a colouring tutorial by me (bathroombreaks) :)
i’ve gotten a couple of requests to do a colouring tutorial, so here it is! i’m gonna show you how i go from the base gif (bottom right) to the final product (top left).
i use photoshop cc 2019, but i think everything should be the same from ps5 onwards.
my first layer is always exposure. the values i use depend on the gif, but it’s usually 0.002 for offset, 0.90 for gamma correction and something between 0.75 and 2.5 for exposure. the specific settings i used for this gif are below.
as you can see, the gif is a lot brighter and easier to see than the original.
after that, i do brightness, if i think it’s necessary (the values depend on the gif but usually i go for something between 20 and 75 for brightness and i don’t change the contrast).
in this gif i didn’t think brightness was necessary at this point, so i jumped straight to levels. i use levels to make the blacks a little darker because i like my gifs with very defined blacks. depending on how dark the blacks already are, i choose the rbg channel and put either 5 or 10 in the first arrow and then either 0.80 or 0.90 on the second. in this case, the blacks were already quite defined, so i stuck to 5 and 0.90.
after levels comes colour balance, which i use to make the gif tone closer to what i want. i like my gifs with blue backgrounds and warm skin tones, so i usually up the blues and reds. in this case, upping the blues in shadows made the skintone very pink, so i added yellows in the highlights to balance it out.
after this, i add selective color layers. usually at least two, sometimes more. the first layer i use to mess with reds and yellows to change the skintone. i also add whites if there’s a lot of brightness in the character’s face (between 25 and 75). in this case, since i wanted the background to be blue, i also changed the greens to blues (for this, you just change the blue to +100 and yellow to -100 on greens).
the remaining selective layers are to make the blues more vibrant/brighter.
i also upped the magentas and yellows in the magenta to make the colour of the shirt more even.
once i’m happy with the selective color layers, i add another levels layer. once again, 10 on the first arrow on rgb, but something between 1.10 and 1.30 on the second arrow to make the gif brighter. i also change the blue channel. i usually go overboard with the reds and yellows in selective color, so this balances that out. it also makes the blue even more vibrant. i put 10 on the first arrow in the blue channel, between 1.10 and 1.30 in the second and then between 225 and 245 on the third.
after that, i add a brightness layer, if necessary (between 20 and 50).
the last step is vibrance, to make the colours pop a little more. i don’t usually mess with saturation values, only vibrance (between 50 and 100).
and that’s it! i hope it was helpful :)
