#photoshop tutorial

Full disclaimer - there is no real set method for what I do to colour my gifs, as it changes depending on the gif and my mood. In the case of this gif I used lots of selective colour layers, but I have also used channel mixer in the past to correct similar issues or have done most of the correction in curves (like in my basic gif tut). I will also add in the case of my header gif, I applied the previous colouring from my theolizzy gifset, so I'll try and recreate how I got the curves but it may not be exact.

Step 1: Start with your base gif sharpened and ready to colour

I always start any gif with a Curves layer.

I select the white eyedropper tool and select a white point on the gif to get a base to begin my colouring.

For this gif I selected the bit of confetti in the red box

This is what the result of the curves was there

As it can be seen this added some brightness but the scene is still very yellow

To start with I go into my curves layer and start by manually adjusting the RGB channels.

Normally to get rid of yellow, I would add more blue. But this will not work for this scene. This is what happens when adding more blue:

So instead of just adding more blue I go into each channel and adjust to get a better foundation for what I can colour later.

I started with the green

Then added more red in

then added a bit more blue

After that I went into the main channel and dragged the little black slider down to add some depth/contrast

This is what my final curves layer looked like

My next step is to add a Vibrance layer (which I do for all my gifs)

After that I started working in the selective colour layers. As the tint is quite strong I used a lot of layers and built upon them.

For the first selective colour I adjusted the reds and yellows

These adjustments resulted in this, which is already looking more natural but needs some more adjustment still

I went back in the reds and yellows again and adjusted further

leading to this which is a pretty good result:

The gif now is mostly colour corrected but I still want to do some minor adjustments (cos I'm a perfectionist) so I make another selective colour layer.

This time I just add some more cyan to the reds, which is a small change but neutralises a bit of the shadows which were too bright for me

Next I take out some more yellow as the tint is still there a bit

The above is pretty good, but I decided I wanted to do another curves layer on top to do a final bit of colour correction.

I manually went into each colour channel and adjusted as so:

I started by adding more blue as now I can use this to get rid of the remaining tint without it looking weird

the gif was now slightly magenta/pink so I added a bit of green to balance it out and slid the bottom slider a bit to add some depth back into the shadows

Then I added some red. I also dragged the black bar at the bottom to add a bit more depth/cyan to the shadows.

This is the final result of the basic colouring for the scene I did.

here is a folder of all the resources from this tutorial. all of them will also be linked individually below, along with any other websites and software that i recommend!

Video Downloaders/Resources

The first step of gif-making is to get your hands on a video file for the content you want to gif. The reality is that the most reliable way to access high quality versions of movies & tv shows is through t*rrenting, and in order to t*rrent, you need a paid VPN. I will recommend free alternatives for everything where at all possible, but a couple of investments will save you a lot of effort and give you access to waaaaay more stuff.

VPN (paid) - I use Surfshark, any paid VPN should work, find whichever has the best deal

T*rrent client - i use qBitt*rrent

Magnet link sites: Eztv, ThePirateBay, uIndex, 1337x, LimeT*rrents, T*rrentLeech

Video Guidelines: I usually use files that are 1080p quality. I used to use 2160p quality files almost exclusively, but it takes way longer, and with a good quality 1080p file, the result is basically just as good. In order to find a good file, check the file size before you download it. For a 1 hour tv show episode, you want a file around 3 or 4 GB. Anything under 1 GB won't give you a good result.

More options for downloading other kinds of videos:

Video DownloadHelper (paid) - download directly from video platforms! you get a couple downloads for free, but the paid version is worth it for me. Pros: works instantly so you dont have to wait for the t*rrent file to be posted, works on lots of sites, pay once/no subscription. Cons: no embedded subtitles.

Dropout-dl (free) - Command line downloader for Dropout.tv. Pros: free, works instantly, embedded subtitles, and always creates a separate searchable subtitle file. Cons: very technical setup. For this one, you will also need Docker.

VideoProc Converter (free version) - good for downloading YouTube, and extracting embedded subtitles from video files (5 minute limit on the subtitle thing)

Screencaps

The next step is to convert your video to screencap images.

mpv

sample mpv.conf file

I use mpv to make my screencaps because it's the most efficient, in my opinion. In order to set it up, you have to edit the settings in the "mpv.conf" file. Mine is located here: C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Roaming\mpv. I've linked a sample of the settings I use above. I recommend changing the screenshot-directory to a different folder for your screencaps. I organize my screencaps in numbered folders to keep track of them.

Image Software

I use Photoshop CS6 version, from this link:

birdyresources photoshop

more (free) photoshop links

The other software you can use is Photopea. There's lots of tutorials for that on photopeablr!

Importing Screencaps to Photoshop

In Photoshop, go to File -> Scripts -> Load Multiple DICOM Files. Then, paste the file path of one of your screencap folders into the pop-up.

Creating Gif Smart Object

First off: if your screencaps have a black border anywhere, crop it out, making sure that "Delete Cropped Pixels" is selected.

Next, there are a bunch of steps to be able to work with your screencaps in Photoshop. I have all of those steps saved as Actions.

download all my photoshop actions

how to use my actions

For a full description of how my actions work, how to use them, and a description of every action, I created a separate post just for that! It was a little too long to include here lol. It's not necessary to read the whole thing; feel free to just start using the first action and figure it out with trial and error if you want!

Coloring Layers

It's kind of hard to describe the coloring process, so I've provided several PSDs of gif colorings that you are free to use!

coloring PSD folder

Here's a list of the adjustment layers I usually use, in the order I add them: Exposure, Levels, Curves, Brightness, Vibrance, (then i make a new folder for just the coloring layers) Channel Mixer, Color Balance, Hue/Saturation x many, Selective Color x many

If you take a look at the Louis file in the PSD folder, than you can see all the layers I used to go achieve this coloring:

Add captions

Next, add captions and anything else you want on your gif. This is the font I use for captions:

Arial Rounded MT Bold

Here are the text settings I use. In order to add Layer Styles, right-click on your text layer and click 'Blending Options'.

Export and fix gif speed

Now that the gif is ready with all of the right layers, export it by going to File -> Save for Web. (This takes a while to load as photoshop is putting everything together.) These are the export settings I use:

When the window pops-up, make sure to change the looping option to forever, and then you can save your gif. I also highlighted the area where it shows the final file size of the gif. This needs to be under 10MB, or else tumblr won't allow you to upload it.

This result is good, but when you first export it, the speed of the frames is wrong.

In order to fix the speed: open the .gif file in Photoshop, select all the frames, and change the speed to 0.05 seconds. Repeat the Save for Web step, and overwrite your previous .gif file when you save it. (You can also double check that the gif loops 'Forever' at the very bottom.)

And here's our final gif!

Repeat these steps as needed for the rest of the gifs in the scene. Remember to check out my action pack to save a lot of time on repeated steps!

Here's some additional tips and tricks for giffing to make your life easier:

Tips for skin tone

I often spend a lot of time ensuring that the skin tones of the people in my gifs look natural. It's very important to represent people's skin tones accurately, and it's not acceptable to whitewash or colorwash people of color's skin tones.

Here are some tutorials I've found very helpful:

fix orange-washed characters

channel mixer tutorial

A lot of shows these days have really pale and muted palettes, so Vibrance really helps to add saturation and dimension. If the subject looks too pale/whitewashed, increase the saturation and deepness of the Yellow and Red colors using Selective Color layers.

this is the before/after impact of two layers, Vibrance and Red Selective Color:

If the subject looks too yellow or orange, neutralize these tones using Selective Color and Hue/Saturation layers:

before/after:

Tips for recoloring

I recently posted a small tutorial that goes over my recoloring process, such as in the example below of changing the background from neutral yellow to blue. It also goes over some more complicated gif effects.

coloring + moving film strip tutorial

Other tips and tutorials

For Curves layers, I don't use the eyedropper method. I just click on the line to adjust it myself, making the darks darker and lights lighter. This gives the gif a lot more dimension and contrast.

Selective Color tutorial - change the color of shadows

Text effects tutorial

Usergif tutorial directory - tutorials for basically anything you want to learn!

Every gif is different - sometimes, even two shots of the same person in the same scene can have drastically different lighting and color-grading from each other. I recommend playing around with the values in the adjustment layers a lot to fit your gifs as needed. You can also reduce the opacity of layers to lessen their effect, or duplicate layers to increase their effect. (I often reuse coloring layers and make these changes, so it's a real method!)

First things first. Below are the things and tools we need to do this:

Downloaded 4K or 1080p quality videos (let’s all assume we know where to get these—especially for high definition movies and tv series—so this post doesn’t get removed, okay? 😛)

Adobe Photoshop CC or the CS versions can work as well, but full disclosure I haven’t created gifs using the CS versions since 2020. I’m currently using Adobe Photoshop 2024.

mpv player. Use mpv player to get those frames/screenshots or any other video player that has a screen grabber feature. I’ve used adapter for the longest time but I’ve switched to mpv because the press to screenshot feature while the video is playing has been a game changer not to mention ultimate time saver for me. For adapter you need to play it in another video player (like VLC player), to get the start and end timestamps of the scene you want to gif which takes me ages before I can even open Photoshop.

Anyway! Please stop reading this post for a moment and head over to this amazing tutorial by kylos. She perfectly tells you how to install and use mpv player, both for Mac and Windows users.

One thing I have to share though, I had a tough time when I updated my MacOS to Sonoma since MPV is suddenly either duplicating frames or when I delete the duplicates the player seems to be skipping frames :/ I searched and found a solution here, though it didn’t work for me lol. My workaround for this in the meantime is decreasing the speed down to 0.70 then start screenshotting—it’s not the same pre Sonoma update but it works so I’ll have to accept it rather than have jumpy looking gifs.

Now, after this part of kylos’ tutorial:

you can continue reading the following sections of my gif tutorial below.

I want to share this little tip (sorry, this will only cater to Mac users) that I hope will be helpful for organizing the screenshots that MPV saved to the folder you have selected. Because believe me you don’t want to go through 1k+ of screenshots to select just 42-50 frames for your gif.

The Control + Command + N shortcut

This shortcut allows you to create a new folder from files you have pre-selected. As you can see below I have already created a couple of folders, and inside each folder I have selected screenshots that I want to include in one single gif. It's up to you how you want to divide yours, assuming you intend to create and post a Tumblr gifset rather than just one gif.

Another tip is making use of tags. Most of, if not all the time, I make supercorp gifs so I tag blue for Kara and red (or green) for Lena—just being ridiculously on brand and all that.

Before we finally open Photoshop, there's one more thing I want to say—I know, please bear with me for the third? fourth? time 😅

It's helpful to organize everything into their respective folders so you know the total number of items/frames you have. This way, you can add or delete excess or unnecessary shots before uploading them in Photoshop.

For example below there are 80 screenshots of Kara inside this folder and for a 1:1 (540 x 540 px) Tumblr gif, Photoshop can just work around with 42-50 max number of frames with color adjustments applied before it exceeds the 10 MB file size limit of Tumblr.

Sometimes I skip this step because it can be exhausting (haha) and include everything so I can decide visually which frames to keep later on. You'll understand what I mean later on. But it's important to keep the Tumblr 10 MB file size limit in mind. Fewer frames, or just the right amount of frames, is better.

So, with the screenshot organization out of the way, let's finally head over to Photoshop.

Giffing in Photoshop, yay!

Let’s begin by navigating to File > Scripts > Load Files into Stack…

The Load Layers window will appear. Click the Browse button next.

Find your chosen screenshots folder, press Command + A to select all files from that folder then click Open. Then click OK.

After importing and stacking your files, Photoshop should display the following view:

By the way, I'll be providing the clip I've used in this tutorial so if want to use them to follow along be my guest :)

If you haven't already opened your Timeline panel, navigate to Windows > Timeline.

Now, let's focus on the Timeline panel for the next couple of steps.

Click Create Video Timeline, then you’ll have this:

Now click the menu icon on the top right corner then go to Convert Frames > Make Frames from Clips

Still working on the Timeline panel, click the bottom left icon this time—the icon with the three tiny boxes—to Convert to Frame Animation

Select Make Frames From Layers from the top right corner menu button.

So now you have this:

Go and click the top right menu icon again to Select All Frames

Then click the small dropdown icon to set another value for Frame Delay. Select Other…

The best for me and for most is 0.05 but you can always play around and see what you think works for you.

Click the top right menu icon again to Reverse Frames.

I think Photoshop has long since fixed this issue but usually the first animation frame is empty so I just delete it but now going through all these steps there seems to be none of that but anyways, the delete icon is the last one among the line of feature buttons at the bottom part of the Timeline panel.

Yay, now we can have our first proper GIF preview of a thirsty Lena 😜

Press spacebar to watch your gif play for the very first time! After an hour and half of selecting and cutting off screenshots! 😛 Play it some more. No really, I’m serious. I do this so even as early (lol) as this part in the gif making process, I can see which frames I can/should delete to be within the 10 MB file size limit. You can also do it at the end of course 🙂

Now, let’s go to the next important steps of this tutorial post which I’ve numbered below.

Crop and resize to meet Tumblr's required dimensions. The width value should be either 540px, 268px, or 177px.

Convert the gif to a Smart Object for sharpening.

Apply lighting and basic color adjustments before the heavy coloring. I will be sharing the base adjustments layers I use for my gifs 😃.

1. Crop and Resize

Click on the Crop tool (shortcut: the C key)

I like my GIFs big so I always set this to 1:1 ratio if the scene allows it. Press the Enter key after selecting the area of the frame that you want to keep.

Side note: If you find that after cropping, you want to adjust the image to the left or another direction, simply unselect the Delete Cropped Pixels option. This way, you will still have the whole frame area available to crop again as needed and as you prefer.

Now we need to resize our gif and the shortcut for that is Command + Opt + I. Type in 540 as the width measurement, then the height will automatically change to follow the ratio you’ve set while cropping.

540 x 540 px for 1:1

540 x 405 px for 4:3

540 x 304 px for 16:9

For the Resample value I prefer Bilinear—but you can always select the other options to see what you like best.

Click OK. Then Command + 0 and Command + - to properly view the those 540 pixels.

Now we get to the exciting part :) the sharpen settings!

2. Sharpen

First we need to have all these layers “compressed” intro a single smart object from which we can apply filters to.

Select this little button on the the bottom left corner of the Timeline panel.

Select > All Layers

Then go to Filter > Convert for Smart Filters

Just click OK when a pop-up shows up.

Now you should have this view on the Layers panel:

Now I have 3 sharpen settings to share but I’ll have download links to the Action packs at the end of this long ass tutorial so if you want to skip ahead, feel free to do so.

Sharpen v1

Go to Filter > Sharpen > Smart Sharpen…

Below are my settings. I don’t adjust anything under Shadows/Highlights.

Amount: 500

Radius: 0.4

Click OK then do another Smart Sharpen but this time with the below adjustments.

Amount: 12

Radius: 10.0

As you can see Lena’s beautiful eyes are “popping out” now with these filters applied. Click OK.

Now we need to Convert to Frame Animation. Follow the steps below.

Click on the menu icon at the top right corner of the Timeline panel, then click Convert Frames > Flatten Frames into Clips

Then Convert Frames > Convert to Frame Animation

One more click to Make Frames From Layers

Delete the first frame then Select All then Set Frame Delay to 0.05

and there you have it! Play your GIF and make sure it’s just around 42-50 frames. This is the time to select and delete.

To preview and save your GIF go to File > Export > Save for Web (Legacy)…

Below are my Export settings. Make sure to have the file size around 9.2 MB to 9.4 MB max and not exactly 10 MB.

This time I got away with 55 frames but this is because I haven’t applied lighting and color adjustments yet and not to mention the smart sharpen settings aren't to heavy so let’s take that into consideration.

Sharpen v1 preview:

Sharpen v2

Go back to this part of the tutorial and apply the v2 settings.

Smart Sharpen 1:

Amount: 500

Radius: 0.3

Smart Sharpen 2:

Amount: 20

Radius: 0.5

We’re adding a new type of Filter which is Reduce Noise (Filter > Noise > Reduce Noise...) with the below settings.

Then one last Smart Sharpen:

Amount: 500

Radius: 0.3

Your Layers panel should look like this:

Then do the Convert to Frames Animation section again and see below preview.

Sharpen v2 preview:

Sharpen v3:

Smart Sharpen 1:

Amount: 500

Radius: 0.4

Smart Sharpen 2:

Amount: 12

Radius: 10.0

Reduce Noise:

Strength: 5

Preserve Details: 50%

Reduce Color Noise: 0%

Sharpen Details: 50%

Sharpen v3 preview:

And here they are next to each other with coloring applied:

v1

v2

v3

Congratulations, you've made it to the end of the post 😂

As promised, here is the download link to all the files I used in this tutorial which include:

supercorp 2.05 Crossfire clip

3 PSD files with sharpen settings and basic coloring PSD

Actions set

As always, if you're feeling generous here's my Ko-fi link :) Thank you guys and I hope this tutorial will help you and make you love gif making.

P.S. In the next post I'll be sharing more references I found helpful especially with coloring. I just have to search and gather them all.

there are many ways to get the same results and i'll use various methods usually just based on what i'm feeling at the moment. some of it is a little convoluted, but hopefully this will give you a rounded idea of how it all works so you feel more comfortable playing around with your own colouring

NADJA

this is the base gif with zero colouring adjustments, just resized and sharpened.

unless the base gif is already very bright, which doesn't often happen because directors nowadays are allergic to light, the first layer i add is always a brightness/contrast layer. i don't adjust any of the sliders, i just change the blending mode to "screen", and then adjust the opacity if needed. this gif was pretty dark, so i left it at 100%,

my next layers are always curves to even out the white and blacks. i use two curves layers, one for white and one for black. i used the white drop-picker and selected just below the lightshade on the lamp behind her, and for the black drop-picker i selected her hair near her neck which gives us this

it's already looking much better, it's not as green tinted, but i want to make the red of her dress pop a bit more. in order to do that without making her face too red, i'm gonna remove some of the yellow. so next i'm gonna add a selective colour layer, and under the yellow channel i moved the yellow slider to -5 and the black slider to -52. now

now that the yellow is reduced, i add another selective layer, and under the red i move the cyan slider to -66 and the black slider to +29. now the red of her dress pops and her face is still a realistic tone. when i first made the gif, i added the red selective layer first, then added another selective layer under it and adjusted the yellows to offset it. you can always shift layers around or add a new layer underneath as you go.

voila

TOMMY

here is our base gif

this scene is better lit than the nadja one, but i prefer bright and colourful gifs, so i'm gonna once again add a brightness/contrast level and keep it at 100%

and then the curves layers to even it all out. since there isn't a spot that is immediately noticeable as white, you can hold the alt button with the white dropper selected and it will highlight all the white/very near white pixels. you can also zoom real close in to select specific pixels. i selected a from the white area around his chin/mouth. the same process works for finding a black spot with the black dropper, and for that i selected from a dark spot in his hair

the curves layers evened it out but also made the gif a bit more red and warm toned, and since i've decided i want the end result to be more blue/green, so i'm gonna add a colour balance layer. in the shadows channel i moved the cyan/red slider to -16, and the yellow/blue slider to +11

now the gif already looks great, it's bright, skin tone is accurate, he's not washed out, but like i said i like my gifs colourful, so i'm gonna add two more selective colour layers. in the first i'm gonna adjust the greens, bringing the magenta slider to -87, and the black slider to +81. in the second layer i'm gonna adjust both the blues and cyans, because when you see blue in a gif it's rarely ever straight blue or straight cyan, so always adjust both. (you could adjust the blue and green in the same layer, but i prefer to do them separately in case i need to move the layers around)

now finally i'm gonna add a hue/saturation layer because i think the blue of his suit is too blue when the sky behind him is more cyan. (also, since you only have 256 different colours to work with, you don't want too many different colours otherwise it will distort the colouring.) in the blue channel i move the hue slider to -12 to make the blue a bit more cyan, and i also move the saturation to +38 to make it pop more

and voila

RHAENYRA

here is the base gif (this one is going to get very convoluted and imo best exemplifies what colouring gifs is like most of the time)

as always, a brightening layer set to screen

now the curves layers. for the white i clicked on her hair at the top of her head, and for the black i i clicked in the shadows to the left of her.

but as you can see, while it added contrast, it also made the gif more green tinted than it was. you could click around more, or manually adjust the red, green, and blue lines on the curves until it looks better but i decided to add a channel mixer layer instead. in the green channel i set the greens to -95, and in the blue channel i set the blue to -97

next i wanted to add a little contrast, but i find that using the contrast in brightness/contrast can saturate it too much, so instead i added a levels layer. first i adjusted the bottom bar, moving the right slider to 230 which reduces the overall brightness of the gif, so when i adjust the top bar it doesn't brighten the gif too much. on the top bar, i moved the right slider to 212, and the left slider to 9

now, i'd like it to be not exactly warm toned, but less cool, and while i could use colour balance or a photo filter, i'm instead going to add a gradient map, using the default gradient pink 08, and setting it to blend mode soft light at 50% opacity

next i just want to increase the blacks a little, so i'm gonna add a selective colour layer and under black i'm gonna set the black slider to +10

it's still not as warm as i'd like, so i'm gonna add a colour balance layer, in the midtones setting the cyan/red to +10 and the yellow/blue to -5

we're almost done, but i want to make her dress pop a bit more, so first i'm gonna add another selective colour to bring the yellows down a bit, setting the black slider to -15

and finally one more selective colour layer, in the reds, setting the cyan slider to -50, the yellow slider to +10, and the black slider to +15

voila

NATALIE

here's the base gif

as always the brightness/contrast layer set the screen

now the curves layer. for the white, i zoomed in and selected a pixel on her cheek under her right eye. for the black i the dark spot just above her head

now she's very yellow, so i added a channel mixer layer. in the red channel i set the reds to +88. in the blue channel i set the reds to +10

she's still a little too yellow for my liking, so i'm gonna add a hue/saturation layer, and under the yellows i'm gonna adjust the saturation to -60

finally, i want her to be a it brighter, so i'm gonna add another curves layer, but instead of using the drop, i'm going to manually adjust it. the two points along the line are where i selected it and then i dragged until it looked how i wanted. i start with the upper dot, which made it brighter and moved the line into an arch, and then selected at the lower end of the line and dragged in back closer to centre to add some darkness and contrast

voila

and that's how i do my colouring. it's generally all trial and error, using a layer to fix one thing and then needing another layer to fix something the previous layer did.

play around, have fun, see what works for you and what doesn't. it will take a while for you to develop your own method and style, and even then you'll come across scenes that make you question if you have any sills at all. you do, directors just hate us

After downloading your video, you need to make your screencaps. I use MPV Player - if you don't know how to screencap, I recommend this tutorial on installing, configuring and using MPV (and this one for installing on a pc). You can also check my gifmaking tag for various other tutorials including different screencapping methods/software.

Once you've made your screencaps, move them to their own folder. You will need an individual folder for each gif/import! I put them in a "screencaps" folder and within that label each sub-folder however works for what I'm making.

Open Photoshop and open (ctrl+o) the way you would any image. Find the folder with the screencaps you want and select the first image (technically I think selecting any of them works, but I always do the first) then tick the Image Sequence button in the bottom corner, then open:

4. You will then get a pop-up to set the frame rate - these are my settings and after setting it once it should save it for future, so then you can just click OK each time:

5. This will instantly open your gif in timeline mode with your gif made! I then just click where it says Video Group 1 in the layers panel and Convert for Smart Filters so that it can be edited easily (I actually have this step saved as part of an action to make it even quicker). It should then look like this:

And that's it! You can go ahead and do all your editing like normal. I find Photoshop runs quicker this way (especially when making several gifs at once) since it's essentially just linking to the file location instead of importing it all into PS!

resources i frequently use - i use this set of brushes for everything, i'm not kidding (deviantart link) - elderwisp's texture & bokeh collection - texturelabs for other free textures (soooo many good ones!) - light leak textures (deviantart) i like a lot - i also just do this search frequently on deviantart when i'm looking for a specific type of texture! (i pay attention to dates so i don't run across any ai generated textures) (also, you only have 10 downloads a week, make em count!) - for my cigarette smoke i use this set of brushes, but i also like this site for all their resources! - a modified moonlight by @lavenfurs is the preset i used (however, i use reshade! still pretty.) - i use photoshop (2026) (there are plenty of tutorials out there on how to🏴‍☠ PS)

this tutorial is made on the basis that you know the fundamentals of layers (merging, moving, etc.) and the brush tool. if you don't know a lick about layers, here's a tutorial (photoshopessentials site) to get you started! with that said, i'm also not a professional and i might do things in ways you deem silly! please give KIND constructive feedback if you must <3

also, this is mainly how i edit my STORY POSTS. i'll do a tutorial on my CAS/Non-story posts later on.

after opening my image into PS, the first thing i do (usually), is crop it. if you're unfamiliar with the crop tool it's this lil guy here:

i pretty much only use the 1:1, 2:3 and 16:9 presets. if you want to crop without dimensions make sure to hit the clear button.

since i'm not cropping this specific image, i'll be skipping this step.

the next thing i do, is my curve adjustment, which you can find on the right side of your PS interface (usually beneath color). Click the 'Adjustments' tab, then 'Single Adjustments' beneath that.

you should see something that looks like this! (in-depth tutorial on curve adjustment) (tumblr link)

my goal with curves is usually to get my color saturation balanced nicely with the deepness of the shadows. when i've achieved a look that i like, i move onto brightness/contrast. you can find it in 'Adjustments,' 'Single Adjustments.' It's the first option (and is two to the left of curves).

you should see something that looks like this!

across most of my posts i favor higher contrast (here it's set to 50) and only minor edits to brightness (set to 20). and actually if i want a scene brighter, i prefer to use the exposure adjustment (specifically the gamma correction), which you can find under 'Adjustments,' then 'Single Adjustments' (one to the right of curves).

you should see something that looks like this! (couldn't find a great tutorial for exposure...just play around!)

as you can see, the change is super minor (set to gamma correction 1.11)

that's it for the adjustments tab. something i do to make my life a little easier, is i'll make sure to select all adjustment layers and then i go back to the adjustments tab and hit this

and it'll save all of those adjustments (with your img as a preview) as a preset for you to use at a later time with a single click! i have 23 VERY VERY slightly different presets currently (24 by the end of this ;))

i then merge my adjustments onto my Background (my image) layer!

mini-note #1: if you double click the corresponding symbol on the layer to the adjustment (i.e. brightness/contrast = sun, curves = line on a graph, etc.) you can adjust the adjustment (hah!) at anytime!~

next, sharpening!

head on over to my second favorite area in photoshop, the filters tab which you can find at the very top left of the PS window, between select and view.

i use two different sharpening filters in a SPECIFIC order. smart sharpen and unsharp mask (in that order). maybe it's how strong i like my sharpening, but if i do it in the opposite order smart sharpen doesn't do what i want it to! you can find them here!

mini-note #2: if you DIDN'T merge your adjustments, make sure you're not sharpening one of them as nothing will happen (ask me how i know....)

my smart sharpen settings. the only one i (usually) change is the amount. i, personally, like it in the 150%-200% range.

my unsharp mask settings. i use this to make my highlights really pop. i play around with the amount, but usually keep it between 80%-150% (relight LOVESSSS unsharp mask!)

next. i'm going to add a new layer and fill it with black using the paint bucket tool (right click on the gradient tool to find it).

next, i'm going to drag in and resize the texture i want to use. for my apocalypse au i like textures like this one! but, since this scene isn't quite as dire as eden's...i'll probably pick something more like this!

mini-note #3: save those textures as big as you can! you can always resize them for your images later, but this way you preserve quality!

make sure your texture is ABOVE your black layer. merge them! now this is one of my favorite parts (I LOVE TEXTURES MOREMOREMOREMOREMOR-)

play with your blending modes! find them here!

make sure your TEXTURE layer is selected when you do this. here are some examples of what it COULD look like, depending on the blending mode!

i go through the blending modes for EVERY picture. experimentation is the greatest gift you can give yourself! i decided i liked the screen at 100% opacity the best for this image, but just one thing....i don't want the texture on EITHER of my sims, so they stand out. so im going to add a layer mask! (in-depth tutorial on layer masks here) (tumblr link)

i'm gonna real messily use my brush tool with a black color (make sure your opacity is set to 100% and your brush's blend mode is set to normal...) to paint over my sims on the layer mask, which gives me THIS result

now, i'm going to repeat this same process with a couple more textures until im satisfied! (note: i've been LOVING this texture for my zombie au...js)

after that, i merge EVERYTHINGGGGG and resize my image (this bad boy is 6000x3375 (16:9), thanks to SRWE). idk why but whichever number is higher i just make 1500...which means almost all of my landscape shots are 1500x844 and all of my portrait shots are 1000x1500. here's what i ended up with!

now, i'm gonna use the burn tool from the left-hand toolbar to deepen my shadows (remember, i like contrast).

i set my range to midtones and my exposure LOW like 4%/5% and i just go over areas where i want the shadows deeper, or if i have injuries like bruises, cuts, etc. i'll use this tool to make them more noticeable! (i just use a hard round brush or one of the brushes from the set i linked at the start of the tut!)

mini-note #4: zoom in on your photo for this part! it just makes life easier.

the changes are subtle (for this picture) but i still find it satisfying!

then i just add my text (for my story posts i currently use the RL Limo font) (warning: adobe link), which i'm not going to show bc it'd be a spoiler for my au hehe! here's the final comparison!

and that's it :D i think it's a pretty straight-forward process that can lend itself well to different styles of editing bc its pretty basic but i hope someone out there learned something from it :)

please feel free to follow this tutorial to literally the letter and let that be your editing style. i'll never point the copy finger, as everything i do in photoshop is easily learned and (i'm sure) not unique in the slightest!

if you DO USE THIS and you're not uncomfortable, you should tag me. i would love to see your edits <333 TRULY TAG ME I MEAN IT IF YOU DONT ILL-

hehe i'll see you seen for a more wacky, creative idea edit tut