#blending tutorials

step one: when blending two or more gifs together, i always create the separate gifs first. once you've made your gifs, convert them to smart objects. my gifmaking process means my gifs are already sharpened, but i haven't colored them yet. to convert to a smart object, select all your layers and right-click on one of them and select "convert to smart object."

step two: create a new canvas. for these gifs, my dimensions were 540px x 540px.

step three: bring both gifs onto the new canvas and change their blending modes to screen. to do this, you'll have to select each layer separately and choose "screen" from the blending modes dropdown menu.

step four (optional): sometimes i change the background layer, which should be beneath both gifs, to black, especially if i'm going to be utilizing layer masks to aid in blending. for this set, i didn't use layer masks (which is pretty rare when blending for me tbh), so i didn't bother doing this step. i find it helps keep the blending smooth and eliminate any potential transparent pixels.

step five: coloring! i kept it pretty simple with this set, so i applied my base coloring to both gifs. unless i'm giffing a scene i've already made gifs of, i typically color everything from scratch and i always start with a blank brightness/contrast layer set to screen (sometimes i alter the opacity depending on the brightness of the scene). from there, i add a curves layer, using the black and white eyedroppers to select the darkest and lightest areas of the gif respectively.

my third step is always a selective color layer where i make the blacks blacker and sometimes add more white to the neutrals, but you have to be careful doing this when giffing people of color as this can whitewash them. for this set, i didn't change the neutrals.

step six: gradient maps! you'll notice in the above screenshots that i'm utilizing clipping masks. that's what the arrows next to the layer visibility signify:

because i didn't color the gifs before blending them (which you could do before converting them to smart objects!), i want to make sure my coloring only affects the gif i'm working on. to create a clipping mask, select your layer(s), right-click on one, and select "create clipping mask." you can also click that downward arrow that's highlighted at the bottom of the layer properties:

anywhomst, for the gif of sammie, i added a gradient map adjustment layer that looked like this (note that unless you're going for an inverted look, the darker color should always be on the left of your gradient map):

and for the gif of stack, just a regular black and white gradient map:

this is what my layers look like at the end:

you can see that each group of coloring is using a clipping mask so those layers only apply to their respective gifs.

and for shits and giggles, here are my settings for the typography:

for the gradient effect, make sure your text color is white, change the blending mode of the text layer to difference or exclusion, and then double-click on the layer to open the blending options. here are those settings:

the final step for the offset outline is to duplicate your text layer and, making sure it's above your original text layer, turn off all layer effects, change the blending mode back to normal, rasterize the layer, select the pixels, and edit -> stroke. here's what that looks like step-by-step:

click the eye icon next to effects to turn off the layer effects and choose normal from the blending modes dropdown.

right click the new layer and select rasterize type.

specifically right-click the thumbnail of the layer and choose "select pixels." you'll see the moving dotted line around your text now.

with that selection, go to edit -> stroke. these are my settings:

click okay and then i almost always adjust that layer two pixels to the left and 2 pixels up using the transform tool (ctrl+t).

and with that, we have our final product:

i did adjust both gifs' placement by moving sammie's gif a bit to the left and stack's a bit to the right just so we could see both of their faces more clearly than having them totally overlapping.