#edit tutorials

1. Finish editing your image and adding your psd. We want to put the overlay over the psd, that way the white stands out. Here I have edited this picture and I will soon be adding an overlay:

2. Find an overlay gif.

Here is a blog of some: https://overlaygifs.tumblr.com.

octomoosey has posted some gif overlays before, and you can go through their tag to check them out.

library-mermaid has made some as well: 1, 2.

You can also search "gif overlay" on Tumblr and see if you can find any, or go through the tag.

Find the one you like and download it.

I'll be using one from one of library-mermaid's posts.

3. Open the gif in Photoshop and open the timeline (Window>Timelime or Window>Animation). The frame animation should be on.

Example (it should look something like this):

4. Go to the corner of the timeline and click the settings arrow, and then click "Select All Frames."

5. Once the frames are selected, click the settings arrow again, and select "Convert to Timeline."

It will now look something like this:

6. In the Photoshop menu, go to Select and click "Select All Layers."

7. Once the layers are selected, right-click on one of them, and select "Convert to Smart Object."

It will place all the layers into one, like this:

8. Drag the gif over to your edit document.

***Make sure to place the gif layer above all the other layers from the edit, like so:

9. Put the gif layer mode to "Screen" or "Lighten."

It doesn't matter which, but I think people use Screen mode more because it picks up more of the gif. But for certain things, Lighten mode looks better. It is up to you.

It will now look something like this:

10. If your gif doesn't fit like mine clearly doesn't, select the gif layer, click the select tool, right-click on the document, and select "Free Transform" to make the gif bigger.

If it ends up blurry, sharpen it by going to Filter>Sharpen>Smart Sharpen.

Now it fits:

11. Now, before saving it, make sure the timeline duration is in sync to the gif.

As you can see below, the timeline duration ends way after the gif. You don't want that because the overlay will stop for a long period of time.

Drag the end point to where the gif ends.

12. Finally, go to File>Save for Web & Devices, and save it.

***Make sure the looping option is on "Forever" and I recommend setting the Gif to "Adaption" and "Pattern"!!

Here is my final result:

OTHER INFO / TUTORIALS:

Sometimes the background of gif overlay isn't entirely black, so it'll end up looking like this:

It will have a white background and it won't look right. If this happens, add a Selective Color adjustment.

Go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Selective Color.

On the adjustment, switch the color to black. Add some to the "Black" section to darken the background.

Here I added 26% more to the black:

Now it is just the overlay with no white background: 

For this, I used this gif.

Another obstacle you might run into is the overlay might not be white or grey.

Here mine is light pink, but I don't want that:

If that happens and you want it to be black and white, go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Gradient Map.

On the adjustment, click the arrow to choose and black and white gradient.

Place that into a clipping mask, so that it only makes that layer black and white, not the rest. (right-click on the adjustment and select "create clipping mask.")

It is now black and white:

For this, I used this gif.

But what if you want to change it to a different color?

Go to Layer > New Fill Layer > Solid Color.

Upon the pop-up box, set the mode to "Multiply" and click OK.

Now choose a color you want it to be. (Btw, it's going to temporarily change the entire thing to that color, but we'll fix that in a second.)

I chose cyan, but click OK when you're done.

Now it's gonna look something like this:

To fix it, make sure the color layer is right above the gradient layer, right-click on the color layer, and select "Create Clipping Mask" to put it inside the gif only.

Now it should color the gif overlay only.

That’s all there is to it!

I hope you found this helpful and plan on using it. If you need any further help, just send me a message!

1. Open photoshop and create a new document with the size you want.

For this tutorial, I’ll be doing 540x540px.

2. Add your background. You can make it a solid color, use a pattern, gradient, texture, etc.

For example, I used the paint bucket tool to fill the background with a solid color (#d1ecff, to be exact), and I applied a pattern overlay (using the last one here) in soft light mode.

So my background looks like this:

A/N: I’m making the example pastel-ish, but you don’t have to!

3. Now make a png of a vintage-esque TV, or you can use one of these: 1, 2, 3, 4.

I’ll be using the 2nd png in the 1st pack.

A/N: You’re going to want the screen portion erased if it isn’t already, because that is where you’re going to put an image.

4. This is optional, but if you don’t like the color of the TV, you can change it by: 

Double-clicking on the TV layer, and go to the “Color Overlay” tab, clicked the colored rectangle, choose the color you want, click OK, and change the mode to one of the following: Overlay, Soft Light, Color, Hue, or Multiply. Choose which one looks best with your color and you can adjust the opacity if you want.

For example, here’s what I did:

5. If you chose a TV that already has antennae, skip this step. If your TV does not have antennae, like mine, I will show you how to quickly make some.

Create a new layer, choose a foreground color to a color that matches your TV color, select the line shape tool, make the line 2px weight with no stroke, and click and drag a couple lines from the top of the TV to make antennae. 

A/N: You might want to rasterize those shapes (to do so, right-click on each layer and click “rasterize layer”) or put those shape layers under the TV layer.

Now create another new layer, use the ellipse shape tool, click and drag a small circle to fit on top of one of the antennae (hold shift as you do so to get an even circle). Duplicate that and drag it over to the other antenna.

6. Now for the screen image.

Create a new layer and drag it under all of the TV/antennae layers.

Select the pen tool. You’re going to make some points around the screen portion and connect them.

Once you connect them, It’ll make a line like this:

Go to the top bar and click the “Selection...” button. It will make the outline into a selection and that’s what you want.

A/N: There will be a dialogue box pop up, but just click OK.

Now it is a selection.

Click the fill bucket tool and click inside the selection to fill it. It doesn’t matter what color it is.

Click CTRL+D to deselect it.

7. Now we will put an image/edit inside.

If you just want to put an image, open the image, drag it to the TV edit document, make sure it’s right above the screen fill layer, right-click on the image layer, and select “Create Clipping Mask.” It will be inside the screen portion and you can resize.

If you want to put an edit inside, I’d suggest making the edit in a new document, merge all of the layers of the edit document when you’re done, drag it over to the TV edit document, make sure it’s right above the screen fill layer, right-click on the image layer, and select “Create Clipping Mask.” It will be inside the screen portion and you can resize.

For example, I quickly made this edit in a new document and merged all the layers:

Then I followed the steps above and put it inside the screen.

8. Creating the “electricity”. 

Create a new layer and use the brush tool with a simple hard round brush in a small size and draw a couple little zig-zags coming from one of the antennae. 

Create another new layer and make a couple more for the other antenna.

Now you could stop here, or if you want, you can make them into a little gif with the next step:

9. Duplicate one of the electricity layers, choose the select tool, right click on the document, and click “Free Transform”. Go to the top bar, and in the rotation box, enter -10. Hit the Enter key when you’re done.

It rotated the duplicate slightly to the left.

A/N: If it’s blurry around the edges, apply a Surface Blur with 5 Radius and 10 Threshold.

Duplicate the other electricity layer, Free Transform it, and apply a Rotation of 10. (Do the same number but polarize it. i.e., if you previously put -10, put +10 for this one. If you previously put +10, now put -10.)

10. Open the frame animation timeline.

For the first frame, hide the duplicated electricity layers. Only the original ones should be visible.

Create a new frame and in this one, hide the original electricity layers and un-hide the duplicates.

Set the speed of the gif to 0.5, or something around there. You don’t want it too fast because it’ll hurt people’s eyes!

Make sure the loop is on “Forever” as well!

11. Go to File>Save for Web.., and save the gif.

And you’re done!

Here is my edit, image version:

And here it is as a gif:

Other Suggestions:

> For the full effect, you can go to the screen fill layer (not the image/edit inside of it) and select it, double-click, and apply a pattern overlay with a horizontal stripe and put the mode on Soft Light and lower the opacity to create that line effect.

Result:

> You can also apply an Inner Glow to the screen layer and create a shadow.

Result: