the tutorial you’re actually interested in! So, now that you have your duplicate layer, you will right click on that layer and select blending options. The layer style window will then pop up.
The only thing you need to care about here is the advanced blending section. Here, you will go to the channels area and untick the R box.
Your preview will now be a turquoise color instead of grey.
Now here’s where the party starts. Once you’ve done the above, click ok and you’re now free to move the duplicate layer however you want! I like to go for subtle so I usually move the frames slightly to the right and left. However, feel free to get dramatic with it and explore how you want the gif to glitch. My layer here has been moved to the right.
STEP FOUR: MERGING LAYERS
Now that you’ve successfully made your first glitch effect frame to your satisfaction, you’re going to merge the layers so that there is no duplicate layer anymore. Right click on the duplicate layer and choose merge down. Voila, you have only one layer for your frame again!
STEP FIVE: ADD NOISE (OPTIONAL)
This step is optional, and not necessary tbh if you don’t want to do it, but I like it for aesthetic reasons. With the layer you just merged still chosen, go to filter > noise > add noise.
Pick how much noise you want to add and press ok. I usually just add 5% noise.
STEP SIX: RINSE AND REPEAT
Once you’ve done everything above, you’ll repeat steps two through five with all the frames you want to use for the glitch effect. Do this with the second gif you made as well! TADAH you have achieved the glitch effect of your dreams!
STEP SEVEN: THE FINALE
If you’ve made it with me this far, congratulations and get those notes babyyy! The last thing you have to do now is just put it alllll together. Ok so now you’re going to convert your gifs back to video timeline and convert the layers into a smart object. I know most of us know how to do this, but for those that are just beginning to get the hang of photoshop here is what you do. Click on the convert to video timeline button on the bottom left corner circled here.
You will now select all of the layers and right click on them and click on convert to smart object.
Boom, one smart object coming right up.
Repeat this with the second gif and once both of the gifs have been converted to smart objects, drag one of them over to the other gif and adjust it so that it is aligned with the canvas. Your timeline will now show your gifs stacked one on top of the other.
You’re going to drag the top clip over to the right until it starts at the end of the first clip.
You have successfully made your complete glitch gif. From here, you will convert back to frames (I use an action to do this) and adjust the timing of the gifs to .05. Save your gifs and congratulations, you’re DONE.
If you’re still reading, thank you for taking the time to read and/or follow this tutorial. If you would like a video tutorial, I would be willing to make one if enough people feel like they need it. I’ve already shown how to make this on video chat in discord so doing it again won’t be a problem lol.
Please feel free to tag me in your creations made using this tutorial with my tracking tag #tuserdi. I would also appreciate it greatly if you shared this tutorial by reblogging it so that others may find it and learn as well!
