My DO's and DON'T's on gif-making
I have now been on Tumblr for over 3 years and I’ve made gifs for about 2 years. I thought I’d throw together some DO-s and DON’T-s of gif-making. I’ve simplified some of this, but generally this is how I do my gifs and if you follow all of this, you should create decent quality stuff even if you haven’t had much practice yet.
Everybody has their own techniques and preferences so some people might do something completely different to what I’ve written, but I think this seems to be the general practice.
DO make sure the files you are going to gif are HQ if possible
1080p, BRay or 720p. Your file size should be over 600mb on a 42-minute episode.
DO make sure there are no logos/text visible
Try different frame sizes/cropping margins.
DO use the right width sizes. If you don’t it’ll look blurry.
This is a difficult one, as some people use a script for old dimensions and some have accustomed to the new ones. Choose one size and stick to it.
DO NOT try to fit you gif into size. E.g, 240px gif into a 245px
DO NOT stretch your gifs. Ever
DO NOT skip frames. Ever.
DO choose the right speed.
I use 0,9-1,1; some people make them a bit faster/slower, but generally this is around where you want to be. Short reaction shots can generally be slightly slower. (NB: different countries have different frame rates so the speed will vary!)
DO always double check your gifs after uploading and before closing Photoshop (spelling errors, glitches, doesn’t move etc.)
DO use logical alignment/system when making parallel sets (contrast light/dark, characters, one scene vs other scene)
DO always grade your gifs, because even though they look fine while watching, they’ll look dark and dull on Tumblr
DO pay attention to both skin and background. You don’t want to have a nice background but blue skin.
DO NOT just add a plain colour/gradient layer over ‘gifset + colour’. It means either color isolation or enhancing an already ~blue scene
DO NOT over saturate/contrast/brighten. Less is more. (but different computers have the levels set differently)
DO sharpen after resizing and before grading
DO NOT over sharpen. It works sometimes, but more often than not it doesn’t. Simple 'sharpen’ once will work just fine 'til you find your own settings
DO always double-check your grammar
DO use a common sans-serif font like Arial when making subtitles
DO make sure it’s not too big or too small (comes down to a preference, but for 268px try to stay between 8-12px)
DO make sure the text-alignment is same on all gifs (in the middle and same height)
DO make it clear who is speaking (different font/stroke colours; brackets or cursive)
DO outline your text if the background is too bright (or even if it’s not) (stroke 1-2px will do)
DON’T use very vibrant colours; try to stick with white
DON’T go over 3 rows (2 is better)
You can play more with graphics (colour, opacity, alignment etc), but the rule of thumb is to use up to 2 (max 3) fonts; one of them sans and one of them serif. (=one clean and one 'handwriting’)
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