your gifs are so gorgeous and crisp !!! do you have any tips? i ask bc my gifs always look kinda flat 😭😭
sure i can give you some tips! i personally think giffing is a lot about personal preferences, what bothers you and what you prefer about sharpening or coloring. if you're someone who prefers their gifs to look sharp and clear, then try to work with the best quality videos there are out there! if you don't mind them looking a little (intentionally) blurry, then you can not pay too much attention to quality, i kinda prefer to be a little bit in the middle so i've made my own sharpening action for it to have a little bit of blur but not too much.
when it comes to coloring, i have things i feel the need to "fix", for example i always try to work first on the brightness / lighting, and once i have a base that i'm satisfied with, i work on fixing colors. for colors, my main focus is:
things that are white or should be white in the gifs, for example a decoration, the shine in a jewel, whatever you think would logically look white even if it looks gray, yellowish, bluish or whatever in the original scene, should look white (or the whitest possible without ruining the whole scene) in the final version.
equally, whatever should be black needs to look black in the final version.
once i achieve that, the rest are details that depend on each scene. some would look completely fine with just a small fix on colors and some will need a lot more work.
when you get to a scene that's just too difficult to color (i found a LOT of those, for example, when giffing heated rivalry bc most of the scenes were orange), you'll need to decide whether or not you think the scene is worth giffing or not. if the person has a lot of scenes, i give up and go to the next scene, because honestly it can be frustrating if you spend too much time with one singular scene. if you don't want to give up and decide to gif it anyway, then allow it to look a little yellow or orange, because honestly, -and this is a personal opinion- who cares! and sometimes gifs will look nice even if it's a scene with a predominant color all over them.
i personally have a lot of fun giffing so i don't mind obsessing over little details, but when it comes to using gifs, i really don't mind the coloring or sharpening other people are using for the gifs, i'll use whatever gif suits my characters. i think sometimes when you're the one making the gifs, you'll be a lot more critical than when using other people's gifs, so keep that in mind! you might be caring too much about something that actually doesn't matter. i've asked my friends opinions of gifs sometimes like "you prefer this version or this other version" and they find it difficult to find a difference. sometimes those details are things only you notice.
so, if you find it fun to color and giffing, then you can try using every resource out there until you find the little things that look better for you, i think most gif makers would tell you they just do whatever works for them, that's why we have variety. and i personally don't think there is only one correct way to do things when you're making gifs, i won't say "gifs should look like this or that for them to be pretty", because what's pretty to me might not be pretty for other people. that's why it's cool to have people with different styles and preferences making gifs! so… find whatever is your style and preferences, and do whatever works for you.
i also don't mind if you try to recreate a coloring of sharpen of mine, if that'll help you find what works for you ♡