#mytutorials

Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics and his Making Comics. These books are taught in like, every comic class ever. While not my complete favorite, they do a good job of showing some history and fundamentals, and how easy it is to make comics even if you don't have a lot of drawing experience.

99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style by Matt Madden: Really good if you don't know how to start analyzing comics. (Also it's just a fun visual exercise.) It shows the same short story done in 99 different styles with different emphasis on different moods and points of view.

The PreHistory of The Far Side: A 10th Anniversary Exhibit by Gary Larson and The Calvin and Hobbes: Tenth Anniversary Book by Bill Watterson: Two great books with work from my two favorite cartoonists. They both have writings from the author about getting ideas, developing stories, and being a comic artist.

Uncanny Bodies: Superhero Comics and Disability, edited by Scott T. Smith and José Alaniz and Black Comics: Politics of Race and Representation, edited by Sheena C. Howard and Ronald L. Jackson II: These two aren't really about making comics, but they are great collections of analysis about old and new comics alike.

By no means a complete list, but some good ones that I can think of off the top of my head.

There's also the book Webtoon School: Everything you need to know about webtoon creation and story writing. To be honest, I didn't read this completely through because it was a bit more fundamental than I was expecting, but it gives a good cursory look of how to write comics if you're just starting out! It covers some history, how to write stories and arcs, etc.

VERSION I

This is by far the easiest method, but it only works on scenes that have a very different background color than the object you want to stay colorful. Green and blue backgrounds work best if you’re creating a set with bw blackground + people in color. Try to stay away from scenes that have a lot of red tones in the background, as this method will not work. 

This the gif we’ll be starting out with, I already used my basic brightening settings on it using Curves and Brightness/Contrast. 

Create a Hue/Saturation (ctrl + u) adjustment layer on your gif in timeline.

In the drop-down menu where it says master by default you are going to pick each color that’s not the color you want to stay (in my case it’s red) and lower the saturation to -100. (I used the yellows on the picture below as an example, but I set it to -100 on greens, cyans, blues and magentas as well)

Your gif should look like this now:

You can see that besides from the girls’ red cape everything is black white, however, the red is looking washed out and not as bright as it should, so in that same Hue/Saturation layer pick Reds and slide the Saturation to the right until the remaining color in your gif is vibrant enough. 

And you basically have your finished gif right here! Of course, you can make more adjustments with a Selective Color layer, but this is the gist of color isolation on a gif. 

Now as I said, this method only works with scenes that have a big contrast between the background and your object; but if you’re like me and are determined to make your own life harder, you will want to include scenes in your set that cannot be colored with this method. 

VERSION II

This method is for scenes that won’t work with the first version, and have very little to no movement. 

This is my starting out gif; once again I have already did the basic coloring of it, but as you can see the wall behind Kate is very similar to her skin color. 

Using the version 1 method gets you this; not much has changed because of the majority red tones the background has, but if you were to set Reds to -100 too, Kate’s skin would become bw too. (i left cyans on 0 instead of -100 to preserve her dress’s color.) 

As this obviously doesn’t work, we aren’t even going to create a Hue/Saturation layer at this stage. Instead, you want to make a Black & White adjustment layer (alt + shift + ctrl +b)

Now you have a fully black & white gif. Selecting the layer mask of the Black & White layer, you’re going to start painting over Kate with the Brush tool (B). I have my brush set to 0% hardness and 100% opacity. 

This is how your gif should look now:

As you can see it’s almost perfect, but on the left side of her head you can see the wall’s color in some frames. To correct this, you’re going back to that same layer mask but set the brush to 60% opacity and have your brush set to color white (the percentage is up for preference really, I set mine between 50%-80% depending on the colors) 

And we’re done with the color isolation on this gif! To finish it off I used a Hue/Saturation layer and set Reds and Cyans to +10 to make her stand out more then put a Selective Color layer so her skin isn’t orange washed and changed her dress to a deeper blue.

VERSION III

Our starting gif for this version has a few ladies in red in the background, multiple people that I don’t want in color, and it also has a lot of movement. (we are going to work on everything being bw except for Kate)

You are going to repeat the same steps as you did in VERSION I, in the Hue/Saturation layer I set the Yellows, Greens and Cyans to -100. This is how your gif should look now:

Now you are going to repeat the steps of VERSION II. Make sure you are at the starting point of your gif in the timeline window, and paint over Kate in the Black & White layer mask. You don’t have to be as precise here, I actually like to go around my object with my brush set to 50% opacity, just so we won’t have black spots as we move the mask later. [You may think, what was the point of the previous step, if we are going to have a black and white layer anyways? And you’re right, it’s not absolutely necessary, however, it helps that you don’t have to be as careful painting over Kate, as the grass around her is already bw.] 

As you can see, the layer mask only works in the very first frame, then half her body becomes black and white as she is no longer in the range of the mask. 

To correct this, we are going to be using the timeline’s keyframes feature. On the Black & White layer in the timeline window, click on the down pointing arrow on the left. What’s important to us here is the Layer Mask Position option. 

You are going to start slowly sliding that red line that allows you to see your gif move (but not play it) and when you see that Kate is out of the range of the layer mask you are going to click on that little clock symbol of the Layer Mask Position option

Using the Move tool (V) and the left and right arrows on your keyboard, you are going to nudge the layer mask to follow Kate’s body and repeat this step as many times as you need. This is how my timeline ended up looking:

and here’s the finished gif:

As you can see, some pink is still visible around her dress, but it’s very muted. If that small bleed through bothers you, you can always use the little scissor icon in the timeline, split the black & white layer every time there’s movement and adjust the layer mask on every single layer - but that’s very tedious and time-consuming, so I’d rather recommend choosing scenes with little to no movement and a contrasting background so you can get away with using version I or II. 

As an example here’s a screenshot of the timeline of a set where I couldn’t use keyframes; I had 34 copies of the bw layer, and it still had spots where the background wasn’t perfect. So be kind to yourself (unlike me) and just choose easier scenes :D

I hope this was clear and I could help, if you have any questions left don’t hesitate to send an ask or message me <3 

Please like/reblog if you found this useful, and happy gifmaking! 

i’ll be using the first gif of the set you mentioned because it’s the one that needed the most color adjustments to get the red, other gifs didn’t need that much work and were fairly easy to get the color i wanted, so i’ll be going from this

to this

so starting, i work on each gif separately (crop, resize and color). the base gif will be the one where young aemond is looking to the front, tho honestly it doesn’t matter which gif you use as your base. once we’re satisfied with both of their colorings we go to the second gif which is the one of young aemond looking to the side, select both gif and coloring and click on the little folder on the bottom right corner highlighted with the red circle or just press ctrl+g on pc (cmd+g on mac i think)

we name it as ‘gif 2′ to know which gif is it and to not get confused. then we add a vector mask by clicking the little figure highlighted again with a red circle. do these steps for all the gifs you’re planning to blend, as it will group them all separately without their individual colorings overlapping each other

then we duplicate it and send it to the base gif and set the second gif to ‘screen’, though sometimes setting it to ‘lighten’ works too, it all depends on the gif so play with both to see which one looks better (trama = screen)

now is time to blend! for this i use a big brush like 200px, set to 0% hardness and 50% opacity, the bigger the brush and the lower the hardness, the softer the blending it’ll be, while using a smaller brush with an increased hardness, the blending will be sharper. we’re going to click on the base gif’s vector mask and with the brush set to black we’ll start to erase the left side of it, if we mess up then we set the brush to white by pressing ‘x’ and paint on it to correct anything. it should look like this

then we do the same with the second gif by erasing the right side and a little over aemond’s eye. personally i like to leave traces of both gifs so the blending looks smooth and nice. the end result should look like this

now is time to change aemond’s clothes to red! there are several ways to do this which is by using selective colors, hue/saturation, a gradient map or a new layer and paint over the gif, you can use one of these methods or several or all of them depending on your gif and the result you want to achieve. so we create a new folder atop our gifs and name it ‘red’ and create a selective colors layer, though the color isn’t that bright or strong i can see some green and maybe some cyan/blue tones on lil aemond’s clothes, so we adjust those colors to make the green pop up and set the selective colors layer to ‘color’, it should look like this

don’t worry too much if aemond’s face gets green and then red, we’ll fixed this later. now we create a hue/saturation layer, on the drop down menu we change the color to ‘green’ and drag the hue bar until the green changes to red or as close as possible to it, we do this for cyan and blues too (verde = green, cianes = cyan, azules = blue, sorry for ps being on spanish tho)

and voila! the green and cyan/blues had turned red

because the red looks dull and sad and needs to be brigthen up, we’re going to create a new selective colors layer and adjust the reds and yellows, like so:

you’ll notice that lil aemond’s face and hair has turned red, to get rid of that we’re going to pick up our brush, set it to black and start erasing those parts on the vector mask on our latest selective color layer. once you’re done duplicate twice that layer and drag one of its vector masks to our first selective color layer and the second one to our hue/saturation layer and delete the duplicates without vector masks, that way you don’t have to erase on each one of the vector masks again, just tweak each one to your liking, repeat this step for future layers

because i can see some yellow on left aemond’s hair and i want for it to be red so it blends with the rest of the color we then create a new hue/saturation layer, change the color to ‘yellow’ and set the hue to -65 and the lightness to +30. then we add a new selective colors layer and only work on the reds, we set everything to +100 though the cyan to -50. and lastly we add a new hue/saturation layer, change the color to ‘red’ and increase the saturation to +25. this will be the result. i’ve already done the step mentioned above about duplicating the vector masks

because there’s still some red on his hair and face and i’m lazy i select the folder named ‘red’, add a vector mask to it and just erased on it because i didn’t want to go and erase on each vector mask, too much work lol

i could very much leave the gif as it is but i felt it needed like a pop of color around it because the background is kinda dull and not that vibrant, so we create a new folder and name it ‘red layering’ (i need to name things or else i get confused), create a new layer, choose a vibrant yet deep shade of red (i’m using #b80505), pick up our brush (200px, 0% hardness, 50% opacity) and paint the background and a little over aemond’s clothes, set the layer to ‘tone’ and add a vector mask, like so:

i like how setting the layer to ‘tone’ gives his hair a soft red outline on places that didn’t change to red, like around the top of his hair. so next we duplicate the layer, set it to ‘soft light’ and the opacity to 40%, and with our brush set to black erase any parts we don’t want, like a little on his hair, his face and over his clothes, and apply the step i mentioned about duplicated vector masks and tweak to your liking

for this type of gifs i like to set the speed to 0.06, and voila! the gif is done! you can add in some typography if you want to c:

1. Basic Adjustments

Alright, so here is what I’m starting with - the gif after just being cropped and sharpened, no coloring yet:

Before I start any coloring, I do a couple basic adjustment layers. I usually start with brightness/contrast, then curves (using the dark and light eyedropper tool), and levels. Here’s the gif now, after applying those basic adjustments:

2. Channel Mixer (if necessary)

Some shows/scenes have very strong filters put on them already, a fact most gifmakers are painfully aware of. These filters can make scenes challenging to color because you’re not starting from a neutral base, but thankfully there is a solution: the channel mixer! This adjustment layer is explained in more detail in this wonderful tutorial by @selinakyle​, but essentially it allows you to isolate certain colors to correct them more accurately.

For this scene, I’ll be using the channel mixer to counteract the strong yellow-green filter that’s already baked into the footage. As you can see from my settings below, I’ve set the output channel to “blue” and then adjusted the “green” slider. That means that I’m adding blue into the green tones in the image. This will remove that yellow-green tint from my gif and allow me to start coloring with a better base.

3. Color Balance

Next, I add a color balance layer. This layer allows you to adjust the color of the shadows, midtones, and highlights of your gif separately. To be honest, I feel like this layer is all about experimentation; you never know what’s going to look good until you test it. You can see me testing out the sliders below.

It’s not usually a good idea to move the sliders around as drastically as I did here, I did that to give you a visual of how much the color balance layer can change the look of your gif.

The color balance settings I ended up going with are below. You can only see my midtone settings here, but my shadow and highlight settings are similar.

4. Adding the Gradient Map

After the basic coloring’s done, I add a gradient map, which is also located in the adjustment layer panel.

When you first add a gradient map, it will automatically add a gradient of your foreground and background colors, which is usually not the look you’re going for. To edit the gradient, simply click on the gradient itself in the properties panel and it will open up the gradient editor.

In the gradient editor, click the tiny squares on the bottom of the gradient to edit each side of it. You can also add more colors to the gradient as well if you want more than two. It’s usually a good idea to put the darker color(s) on the left and the lighter color(s) on the right so that they correspond to the shadows and highlights properly.

Now that my gradient is added and the colors changed to my liking, my gif looks like this:

5. Adjusting the Gradient Map

The colors are nice, but I don’t like the way they just sit on top of the image, I want the gradient to look more natural. So it’s time to adjust the gradient map’s blending mode.

Every adjustment layer’s blending mode is set to normal by default. Adjusting it is easy - simply go to the layers panel, click the button that says “normal,” and scroll through the choices in the drop-down menu.

Like so many parts of coloring, which blending mode works best really depends on the scene and the look you’re going for. I usually start with overlay and see how it looks, but other popular blending modes are multiply, soft light, and color. I’ve also used hue and color burn.

For this gif, I decided to use overlay. Now that it’s been changed, my gif looks like this:

6. Adding a Layer Mask

The purple color looks great, but now the character looks unnaturally purple as well. In order to remove the purple from her face and hair, we’ll need to add a layer mask.

To add a layer mask, select the gradient map layer and then click the icon at the bottom of the layers panel that looks like a box with a circle in it.

After you click it, a small white box should appear beside your layer’s name.

Make sure it’s selected, then select the brush tool. Set the brush to black, increase the size if necessary, then start painting over the character’s face. Painting on the layer mask will obscure part of the gradient map layer itself, so that only the basic coloring we did before is visible. The darker the brush, the more opaquely it will remove the gradient map. Also, the larger the brush, the softer the look. Since I want a soft edge to my layer mask, I’m using a larger brush.

This is what a layer mask in progress looks like:

7. Keyframes

Now I’ve successfully removed the purple from the character’s face - so I should be done, right? Well, let’s export the gif and see:

Nope, still not ready. The layer mask I added is stationary, but the gif itself is not. This character moves around quite a bit, and since the layer mask stays still, it means that she dips in and out of the purple and sometimes reveals spots of the basic coloring on the wall behind her.

To fix this, we have to animate the layer mask so that it moves with her. We’ll do this using keyframes. To add keyframes, you’ll first need to unlink the layer mask. Go into the layers panel and click the little chain icon next to the mask.

Once the chain icon has disappeared, the mask is unlinked from the layer.

Next, go into the timeline, find the proper layer, and click the drop down arrow on the left side. This should show you a list of properties with little stopwatch icons beside them.

Each stopwatch toggles the keyframes for their respective property. Since we want to animate the layer mask position, we’ll want to click the stopwatch beside “layer mask position.” Now, it should show a small diamond beside the stopwatch - this means that keyframes have been enabled.

To animate the mask, make sure the timeline slider is placed at the very beginning of the gif. Drag it slowly across the timeline and stop as soon as the character moves beyond the mask. When this happens, use the move tool (do NOT use the transform tool/ctrl + t!) to drag the layer mask into the proper position.

Since keyframes are already enabled, every time you move the layer mask, you will create a new keyframe. This means that photoshop will animate the space between the two keyframes automatically. You’ll know that you’ve added a new keyframe when a small diamond shape appears at your slider’s position in the timeline.

Continue doing this throughout the whole gif, being careful to move slowly, as it’s very easy to miss a spot if you go too fast. This is how many keyframes I ended up creating for this gif:

Once you’ve gone through the entire gif, you’re done!

8. Exporting the Gif

Something that’s annoying about using keyframes is that, when you either convert back to frames or save and open the gif separately to adjust the frame delay, your frames will be duplicated. What does this mean? It means your gif will look like this:

Not great. The solution is easy, but tedious. Simply select every other frame and delete them before changing the frame delay (0.05 is the standard) and exporting. Now the gif should animate at the proper speed:

And you’re done!