thank you so much for your comment on my last anon! my heart broke when i read it! i know i'm not talented and i'm new at it, but it still hurt ): but thank you for your constructive criticism! i was struggling with what size i should have made them! do you have any ideas? thank you bby!
yeah of course! idk how well versed you are in photoshop so apologies in advance if i seem condescending or just tell you things you already know. but here’s like a basic set of steps/rules i follow when making gifs (keep in mind i don’t use timeline:
make sure you’re using hq video
i stick with 720p, 1080p if it’s available
HDTV is a misnomer. don’t use that shit.
usually .08 or .09 is fine
if you’re nervous about making a set with aesthetically pleasing dimensions, stick with the photoshop presets (2x3, 16x9, 1x1, etc).
otherwise select unconstrained and crop so everything you want is captured in the frame
make sure all the gifs in the set are the same size at this point. so if you cropped the first one to 420x480, they should all be 420x480 even before you resize
for sets with 2 columns, 1 row (like the one you made) i think it looks better if the gifs are a little “tall”; 2x2 sets i think look better with square gifs; sets with more 2 columns, 3+ rows should be a wider rectangle
take snapshots frequently throughout the process
if you want to do something very extreme when it comes to colouring, it’s better to have multiple layers of the same adjustment with small numbers than one layer with a big number. so like three vibrance layers where it’s +20 instead of one where it’s +60
keep every selective colouring (if you use them) in a separate layer and label them.
same with colour balance, channel mixer, etc
or use a psd if you’re not comfortable with colouring things yourself yet!
resize the whole gif using the option under image (if you’re on a mac: cmd+alt+i)
NEVER USE THE MOVE TOOL TO RESIZE THE WHOLE GIF
THAT BITCH WILL ALWAYS LIE TO YOU AND STRETCH OR SQUISH YOUR GIF
for sets with 1 column: resize to 540px width. the height will automatically be resized to maintain the ratio
for sets with 2 columns: resize to 268px width
for sets with 3 columns: resize to ~200px. tumblr is really weird with 3 column sets so doing exact dimensions isn’t always a great idea for these ones.
if you want text on your gifs, do it now
make sure your zoom is at 100%!
or whatever you think looks best for the gif, as long as you have transparency and 256. i’m not picky about these settings
each gif MUST be under 2mb
sometimes the “save for web” preview will say it’s like 1.91mb but then on your computer it’ll be 2.01 so check how big it is on your computer
if you’re only a liiiiiiiiiiiiiiittle bit over you can try cropping like 5-10px off the height of the gif
probably you need to delete frames
try deleting every fourth, or every third, or every other frame, depending on how far over you are.
if you’re paranoid like me, save the set as a draft on tumblr, view it from /blog/whichever/drafts to see what it’s gonna look like on your dash
and that’s about it!! hope this helped <3333
