#mytuts

okay so before i start i have to mention that i use three programs to do this: reshade (does the bulk of the editing for me via presets), SRWE (ensures that my screenshots are hq), and photoshop 2020 (for editing)

lets say i'm editing this picture

since i've already posed her, taken the pic w reshade, and cropped it to a size i want, i dont have to worry about any of that anymore. on to photoshop! (for ref: i didnt take this particular screenshot with SRWE because i didnt have it installed at the time, but for all of my current ones i do!)

the first thing i do is open up topaz clean v3 - i got mine from [cough cough here]. idk anything abt topaz so this may be outdated but... it works good enough for me

from there, i just mess around with the 'cartooned' settings until i find something i'm satisfied with. i try to keep it really subtle because i want my sim to actually look like themselves fkjhgjhf here are my personal settings for this specific photo

after this, i go to filter > sharpen > smart sharpen to bring out the details in the photo

similar to topaz settings, i just mess around with the strength until i find something that i like. i try not to go too heavy with it but since i didnt take this pic with SRWE, i gave it a little more sharpening than i usually would

lastly, i use one of @wooldawn's actions from this action dump . i personally use 'o gradient' to make the photo a bit brighter

and thats it!

before (left) vs after (right)

1) After you've downloaded everything that you're going to need, open your firefox browser and locate the video that you want to download. I'll be using this one.

2) Click on play. Once it's playing, you'll be able to download it. To do so, click the little colorful circle next to your url bar thing. It looks like this:  

3) See that little arrow? Click it to bring down the downloadable options. Usually, since you're on the direct video page, there is only one option. It should look like this.

4) Click on that and save! (If it doesn't automatically bring up the save as box, click on "download" in the menu)

STEP TWO: EXTRACTING FRAMES (If you prefer using KMPlayer, see this tutorial)

1) Open your video in VLC Media player. The easiest way I think about going about this would be to open VLC then go to media > open file, and locate your video that way. 

2) Play your video and stop it just a few frames before you want to start the gif, just so you don't miss anything. Now we're going to screencap it. If your still in the default settings for hotkeys, which if you just downloaded it or haven't changed them you are. The keys you need to hold down will be "shift+s" AT THE SAME TIME. You can hold them down to capture multiple frames, and since we're making a gif that's what we're gonna do. 

* VLC looks like this when capturing frames. 

STEP THREE: MAKING THE GIF

1) You should have photoshop open already, but if you don't, open it now, because now we're putting the frames into photoshop. Locate where your caps saved. You can do this by going to tools > preferences > video. That will bring up the following window, I circled where it says where your caps were saved. You may have to scroll down to see this section, though.

Now, open that folder and select the frames your going to do. Then drag them over your open photoshop document (to get one go to file > new, make sure your dimensions are set to something like 1280x720. If there's whitespace, that's fine, you can always crop). To place the files, you'll want to click the check mark (see photo below) until all frames are placed or hit the enter key until they're all placed. You're basically telling photoshop that yes, it's okay to put these here.

2)  Now you've got your layers, but you need them to be in frames. First, you need your animation bar open, you can open this by going to window > animation. Once that's there, click the menu and select "make frames from layers"

3) Set your time to .12 by doing the following:

Click on 

and input this: 

Now you can crop to your liking. Once your done use the menu that we used to "Make Frames from layers" and click "Flatten Frames Into layers"

Once you've done that it's time to sharpen your frames. You can do this using this action. 

Yay! We're done! If you want to add psds, text, ect. Go ahead and do that. The best way to get a good looking .gif is to mess around with different settings.

Once you are set, go to file > save for web and devices > verify that your file is under 1MB, save, and there you go~

If it is over 1MB, try deleting frames and re-sizing it smaller. If need be delete colors using the optimize to file size tool in the drop down menu on the save for web and devices.

I'm not too good at making tutorials, but if this helped I'm glad.

If you have any questions, shoot me a message and I'll be glad to help out! (:

STEP ONE

Automatically assuming you are using photoshop, first thing you should do is open the image and do all of your cropping/resizing to your liking. My image is 500x250, for no reason whatsoever. It is just what my fingers put in by default.

STEP TWO

I prefer adding the coloring (psd or my own) before anything else. It is a personal preference, so it is up to you what you would rather do. [x] For the rest of this tutorial make sure the image layer is highlighted, so the filters will take place solely on the image [x].

STEP THREE

This is optional. Filter - Sharpen - Unsharp Mask. Settings [x]; Result [x]

STEP FOUR

Filter - Topaz Labs - Topaz Clean 3. Settings [x]; Result [x]An alternative (though not as up to par as Topaz) if you do not have Topaz is Gaussian blur. So, Filter - Blur - Gaussian Blur. Set at 0.5. But I recommend playing around with settings to exclusively work with the image you are using. There are also actions I can direct you to if you send me a message about them.

STEP FIVE

Filter - Sharpen - Smart SharpenSettings [x]; Result [x] 

STEP SIX

Clean it up. The sharpened area around Amy’s nose is not flattering (in my opinion), so I used the blur tool [x] and very lightly went over it. Also good for small wrinkles or creases that look better not sharpened.

RESULTS

Original - Final

go to Customize and then to Edit HTML

find <img src=“{image:sidebar}”> (use CTRL+F to find it)

delete <imgsrc=“{image:sidebar}” and put THIS code instead

replace  ”PICTUREURLHERE” with the image/gif you want it to be

click update and save

You're done! :)