hello! I really like your colorings, and I assume you are rather proficient in ps and was wondering if you could help me! I'm working on colorings for a musical and they are dancing. The problem is the walls and background are a bleak beige color, but so are their faces and so when I change the colors, their faces get contained and I can't use layer masks because they're dancing. Is there abywah I can use keyframes or something to fix this?? I want it to be colorful, but not color their faces
hello! honestly, my first advice would be to ask yourself how invested you are in coloring that gif and whether you could find a different shot that would make things easier for you. i try to steer clear of those kinds of scenes for exactly the same reason you’re struggling with it.
but if you’re really invested in using it, one technique is painting every frame by hand. it’s time consuming and can be really difficult though.
here’s a before and after of using that technique:
step 1: start on frame 1 and create a new layer set to color that is only visible on that frame. the easiest way to do this is to select all frames except frame 1 and then click the eye symbol next to your new layer to disable it. make sure your layer is underneath your coloring layers, like this:
BONUS TIP: it really helps to name your layers after the frame it corresponds to or the purpose it serves. if you need to go back and correct something, this will make your life a lot easier. for example, the “works 4 all” layer is a bit of coloring i did over the centre of nancy’s jacket that worked on all frames as i played through the gif so i don’t need to customize that coloring for each frame. naming the layer helps me remember what it does and saves me time later if something needs fixing.
step 2: paint over the parts of the gif you want to be colored. for the gif above, i used yellow for the jacket and the top of the bench and blue for the rest of the bench and the surroundings. TIP: use a brush with 100% opacity and decrease the opacity of the layer itself if you don’t want that much coverage. using a lower opacity brush will make it difficult for you to get the same amount of coverage for each frame and it might start looking patchy and jumpy as you play the gif.
step 3: disable the layer using the little eye symbol and duplicate it once. enable the layer again.
step 4: click on your next frame, select the duplicated layer and enable it.
step 5: using the brush, paint over whatever areas you want to be colored that are now bare. using the eraser tool, erase whatever coloring has moved somewhere you don’t want it to be, for example on top of a person.
step 6: rinse and repeat until you’ve gone through the whole gif. play it now and then to see how the transition between frames look and if you need to go back and remove or add color somewhere to make it run more smoothly.
here’s the psd for the gif above so you can see what it looks like. i hope this helps!
