#tusernav

in order to make your layout gifs, you need to first decide what layout do you want to do, so that you can accordingly plan how many gifs you are planning to put in one layout. 

edit: the mega link to some layouts i had linked earlier has been changed, please refer for more info here. another way to get a layout is to either use the canvas in photoshop and measure the required dimensions (if that makes sense) or, download the layout gif, open it in photoshop and then using the rectangular marque tool, draw over the boxes and fill it with a solid colour (except for the transparent parts) and once you’re done, save it as a png for future references.

note- delete the layout gif u downloaded immediately after saving the layout png! and please please PLEASE do not use this method as an opportunity to steal other’s gifs.

now, follow the steps below.

1. make your gif and do your colouring like you usually do. make sure to do all this in the video timeline. for basic giffing tutorials, you can check out this, this or this.

2. put all the adjustment layers used for colouring in a folder and then put that as well as your gif in smart object all in one folder. this will help in organising.

3. now, open your layout that you want to use. make sure to switch to video timeline! this is how it should look [and take a look at one layout i am using as an example]

4. duplicate the folder of the gif you just made over here! when you dupicate, it will probably look like this.

the colour of the layout picture has changed. don’t worry, this will happen due to the adjustment layers you used for colouring your gif, which are present in the folder you just duplicated here.

5. now, adjust the gif and reduce its size using the transform controls, and try to make the height as similar as possible to one of the boxes in your layout (remember that it should be either equal to or bigger than the layout boxes present!)

6. now, here is the fun part! click on the eye beside your gif folder so that the folder is invisible. now, click on the rectangular marque tool. it looks like this

then, use it to drag over the layout’s box, not including the transparent part, like this

the dotted lines show the selected part.

7. now, click on the eye beside your gif folder again, so that the area of the gif selected is visible, like this!

8. make sure that your gif folder is selected, then click on the mask button

and voila! this is how it looks!

9. now repeat the same process for the other gifs!

10. when you are done adding all your gifs in the layout, feel free to delete the original layout picture, as it is no longer needed!

11. ensure that you have set the work start and end in the timeline like so!

remember that all of your gifs should start and end at the same time.

12. now go ahead and sharpen your gifs! [when i work with layout gifs, i sharpen at last, because if i sharpen before the resizing and adjusting to the layout part, photoshop takes longer to load the layers for me! also looks wayyy better when you sharpen at last hehehe]

13. now, just go ahead and convert to frames and export your gif! (you can also export directly via video timeline, whatever works for you <3)

ensure that in the export settings, transparency is checked!

and look at the result!