#typography tutorial

step one: when blending two or more gifs together, i always create the separate gifs first. once you've made your gifs, convert them to smart objects. my gifmaking process means my gifs are already sharpened, but i haven't colored them yet. to convert to a smart object, select all your layers and right-click on one of them and select "convert to smart object."

step two: create a new canvas. for these gifs, my dimensions were 540px x 540px.

step three: bring both gifs onto the new canvas and change their blending modes to screen. to do this, you'll have to select each layer separately and choose "screen" from the blending modes dropdown menu.

step four (optional): sometimes i change the background layer, which should be beneath both gifs, to black, especially if i'm going to be utilizing layer masks to aid in blending. for this set, i didn't use layer masks (which is pretty rare when blending for me tbh), so i didn't bother doing this step. i find it helps keep the blending smooth and eliminate any potential transparent pixels.

step five: coloring! i kept it pretty simple with this set, so i applied my base coloring to both gifs. unless i'm giffing a scene i've already made gifs of, i typically color everything from scratch and i always start with a blank brightness/contrast layer set to screen (sometimes i alter the opacity depending on the brightness of the scene). from there, i add a curves layer, using the black and white eyedroppers to select the darkest and lightest areas of the gif respectively.

my third step is always a selective color layer where i make the blacks blacker and sometimes add more white to the neutrals, but you have to be careful doing this when giffing people of color as this can whitewash them. for this set, i didn't change the neutrals.

step six: gradient maps! you'll notice in the above screenshots that i'm utilizing clipping masks. that's what the arrows next to the layer visibility signify:

because i didn't color the gifs before blending them (which you could do before converting them to smart objects!), i want to make sure my coloring only affects the gif i'm working on. to create a clipping mask, select your layer(s), right-click on one, and select "create clipping mask." you can also click that downward arrow that's highlighted at the bottom of the layer properties:

anywhomst, for the gif of sammie, i added a gradient map adjustment layer that looked like this (note that unless you're going for an inverted look, the darker color should always be on the left of your gradient map):

and for the gif of stack, just a regular black and white gradient map:

this is what my layers look like at the end:

you can see that each group of coloring is using a clipping mask so those layers only apply to their respective gifs.

and for shits and giggles, here are my settings for the typography:

for the gradient effect, make sure your text color is white, change the blending mode of the text layer to difference or exclusion, and then double-click on the layer to open the blending options. here are those settings:

the final step for the offset outline is to duplicate your text layer and, making sure it's above your original text layer, turn off all layer effects, change the blending mode back to normal, rasterize the layer, select the pixels, and edit -> stroke. here's what that looks like step-by-step:

click the eye icon next to effects to turn off the layer effects and choose normal from the blending modes dropdown.

right click the new layer and select rasterize type.

specifically right-click the thumbnail of the layer and choose "select pixels." you'll see the moving dotted line around your text now.

with that selection, go to edit -> stroke. these are my settings:

click okay and then i almost always adjust that layer two pixels to the left and 2 pixels up using the transform tool (ctrl+t).

and with that, we have our final product:

i did adjust both gifs' placement by moving sammie's gif a bit to the left and stack's a bit to the right just so we could see both of their faces more clearly than having them totally overlapping.

First, I just make my text layer as per usual. For this one I used The Bold Font font with the settings above and then I changed the blending mode to Exclusion. So now it looks something like this:

The most important thing here to note is the colour of the text. For the blending to do what we want it to do, I find that using this lighter colour region as the base colour works best:

Then for this particular effect you pick the opposite of the colour scheme you're largely using in your edit, unless you specifically want the text to contradict the overall tone. So, in this case, because the edit was mostly made up of cool colours, I used a warm tone as my main text colour.

Then I went into Layer Style (either Layer -> Layer Style or double click on the text layer) and added a Gradient Overlay. Now, you may notice that I used white for both sides of the gradient, which means I could've just as easily used a Color Overlay, but if later on you find that the gif underneath has areas that make the text a little unreadable or messy looking, it can be helpful to adjust the gradient tones, so I like to have the option from the get-go, instead of undoing and redoing my settings.

I used Hard Light for the blending mode on this, but you can play around with some other modes, like Screen or Difference or even Color, to see what pops the most. Then I just lowered the Opacity, so it would keep some of that see through effect while also staying a consistent colour.

The last bit is just some regular old Drop Shadow to separate the edges and make the letters a little clearer.

it's good to have a go-to font. i use Calibri Bold Italic, but any clean, simple print font can work

these are my font settings below. quick rundown of each option

A- this your font family B- this is the specific font; light, regular, bold, italic etc. C- this is the font size D- this is the spacing between each row of text; it's default setting is [auto], which uses the built-in font spacing, but all fonts have different spacing and you could end up with a huge gap between rows. the spacing pt's also don't necessarily match up with the font size, so experiment to get the spacing you want E- this is the space between letters; if you think the letters are too close together then increase the number into the positives, if you think they're too far apart then decrease the number into the negatives F- this will "stretch" the letters sideways; not really used for basic subtitles G- this will stretch the letters up and down; not really used for basic subtitles H- this is your font colour

the setting above are my go-to for 540px gifs, though i occasionally adjust the font size between 18-22, and then also adjust the row spacing to match. for 268px gifs, i'll usually use a font size of 16px

Basic Subtitles

to make the subtitles, select the text tool the left hand toolbar, the icon that looks like a "T", and your cursor will turn to a text selector line in a dotted square. put your cursor at the bottom left of the gif; it doesn't have to be exactly on the corner, but so long as it's close the the edge of the canvas it will "lock on" to the corner.

click and drag to the right side of the gif, and up as big as you want the "text box". there will be a pop-up tell you the width and height of the box you're making. width should be the full width of the gif, and for the height i've set it to 40. the top of the text box will be the very top of the letters on the top row.

the size of the text box can always be adjusted later by clicking a side and dragging.

type your subtitle into the new text box, and then click anywhere outside the workspace (the canvas and the grey area behind it) to "exit" the text layer

now the text looks pretty good here, because the parts of the gif under it are dark. but a different gif might be lighter, or you might be using a different text colour. to make sure the subtitle is visible and readable on any gif, you're going to go to the menu on the bottom right, with the text layer selected, and click the fx button. any option in the menu that appears will open the same box, just on a different option, i always just click blending options

the layer style box will open. all the options on the side are various effects that can be applied to the text. the ones with a plus sign will allow you to add multiple instances of that effect on the same text. the 2 we'll be using on the subtitles are stroke and drop shadow, so one at a time click on the row for both and a check-mark will appear in the box. you'll also see that effect labelled under the text layer

this is the menu for stroke. stroke is simply an outline of the text/object

A- this is the size of the stroke, the width of it B- position can be outside, inside, or centre. for subtitles it should always be on outside C- this changes the blend mode of the stroke, which will have essentially no effect if the stroke is black or white D- the opacity of the stroke E- you can have a stroke made of a solid colour, a gradient, or a pattern F- the colour of the stroke

this is the menu for drop shadow.

A- blend mode, again, doesn't do anything if the colour is black or white B- colour of the drop shadow C- the opacity of the drop shadow D- the angle of the shadow E- make sure this in unchecked, otherwise it can screw with the angle F- this is how far from the text the shadow will be G- this makes the edges of the shadow sharper or harder H- this makes the overall shadow sharper or harder

the options under "quality" i never adjust

click ok on the layer style box and you have your basic subtitles!

Fade In Subtitles

now maybe you have a slightly longer gif, where the character isn't speaking at the beginning of it and you want to time the subtitles with the speech. so we're going to use keyframes!

keyframes do various things, by setting two (or more) points on the gif, and the gif will automatically change between those two points, depending on which keyframe you use. (hopefully this will make more sense a little further down)

first play the gif a few times in the export preview window to see when the talking starts and then move the frame tracker (the red line) to 2-3 frames before the speaking begins, in this gif the character starts speaking at frame 50, so move the frame tracker to frame 48

when you click the arrow at the start of the layer, it opens a dropdown of the layer and gives various options to use keyframes on, depending on what kind of layer it is. clicking the little stopwatch will create the first keyframe

transform- this lets you change the size/orientation of the text opacity- this lets you change the opacity of the text style- this lets you change the layer style of the text text warp- this lets you animate the warping of the text

when you click the stopwatch, a keyframe will appear on the timeline on the frame selected, and next to the stopwatch two arrows with a keyframe point between them will appear. the arrows move you from one keyframe to the next, and the point between the arrows will add a keyframe on the selected layer, or remove the keyframe if there is already one there. if you click the stopwatch button again, it will remove all keyframes

while the tracker is on a frame that has a keyframe attached, anything you do that falls under that type of affect while on that frame will be recorded by the keyframe. on opacity there's only the one thing that will be recorded—opacity.

since we want the text layer to be invisible when the gif starts, turn the opacity down to 0, while on the frame with the first keyframe. now move the tracker to the frame where the speaking begins. add a new keyframe on frame 60 using the new keyframe button. then turn the opacity on the text layer back up to 100

now the text layer will go from 0 opacity to 100 opacity over between the 2 keyframe points, and gradually appear as the character begins talking. if the timing isn't quite right, you can click and drag the keyframe points along the timeline.

A Few Random Notes

some people use white for an entire gifset, even if more than one person is speaking, and some people use different colours to show who is speaking. you can have set colours for speaker #2, #3, etc. but when possible, i like to use the eyedropper to select a pixel colour for the other speaker that is already in the gif, but not prominent where the subtitles will show, so i don't add a colour that wasn't already present, and reduce the number of colours in the gif itself

if the subtitle is long enough to go on two lines (or more) try and cut it to be somewhat even i.e. don't have the top line stretch from side to side, and the bottom line only had 1 or 2 words; if there's a comma or semi-colon in the text, splitting it there as a natural gap/pause

what's a ligature? a glyph that combines the shapes of two (or more) letters into a new form, blending the letters together or rearranging them.

not every font will have ligatures, but the ones that do will make your edits look much more detailed and elaborate, even if you're just plain writing and calling it a day.

you can download a bunch of free fonts with ligatures from this link.

once you have them installed, here's how you enable them:

1. write whatever text you want. make sure you're using one of the fonts you've just downloaded to test this out.

2. open the character panel (windows > character). in text editing mode, you'll see this little icon on the top bar.

3. toggle on the ligatures option from the menu. it's the little "st" icon at the bottom, this is what it looks like.

you can also toggle on the "fi" icon for good measure, it'll enable any optional glyphs too.

once you do, you'll go from plain to fancy without having to do the manual work of adding vector ornaments yourself.

we're not nara smith. you don't have to do it all from scratch.

1: Open a new document in your Photoshop in the size you want to make your edit. Mine is going to be 600x800px.

2: Choose a lyric, a poem, any text you want to make your edit and copy the selected part. (It can be as longer as you want). I chose a small lyric of Champagne Problems from Taylor Swift.

3: Open Google Docs and paste the lyric/poem/text. Do it as many times as you want (the text needs to be large to compose the full edit — you also need to put the text all together). When you're done, it's going to look like this:

4: Select the Horizontal Type Tool (or press "T") and dragging the mouse, select the whole area of the new document. Like this:

5: Open Google Drive one more time, copy the whole text and paste at the selected text area on Photoshop. It's going to look something similar to this:

5: Choose an old paper texture from the pack (or any other texture you want), copy the layer and paste on top of the document. Like this:

6: Select the "Linear Burn" blending mode.

And your edit it's gonna look like this:

7: Select the Brush Tool (or press "B"), choose a brush highlighter from the Highligher Brushes Pack and create a new layer. Choose a color (#f5dc05) and brush on top of the text you want to highlight. (To make it easier, you can press Shift while you brush, to make a straight line). Then, it's gonna look ike this:

8: Once again, use the "Linear Burn" but now to blend the brush layer. And it's done! Save your file in PNG for better quality.

This is my result:

EXTRA TIPS:

Use the sharp mode of text for better results.

If you want other textures, you can search for them at freeimages, rawpixel and deviantart.

DOWNLOADS:

Highlighters Brush Pack download.

Old Paper Textures mini-pack download.

Okay, i’m just going to cover the base text for this, i’m going to be making this example in a blank canvas but you can make this directly on your gif 

once you have your canvas ready, click on the text tool and make some text, any font you want. I used Boldstrom in my example.

the first thing i did was warp it (this is optional, if you want it to be normal when the gif begins skip this step) i used TWIST in this case. so you go type -> warp text and do the effect. this is what i did on mine

now, since i have a new canvas i have to click on the timeline option that says “create video timeline” (you don’t do this if you’re working directly on a gif)

once i have that set, i open the drop down menu on the text layer in the timeline option and look for the option that says TEXT WARP. to begin the process click on the stopwatch icon next to text warp and you’ll see a yellow dot appears in the beginning of the timeline

now the fun parts, move the red line to any point in the timeline, have in mind that the closer you move it from the start point the faster the text will transform, i moved mine to this point

now we go once again to type -> warp text and we modify the settings to something else, this is what i did on mine

click on OK and you’ll see now a grey dot in the timeline, that means the timeline recorded the new warp settings you did for that point and will transform the text from the form it was at the beginning to that one in the timeframe you picked to set it. you repeat this step however many times you want the text to move.

i did it only 2 times just to make this, and my timeline looks like this now

*to make it look smoother i recommend making the last text effect the same as the very first setting*

that’s it! you’re done making the animation! if you did it on a separate canvas and want to add it to a gif convert it to smart object and then drop it on your gif canvas. this is my finished product :D

if you have any doubts or anything wasn’t clear enought please message me and i’ll do my best to help out! thank you for reading <3

[1] Add text

[2] Transform text

Shortcut keys:

Mac: command + T Windows: Ctrl + T

[3] Warp text

Right click on the text and select "Warp"

[4] Choose a Warp

Once you've selected "Warp", your options bar will look like this:

Click the dropdown highlighted in pink above and select whichever shape you want your text to be. For this tutorial, I've chosen Flag instead of the default Arc.

[5] Change Bend

If you want it to become more wavy or less wavy, click and drag the square icon encircled in yellow below:

And that's basically it! Feel free to experiment the other options and play with the Bend.

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Here's a tutorial you might be interested in: How to wrap your text around a shape like this:

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