This post is some top tips for colouring gifs that Iāve learned from colouring my own gifs over the last year or so.
Itās for people that already know how to gif and have perhaps been using other peopleās PSDs or have been trying to colour themselves but havenāt quite got the hang of it yet or have been colouring themselves but donāt like the results.
For reference you can find all of my giffing tutorials here.
Donāt use PSDās - If you learn how to colour your own gifs and then attempt to create a couple of PSDs to use across all of your gifs, youāre most likely going to have crappy results. Every gif (even if theyāre from the same scene) will need different layers and settings to make it work. In the time itāll take you to adjust your PSDās to suit your gifs, it would be faster to just colour it from scratch. Some people like to have aĀ āsignatureā look with their colourings, which I understand, but itās tricky to pull off, particularly if youāre a beginner and youāre giffing multiple fandoms. Which brings me nicely to the next tip.Ā
Take each gif individually - The best approach to take, in my opinion, is to colour each gif individually. Sometimes if youāre giffing just one scene it is feasible to use the same PSD on every gif, but even then the lighting can be different because the scene has actually been filmed in two or more different takes.Ā
Make use of your drafts - Drafts serve a purpose - so we can draft things, duh! But until recently, I didnāt realise how useful they could be in making gifs. When youāre in the process of making a gifset, create a post and save it to your drafts. As you make each gif and save it, add it to the post and that way you can see what your gifset is going to look like as it unfolds. It enables you to make sure the colourings of your gifset match because you can see all of the gifs together. And it also means you can simply pop over to PS and add a little brightness or adjust colour balance to make sure the gifs all look similar.
Donāt get too overwhelmed with it - Easier said than done, I know, but I found that the biggest hindrance to me colouring was thinking it was a lot harder than it actually is. Tutorials can seem long and overwhelming, but when you break it down and put it into practice a few times, youāll realise itās not as tricky as you think it is. Some gifs can be a lot harder to colour than others, but 9 times out of 10 when Iām making gifs it takes about 5 minutes. A lot of the time I sharpen it, add curves and the gif already looks great, so itās really not as hard as it seems.Ā
Practice, practice, practice - Colouring like anything else in life is not something that youāll be able to do overnight. Iām still learning new things and better methods all the time even after a year of doing it. Experiment, read as many tutorials as you can and just get used to it. When I switched from PS CS5 to CC there were quite a few changes to the methods of giffing and for about 3 weeks I barely giffed because I couldnāt get over the hurdle of having to learn a new process, but now Iām completely used to it. So persevere and set aside a couple of times a week to practice. You donāt even have to post what you make, just practice for yourself.Ā
Get an eye for colours/what looks good -Ā Like Iāve said time and time again in all of my tutorials, itās all about judgement when it comes to colouring. Some people may look at my gifs and think I coloured them badly (hell, I do most of the time lmao) or that they would have coloured it differently but thatās the point - everyone has their preferences. Donāt try to replicate somebody elseās colouring exactly, because thatāll never happen (even if you follow every tutorial they have) create colourings that you like. Figure out whether you like pale gifs, vibrant gifs or black and white gifs. Do you like high contrast or low contrast? Bright gifs or not-so-bright gifs? Once you feel confident with the process of colouring gifs, the best thing to do is step away from tutorials and practice colouring by yourself, and eventually youāll develop your own colouring techniques and preferences without even realising.Ā
Learn the function of each layer -Ā Itās easy to follow tutorials without fully understanding what the hell youāre doing or what any of it means (I did exactly the same in the beginning), but understanding what each layer does yourself will really help you to colour. The basics are that curves, levels and brightness/contrast change the brightness and colour balance and selective colours change the colour. But thereās more to it than that and each layer serves different purposes. For example, if a gif is particularly red, if you try to go to colour balance and reduce the red right down the gif is going to end up looking awful and most likely green/yellow. The best approach to take in this case would be to apply a little colour balance to reduce the redness and then go in with selective colours and increase the cyan in Reds.Ā Youāll learn the best way to tackle these things by going back to the above tip - practice, practice, practice!Ā
Everything in moderation - Before I started colouring my own gifs I used PSDās and a lot of them had 20+ layers. Since I didnāt colour myself, I assumed that was normal, but personally, I rarely exceed 6 layers. Itās not necessary to colour the crap out of a gif with multiple layers of contrast, selective colours etc. Depending on your tastes you may want to do that and thatās fine, but itās very easy to create good gifs without adding lots of layers and making lots of changes.Ā
Hopefully some of these tips were helpful. Feel free to ask if you have anything else I can help with related to giffing or colouring and Iāll do my best.Ā
