#design.stuff

step one: recording

I tend to screen record bc of live giffing and I prefer the control over frame rate so I use OBS. OBS itself is a pretty simple program, all you're gonna have to do is click on the plus in the sources panel

and click on display capture and here'e youre gonna have to select the screen you want to record and click on ok and thats it

then when you click on start recording it will record your screen. there are a few things you have to change when your obs is new in settings. in 'Output' you're gonna make sure your Recording Path is somewhere, you can find it back. all the other settings you can keep as they are they dont change much but these are the settings I use

then you're gonna go to video and you're gonna have a bunch of settings abt resulution, most of these dont need to change this should be auto linked to the settings on your monitor/screen. the only thing that I change and like is changing the fps values to 60.

step two: timeline!

now we've recorded smth and know where it's saved so we're gonna open Photoshop. when you open photoshop you can just drag your MP4 file on your home screen and your workspace is going to look something like this

then, what we're gonna do is look for the part were you want your gif to start and we're going to put our little slider on that part and cut it down to that like this.

next, we're going to click on the lil arrow at the end of our video file and change the speed percentage to 50%, this shows down the gif to a little bit slower then is natural which I prefer.

then, I make my gifs abt 2 seconds, this makes it long enough that it isnt to short but is also small enough for tumblr to be able to process it. the length of your gif you can see at the bottom of your timeline right there

I'm gonna turn this recording into three gifs so we're going to go back to our little arrow and change the duration to 6 and grab the little slider and slide it to our 02:00f marker. these sliders are the selection that you're going to be exporting.

step 3: shape and size

tumblr has a size limit and size preference. you can post gifs upto 10mb and it prefers pictures in 5:7 540 format. so to try and make the highest quality gifs we're gonna try and keep to those.

we're going to do that by clicking on our crop tool in our tool bar

your video should get those little selection lines, we're going to ignore those and go to the top of our workspace and click on the little ratio tab and click on the 5:7

when you do that your file should look like either of these. we're going to be making horizonal gifs so we're going to make sure the crop is like that, if it's not you can right click your crop and click on rotate crop box.

now, this might seem strange but we're just going to accept the crop and click on enter, even if its ugly we're going to fix that later. so your workspace should look something like this now

now we're going to to go image -> image size

when you click on this this space pops up

what we're going to do is stick to that 540 rule,we're working with a horizonal gif so we're going to change the width to 540, make sure that little link on the side is on

(if you're working on a vertical gif you change the height to 540)

now, your crop should've gotten much smaller and your timeline should now be purple. purple means your gif is now a smart object!

(you can manually zoom in or clic Ctrl + 0 for windows or Command + 0 for mac and it will instantly fill out your workspace)

NOW, you can move your crop around and zoom in/out by using Ctrl (command) + t to move it around to a crop you think looks nice.

step 4: sharpening

now we're going to move onto something that very much changes per person so if at any point of this you think my choices are ugly just move it around and change it to how you enjoy it but this is my sharpening!

what we're going to do is select our layer and go to filter -> sharpen -> smart sharpen

these are the smart sharpen settings I use for my first filter

then we're gonna go to filter -> blur -> gaussian blur and add these settings

then we're gonna go to filter -> noise -> add noise and use these settings

then we're gonna go to smart sharpen again and use these settings

then one last time we're gonna go to smart filter and use these settings

then your gif is gonna look like this!

step 5: exporting

now that we're done with out basic gif I tend to add a good few layers of colouring but bc of the picture limit I'm gonna skip that for now.

to export a gif we're gonna go to file -> export -> save for web (legacy)

aand these are the settings I tend to use.

and again, play around with these especially the top 3, they change with every selection you make and is very up to preference.

the important part is that the mb at the bottom of your workspace right here is under 10m

and thats it! now you have a basic lil gif!

sharpen and noise

we've got our picture so the first thing I like to do is sharpen and add some noise, this makes the edges stronger and so the filter grabs onto it better! the higher contrast and sharp ur lines r the better the effect is going to turn out!

I use for my smart sharpen for this which is in filter -> sharpen -> smart sharpen. n the first pic is before second is is after. these are my sharpening settings for this

n then my noise is at 10%

2. filter effects

now, I'm gonna right click my layer and convert my layer into a smart filter, then I'm gonna go to filter -> filter gallery.

here I'm going to add two layers of grain which is in the texture folder

and we're going to click on the little plus button at the bottom of our screen which adds a grain layer and this is the levels I'm going to move the grain and contrast to

then we're going to add another plus which adds a second grain layer were we're going to add these settings to the layer

now your photo should look something like this

and on the right your panel shud have these two

then I'm gonna add another layer with the plus at the bottom of the green and go to the sketch folder and click the torn edges

now, it's kind of a play around thing, every picture is different and you kinda always have to change stuff every time u use this effect but for this picture I'm gonna use these settings

now, your picture should look something like this!

now I'm just gonna clik on okay n it shud b all good!

3. filters

this is an extra step I take myself to make it look more printed, you could just be done with it here, the effect is on and you can use ur image however you want.

I am however going to turn my layer into a smart object again and add a diffuse and noise filter with these settings:

it doesnt do an insane amount but it adds a lil bit of grain and bleed, here's the before (first) and after (second)

and thats it! youre done! I tend to add colour layers with a darker colour filter to make the printed out vibe even more fun but you can do with it how u wish!