HOW. did u make that gifset. ive been trying to make a gifset for like ever and tumblr keeps churning them into paste
HI!!! so you probably don't want a breakdown of #myentireprocess but i've finally got this down to a science so i thought i'd share. i don't know how much of this is applicable to non-mac users and there's almost certainly an easier way to do it but here goes anyway.
so unfortunately if you just screen record whatever you want to gif and go from there, the quality is gonna be dogshit. i've learned this the hard way. here on the left is one i did with my old method (screen record, edit it all on my phone [???], ezgif, that's it) and on the right is with my current method. the only reason the one on the left looks okay is because i sharpened the hell out of it.
so, even if the source quality sucks (which is the case with this video), it's better to download it and go from there. lots of ways to do this...
for youtube i like 4k video downloader. if you're using the free version there's a limit of 10 downloads per day but i've never made enough gifsets in one day for that to be a problem
jdownloader2 has also worked well for me though i understand you need to be careful installing it. at least on windows, the installer is apparently bundled with adware/unwanted applications(?). i had no issues with the mac installer but it's always good to be cautious. expect longer downloads especially for movie files
for movies, i've had good luck with 111477. pretty quick downloads most of the time
i'm also fond of vkvideo.ru. jdownloader2 supports downloads from there but nothing else i've tried has worked
and of course the list of download sites/tools on fmhy.net is very helpful as well.
1080p is ideal but i have made okayish gifsets from 360p. it's all a matter of fucking around
02. CUTTING IT INTO PIECES
once i have my movie/video/whatever downloaded, i open it up in losslesscut. i used to just search something like "trim video online" and do it there but most of those services have a daily limit that you hit pretty quickly and i got #pissed. i like losslesscut because you can separate a video into multiple clips and then export them as separate files all in one go vs. doing a zillion separate downloads.
i've done gifsets for margo and cece from modern girls, so i'll make kelly my example today! with a video file opened, losslesscut looks like this:
i just start playing the video, and hit "i" on my keyboard (for "in") to mark the start of a segment, then "o" (for "out") to mark the end. you can do this as many times as you want.
i don't get super picky with my start and end points because we can fine tune that later. i only have two short clips i want to use today, so my timeline looks like this:
do make sure the export mode in the top right is set to "separate files" like mine is before you export. that may be the default but i can't remember. you can choose where you want your exported files to go in the settings (i just send mine to my documents folder). all that's left to do now is hit "export" and we're done with losslesscut
my beloved ezgif.com. so much magic happens here. what exactly you end up doing on ezgif will depend on what's happening with your specific video(s). mine have these stupidass black bars so the first thing i'm going to do is use their video cropping tool. super simple, i'll just upload those segments i made in losslesscut (do keep in mind this has to be done one at a time) and select the crop area:
and the output is a video with no more black bars!
from here, i go right to "to gif" down in the bottom left. this is where you can fine tune your start and end points. for example, the clip i'm working on now begins with this jackass, but i don't care about him. i'm here for kelly.
so, you can start playing the video, and click those "use current position" buttons when you get to where you want your gif to start and end. now my start and end points look like this. super specific, no more jackass:
next are the export settings. the defaults look like this:
ezgif has a handy size setting, 540xAUTO (for Tumblr), which is what i use. there are weird width rules for tumblr gifs if you want them to look good (540px for one gif per row, 268px for two gifs per row, 177px for three gifs per row).
for this set, i'm going to do one gif per row, so i won't need to mess with the size anymore after this step. if you're doing multiple gifs per row, ezgif also has a resize tool! you can set the width to 268 or 177 and leave the height on auto. anyway, back to export settings...
i leave "crop video" and "change aspect ratio" on No.
lower FPS = lower file size, which is ideal since the limit is 10 MB, but it also means your gif moves slower. i prefer 20 FPS so long as it doesn't drive the file size up too much. when you convert to gif, you'll see the new file size. if it's over 10 MB, play around with reducing the FPS until the gif file size is under 10 MB.
i have heard some people say that your gifs should be under 3 MB to avoid being automatically compressed by tumblr/to achieve faster loading times. i don't believe in this. those gifs i posted of cece are around 7.5 MB each and they look fine to me. they do take a second to load but literally who cares it's fine. now, if you try to look at them on your phone, they will be fucked and they will move very slowly. this is why i don't look at tumblr gifs on my phone. #desktoppilled
for the encoding method, i personally prefer FFMPEG, but you can do whatever you want
i leave the loop count at 0 as well. never felt the need to mess with it
this is the raw gif! i'll do the same with my other clip, and then we move on to the next step.
04. COLOR & LIGHTING ADJUSTMENTS W/ PHOTOPEA
the above gif really isn't bad. but we can do better. this is where photopea.com comes in! a lot of people who make gifs use photoshop. i'm #notpayingforthat and haven't been able to get a cracked version to work for me, so photopea it is. i just upload the gifs i've made all at once, since they'll load as separate project tabs:
there is a LOT you can do at this stage. and i am SCARED of how much you can do. for that reason, there are only four things i ever bother with: Exposure, Brightness/Contrast, Curves, and Color Balance.
click on "layer" up at the top:
you'll see a menu that looks like this. hover over "new adjustment layer" and select whatever you want to start with. i like to do Exposure first.
i usually make my exposure adjustments pretty subtle. also, i never bother with the offset or gamma correction sliders. i don't know what they do
next is Brightness/Contrast, where you'll start to see signs of life:
the third adjustment layer i do is Curves. let me be completely transparent with you: i do not know how this works. i cannot explain what it does. all i do is click on the little black box next to "sample from image," then click on something dark in the image. i have no idea what's taking place here but i like how it looks afterwards.
the last adjustment layer i do is Color Balance. you get three sliders: cyan-red, magenta-green, and yellow-blue. i usually make these edits extremely subtle, and honestly they are not always necessary.
now we can go to file > export as > GIF. you'll be able to preview the GIF before you download it, so you can go back and mess with layers again if you don't like how it looks at this stage.
there's not a whole lot you need to change in the export settings before you download. i sometimes reduce the speed, but that's about it.
and this is what i'm left with!
^ this file is 5.4 MB, so i didn't need to compress it before uploading it to tumblr. if your file is over 10 MB after doing all these steps, ezgif has an optimization tool that allows you to reduce the file size! you can use a very light compression setting and still get a pretty good result.
one more thing: if you're making multiple gifs and you want your color/lighting adjustments to be consistent across all of them, you can head to this menu over on the right...
...right-click on a layer and select "duplicate into":
then, you can select the gif you want to apply that adjustment to and click "OK."
you want to do this IN ORDER! by that i mean, i added adjustment layers to the first gif in this order:
so, when i duplicate them into the second gif, i need to duplicate the Exposure layer first, then Brightness/Contrast, then Curves, and finally Color Balance. if you don't do this, the second gif will look absolutely crazy. just a heads up.
and that's everything i do! sorry this is so long. there's probably a lot of explanation in here that you didn't need but i thought i would try to make this useful for someone who's never done it before as well.
