ORIGINAL → EDITED gif making process
Thank you @letsmakesomeonehappytoday for the tag x3
Left: Cropped, resized, and timed Right: Cropped, resized, timed, sharpened, and coloured
I always try to find the highest quality video I can of whatever it is I want to gif. So I definitely prefer to work with 1080p or 720p.
Frame delay is almost always set to 0.05. I would only use 0.06 if the clip/scene was really short or if the purpose of the gif was to have a slow focus.
I use an action to sharpen, usually. If not, then my manual sharpening settings are: Smart Sharpen at 500% and then Gaussian Blur with ~63% opacity, depending on the video quality (which I made into an action anyways lol).
To start the colouring of the gif, I use a base of two psds. The first one lowers the contrast and lightens the gif. The second one ups the vibrancy with an added bit of red tone focus. After adding the two psds, I lower the opacity level of the first psd until the colour vibrancy looks alright. *When working with larger gifs, I don’t use these psds since they add quite a bit to the file size.
Next, I add a Levels layer, and usually set it to Increase Contrast 1. Then an Exposure layer is used where Exposure is increased to the point where the skin colour is brightened and enhanced without changing it too much and Gamma Correction is lightened. The latter step kind of resets the gif so I can better adjust the colouring in my own way. Starting now, and at random intervals hereafter, I add a Vibrance layer set anywhere around +10 to +60. And, not always, but I might use Curves to increase contrast.
I then play around with Selective Layer. In the case of Harry and Louis’ skin colours, I usually adjust the reds, yellows, and whites. Depending on what the gif is like - e.g., if the background is blue, or if their clothes are a certain colour - I adjust the appropriate colours to up the vibrancy on those. I might increase the blacks as well, but not to the extent of losing too much detail. By this point, I may choose to make the gif warmer-looking, so I would add a Color Balance layer and up the red a bit. Interesting fact: whenever anything is adjusted via those toggle bars, I like to have the numbers land on a factor of 5; the exception is 28.
Lastly, if the gif quality still looks a bit off, I may add a Noise filter at 2.45%. Sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesn’t.
Basically, I try not to change too much from the original, just enhance the colours and quality. A bunch of my steps may be redundant or unnecessary, but it’s what I’m used to doing heh. Also, I tag anyone that wants to do this and hasn’t yet!
