the first step is making the gif and getting it ready for coloring. mine is already sharpened and is set to 0.05 delay.

so i knew i wanted this gif to be vibrant. the first step, for me, was adding two layers of vibrance, both of them set to color, set to +100 vibrance.

next, i adjusted my curves. how you want this to look is up to you. my settings were input: 132, output: 241.

i wanted the gif to be bright, but not so white that you couldn’t see the details on allison’s face.

next, i added a series of selective color layers. to save time, i won’t put explanation between each one. instead, i’ll explain what my goals are with the adjustments. what i needed was to bring out the green in the pillow but minimize it in the rest of the gif, deepen the blacks, make her mouth and the twizzler a nice low cyan pink-red color, make her hair a normal brown, and keep the background nice and isolated and the color of her skin normal. first i’ll post the selective color adjustments, then i’ll post the gif. i adjusted gradually to keep from blending shades too much.

SELECTIVE:

Reds: -5 cyan

Yellow: -100 cyan, +100 magenta

Green: +100 cyan, -100 magenta, +2 yellow

Cyan: +100 cyan

Blue: +100 cyan

Magenta: -100 cyan, +100 magenta, +100 yellow

Neutral: -9 black

Black: +100 black

SELECTIVE:

Reds: -1 cyan

Yellow: +100 cyan, +35 magenta, +100 yellow

Green: +100 cyan, -100 yellow

Cyan: +100 cyan

Blue: +100 cyan

Magenta: -100 cyan, +100 magenta, +87 yellow

Neutral: -15 black

Black: +100 black

SELECTIVE:

Reds: -26 cyan, +5 magenta, +5 yellow

Yellow: +41 cyan, +31 magenta, +44 yellow

Green: +100 cyan

Magenta: -100 cyan, +100 magenta, +85 yellow

SELECTIVE:

Reds: +9 magenta, +4 yellow

Green: +100 cyan

Magenta: -100 cyan, +100 magenta, +100 yellow

Repeat the above layer twice more:

SELECTIVE:

Green: +100 cyan

Magenta: -100 cyan, +100 magenta, +100 yellow

Repeat the above layer twice more:

SELECTIVE:

Reds: -6 yellow

Green: +100 cyan

Magenta: -100 cyan, +100 magenta, +100 yellow

Lastly, I added a color balance layer to bring out the blues and greens and differentiate her skin from her mouth and hair a bit more in tone. My midtones were adjusted to -6 more cyan, +7 more green, and +2 more blue.

That’s still not quite as vibrant as I want it, though. So I added a vibrance layer on top of everything else, set to +50 vibrance.