#giffing stuff

Ah, thanks so much!

First, awesome that you're trying to make your own! I'm not gonna say mine are great now but oof, you don't want to see what they looked like at the start. So anyone can improve!

I think, as everyone will say, for the best quality in gifs, first try to get good quality source video. Other people try to go for 1080p always but I personally am okay with 720p.

After that, some people will take screenshots? I actually just clip the scene I want, I use Xilisoft (any video editor would do, Handbrake is free) and make sure the bit rate is fairly proportional to the source vid, so for example, I have a 720p quality ep with a bit rate of 4.5k (which is on the lower side, I've seen bit rates go up to 6k, but this isn't a thing you can really control, unless you're ripping the episode yourself, most of us make do with what we can download), so I get a short mp4 clip of the moment I want, using around the same bit rate for the output. Some video editors will output just that slice from the original video without any conversion, that's fine too, as long as Photoshop can recognize it.

Then I import to Photoshop (File -> Video Frame to Layers) and I didn't used to but now I do a quick sharpen on every frame (helped by this script) and then resize, use Curves and sometimes Levels to brighten and color and then add the text captions and save for web, with basically full settings for whatever modes and algorithms you choose, full colors, best algorithm, etc.

Sure, what part are you stuck on? If you’re looking at it from the very start, there are three major steps, I’d say:

1. Obtain the episodes: You mind find rips of it online, if you know where to look, possibly with 720p/1080p or mp4/mkv in your search terms, or you could try to download it directly, using various tools.

2. Clip the part you want: I actually use Xilisoft’s free trial to get the part I want, since the only limitation on the free version is length and I never need more than three minutes, but there’s Handbrake and VLC Player and a variety of free tools out there.

3. Actually creating the gif: I use Photoshop CS5, import the clip, do whatever modifying with Curves and add text if necessary, and then Save for Web.