Untitled

As always, basic knowledge on making gifs is required to do this type of edits. I linked some useful guides on my previous tutorial here.

PART I: BLENDING

STEP 1, BASE GIF

I recommend getting ready the gifs you're going to use before any try on blending them. And which ones are right to blend? That's just depends on the scenes you're working on. On this gifset, I made two previous blends that didn't make it to the final version cause I didn't like how it turned out. It's all about trial and error.

For this specific blending, as I'm working with only 2 gifs, I'll start editing first the base and then the one "blended". Adjust your BASE GIF in your canvas as you want.

I sized mine like this cause I imagined the second scene of Glinda behind this one.

STEP 2: BACKGROUND

i followed becca's coloring tutorial for this part, except I didn't add any adjustments yet. only coloring the background for a later gradient blending.

STEP 3: BLENDING

Duplicate your other gif into the canvas and change its blending to screen

Now add a layer mask (the button marked with red in the picture) and, with a soft brush at 200px/300px, start erasing whatever you don't want. Remember black is 0% opacity and white is 100%.

STEP 4: THE BLENDED GIF

The problem I noticed by this point is that my background coloring on the BASE GIF was kinda irrelevant cause now the BLENDED GIF completely covered it (｡•́︿•̀｡) and I also wanted this one to be pink. In order to do this, I created a gradient map layer and made it as a clipping mask so it wouldn't affect my main gif.

PART II: COLORING

STEP 5: BASE

For the base coloring, I always follow this tutorial cause it's literally how I learned how to do it. Honestly, check all maziekeen's tutorials (she made A TON) cause they are so good and your learn a lot. However, I tend to give my personal touches like adding another vibrance layer if i feel like it, cause I like the colors to pop; or skipping steps if I don't think they fit my gif/style. Anyways, this is the result for now:

and these are my settings

i tried to translate as much as possible (,,>﹏<,,)

STEP 6: SMALL TOUCHES

Could leave the gif as it is, but when I was working on it, I felt like something was missing. So the last step is to apply/paint some small touches of pink (or whichever color you're working on). This trick I learned it from this beautiful and very detailed tutorial from dani (she is awesome!! and her tutorials and gifs are flawless!!)

Create a new layer, use the soft brush tool at 1000px, zoom out your gif and start painting out of the canvas (you can totally paint inside if you feel like it) Play with different opacities and blending modes of the layer, this is literally how I created all these gifs. I know it sounds stupid ajskjas but it's true!! Try what best fits the structure of the gif. The first one I made is with multiply at 60% and you can see how much the gif changed already.

The second being color at 100% and the third one hard light at 30%

STEP 7: THE CHERRY ON TOP

Finally I added an animated overlay from this post. Changed the blend mode to screen and erased a bit of it on glinda's face creating a layer mask and with a soft brush. Added my texts... and that's a wrap! :D

Old Settings (used on my sidebar gif)

so this is how the scene looks with no sharpening or colouring:

with sharpening:

with sharpening and colouring:

these are how my layers look once i've added all my settings (the top layer is set to 25% to 30% opacity depending on the scene):

and these are the specific settings i use:

smart sharpen:

high pass:

double click the toggle on the right and change the blending mode to 'soft light'

noise:

gaussian blur:

New Settings

so i decided to change my settings because 911 season 8 seems to be very poor quality and the backgrounds get very grainy very easily, which i try my best to avoid. so keep in mind that your settings may change depending on the media you're giffing.

lately i've been using a modified version of @shaunashipman's sharpening settings from this tutorial, which helps reduce a lot of the extra noise/grain from the show.

so this is the gif with the new sharpening settings:

and this is with the new sharpening + colouring:

and these are what the layers look like at the end (the top layer keeps all the settings from the bottom layer, and i set the top layer at 10% to 25% opacity depending on the scene):

smart sharpen:

gaussian blur:

noise:

i've been playing around with 5% to 7% noise depending on the scene, but you might have to play around with it further especially if you increase the opacity of the layer.

this tutorial will strictly cover the gif making portion of the process, from getting your screencaps to importing in photoshop, resizing/cropping, and sharpening. i was going to briefly go over colouring, but tumblr only allows 30 images and i ran out of space, so i'll have to do a separate colouring tutorial (which also means i can go into more detail, yay).

downloading the videos, whether direct downloads or t*rrents, is also another tutorial. but make sure you’re using at least 1080p, and the bigger the file the better. a single episode of a ~45 minute show should ideally be 2gb at minimum. a full length movie should ideally be at least 5gb. imo 2160p/4k files are not really necessary; the quality increase is negligible, and it takes a lot longer to screencap them. if you do use 2160p/4k files, try and make sure it is not HDR, as those videos are often washed out and require a different screencapping program to fix.

Programs

I am using a cracked version photoshop 2022, but whichever version you use should be pretty much the same

Actions. not a program but a function inside photoshop, where you essentially record a series of steps, and then you can simple play that action when needed and those steps will repeat, which saves considerable time when giffing. I will note which parts of the tutorial are best saved as actions, and explain how to create actions at the end.

For screencapping i use kmplayer it’s free and very simple to use

not at all a necessary program, but i use freecommander instead of the regular windows file explorer as i find the dual panels very helpful when moving the frames around

Screencapping

there are many programs you can use to get the screencaps from a video, a lot are basically the same, some are better suited for particular video file types. kmplayer is a very simple program to use, but afaik the capture function only works on mkv. files (the only other file type i’ve tried is mp4, which plays but does not capture)

once you open your video file in kmplayer, we’re going to open the advanced capture window, found under capture→advanced capture, or alt+v

the window should look like this

A-this is where all your screencaps will save to. i recommend making a specific folder for all your screencaps

B-make sure this is set to png for best quality

C-this is the number of screencaps you want to take, guesstimate how many you will need, keeping in mind that most videos are approx. 25 frames per second, and you should always cap a bit more than you think just in case

D-make sure “every/frame” is selected and set to 1

E-make sure “original” is selected, resizing will be done in photoshop

F-make sure “correct aspect ratio” is unselected

go to the part of the video you want to gif, and pause it just slightly before that part starts, then select ‘start’. the screencaps will start to save to the file, no need to play the video, and will automatically stop once it has capped the number of frames you have chosen

and here is how they look inside freecommander. i have already made a folder for this gifset, which is on the left. now you’re going to make a folder for each individual gif. i’ve decided this one will have four gifs, so create four folders (i just label them gif 01, gif 02, etc) and then move the frames for each gif into their respective folder

while you can always delete frames once the gif is made if it’s too big, i prefer to make sure i have the correct number of frames before i start. the gif limit on tumblr is 10mb, so it’s good to look at the scene/shots you’re giffing and decide approx. what dimensions your gif will be. full size gifs have a width of 540px and your choice of height. if you go for a square gif (540x540) you can usually fit 40-50 frames. if you’re planning for a smaller height (such as 540x400) you can usually fit more around 50-60 frames.

and here are the caps inside the folders. another reason i like freecommander is it’s ability to “multi-rename” files. the default file explorer can do so as well, but you have to do each folder individually and you can’t customize the new names as much. either way, i prefer to rename the files to each gif just to scratch my organization itch.

Introduction to Photoshop

NOTE: i have changed many of my keyboard shortcuts in photoshop to ones i prefer, so any you see listed in the menus of these screenshots are likely not the original shortcuts. you can see and change them yourself under edit→keyboard shortcuts

quick run-down of the photoshop interface. i have adjusted placement of some things from the default so this isn’t exactly how your photoshop will look when you open it, but everything is labelled, either on top or by hovering over the element. once you’re more familiar and have your process down i would recommend adjusting the workspace to suit your process.

A-your main tools and colour selector. almost all the tools have either several tools in one, or have alternate options which can be accessed by right-clicking the tool. you can also hover over each tool to get a pop-up with a quick explanation of the tool

B-additional “windows” such as history, properties, actions etc. can be opened from the window menu at the top and moved around with click-and-drag. history and properties should already be there by default, but probably on the right hand side instead. each window opens and closes with a click

C-the timeline window where the gif is made. the white square is a single frame of a gif, and on the row below is the play controls. this will not be there by default and will need to be opened from the window menu

D-adjustment layers for colouring

E-layers box. this is where the screencaps will show, along with adjustment layers, text layers, etc.

Opening Screencaps in Photoshop

go to file → open navigate to the folder for your first gif, select the first screencap, and check the image sequencing, and click open

a window will open labelled frame rate. set it to 23.976 and select ok

the screencaps will open in the timeline view, seen as the blue panel line at the bottom, and the screencaps are combined into video layer in the layer panel on the right.

Creating Frames

technically, you could go right into your cropping/resizing and sharpening from here, however if you do that directly then you have to keep the screencaps in the folders you have, otherwise if you save and re-open the gif it won’t move.

this next part should be made into an action.

at the top right of the timeline window, click four vertical lines to open the menu and select convert frames → flatten frames into clips. depending on how long the gif is, this can take a minute.

the layers panel should now look like this, each frame of the gif is now its own layer.

the very bottom layer will be the video group. this can be deleted as we’ve made the frames from it

in same timeline menu as before, right under “flatten frames into clips”, select “convert to frame animation” and the screen should now look like this. this will be the end of this action.

Cropping and Resizing

with widescreen footage, sometimes it’s just shorter than 1080p, but most of the time it will have the black bars on the top and bottom, and frustratingly, they’re not always the same size. it’s good to save the most common sizes as actions.

to find the size of the actual screen you turn on the rulers under view→rulers and check the height. then open your canvas size dialogue box under image→canvas size and change the height, making sure pixels are selected in the dropdown. yellowjackets is what i call “xtra wide” which is 800px. “normal” widescreen is 960px.

next we’re going to resize the caps. i also make actions for this, one for each potential gif size. open the image size dialogue box under image→image size and change the height of the image to your desired height plus 4 pixels. these extra pixels are to prevent a line at the top and/or bottom of your completed gif. now re-open the canvas size box, change the width to 540px, and the height to the desired, removing those 4 extra pixels. i have set this one to 540x540. this is where you would end the resizing action.

and as you can see she is off-screen. select the top layer, hold down shift and select the bottom layer to select them all, and with the move tool (the very top one) activated, click and drag to move it left to right as needed to centre the figure/s. as you move it a box will appear telling you how far you are moving it in any direction. make sure you are only moving it left or right, not up or down. to be certain of that, open the properties tab.

the y axis is your up/down, x is left/right. for this gif the y needs to stay at -98. you can also manually change the x axis number instead of dragging the image. also helpful for making sure multiple gifs of the same shot are all positioned the same.

the layer are currently ordered with the 1st at the top and the last at the bottom. with all layers still selected, go to layers→arrange→reverse. the last layer will be on top now. if there is movement in your gif, check if you need to alter the position again to make sure the movement properly centred. but once you are satisfied with the position, the layers should be in “reverse” position, of last layer on top. this is to ensure that the gif plays forwards.

Converting Gif

this should also be made into an action, going through sharpening process

in the timeline menu, select “make frames from layers”

the frames are now populated in animation window. in timeline, click select all frames. go to any of the frames on the bottom and click the little arrow beneath it, select other, and enter 0.07 seconds. this is not a necessary step, as we will have to adjust the frame rate at the end, most likely to 0.05, but if we don’t change the frame rate here, then when we play the gif while working on it to check how it looks, it will play very fast.

in the same menu at the right of the timeline box, select “convert to video timeline”

then, making sure all layers in the panel on the right are selected, go to filter→convert for smart filters. this turns all the layers into a single smart object.

but if you look where i’ve circled, it says the gif is 99 frames long*, when in fact there are only 47. if you are making regular “scene” gifs, basic colouring and maybe a caption, this is fine and does not need to be fixed, it will play at the same speed. if you want to change it to display (approx.**) the correct number of frames, go to the timeline menu on the right, select “set timeline frame rate” and change it from 30 to 15

*if it does not list a frame number by 4 digits but instead says 5f, 10f, 15f, etc. go to the timeline menu on the right, select panel options, and change timeline units to “frame number”

**the reason why this is only approximate is because the actual frame rate is not a a whole number, so when changing the frame rate it isn’t a 1:1, and 47 frames becomes 50 frames. the extra frames are removed at the very end, but if you are not doing any edits that require working frame by frame, there’s no need to change the frame rate here at all

Sharpening

this is, as it sounds, making the gif look sharper. to start go to filter→sharpen→smart sharpen and this window opens. play around with the dials to see what each ones does. the below settings are good for most high quality footage.

Amount-basically, how sharp do you want it

Radius-hard to explain, but this essentially sets how deep the lines of the sharpness are

Reduce Noise-smooths the pixels

once you click okay your single layer should look like this.

you’re going to then right click the layer and select duplicate layer. with the top layer selected, go to filters→blur→gaussian blur and set the radius to 1.0 pixels.

then change the opacity of the top layer to 10%. this is to essentially soften the sharpening a bit, as if it’s too sharp it can make the colouring wonky. this opacity level can also be changed depending on need.

finally, select both layers, right click, and click “group from layers”. your gif is now fully made and sharpened.

Colouring

yeah. ran out of image space. but this is where you would do your colouring and add a caption or any other text.

Converting & Exporting

when all your colouring is done, you’re ready to start saving your gif. you can do it directly from your current file, but that means essentially losing your colouring, as all those layers will be merged together. i am someone who likes to save my psd’s (photoshop files), at least until i’ve posted the gifs, in case i need to fix something in the colouring. if you’d like to keep yours as well, open the history tab and select the first icon at the bottom “create new document from current state”. this will open a copy of the file in a new tab. save the original file and you can close it, continuing all work on the copy file.

select your all your layers, convert them into a smart object from filter->convert for smart filters, then follow the same steps from Creating Frames above. once you're back in frame animation, select Create Frames From Layers, and once again set the frame animation speed.

most people set the speed to 0.05. i personally set it to 0.05 or 0.06 depending on the length of the gif. check how it looks at 0.05, if it seems too fast, try 0.06.

now to save. go to file->export->save for web (legacy). the number is the lower left corner is your gif size, it needs to be under 10mb or else you'll have to delete some frames.

the right panel is your save options. the preset dropdown has some built-in settings, but you won't use them because (at least on my version) the presets only go up to 128 colours, instead of the full 256. the 3 i've highlighted in green are the only one's you'll adjust as needed. the settings below i use for i'd say 90% of my gifs. i'll sometimes change the adaptive dropdown to one of the other options, ocaissionaly the diffusion, and rarely the no transparency dither, but play around with them and see how they change the look of the gif.

when you're satisfied with the look of your gif, click save at the bottom right of the window.

voilà! you now have a gif.

Actions

this is your actions panel. the triangle on the left side is the button to open it. remember, if it's not already there, go to windows->actions to open it.

the buttons on the bottom, left to right, are stop recording, record action, play action, new folder, new action, and delete.

as you can see, i have different folders for my resizing, sharpening, captions, saving, and my 1 step (temporary) actions. to run an action is very simple; click the action, and click play.

to create an action, click the new action button, a box will pop up, give the action a name, and click record. the record button at the bottom of the action window will turn red. now perform all the steps you want it to record, and click stop recording. keep in mind it will record every single thing you do, including in other open files, so if the action you plan to record will have a lot of steps, it might help to write them down first.

to modify an action, select the step in the action above where you'd like the new step to be, hit record, perform the step, stop recording. select the step you'd like to delete, and click the delete button.

Section 1: Brightening and Contrast

these are the layers i use for this section and the order i apply them in:

Exposure

Curves: white eyedropper

Curves: black eyedropper

Exposure

Levels

Brightness/contrast

Exposure - so first i'll use an exposure layer and drag the top slider to the right. my settings are usually between 0 and 1 (i avoid going over 1!), and i try to get as much brightness as i can using this setting, without making the bright spots of the gif too white and glowy.

if there's bright patches in the gif (like the sunlight on tommy's face) i might use a slightly lower setting than the max brightness i can get (because we're going to add more brightness later).

Curves: white eyedropper - next i use the white and black eye eyedropper tools, and this helps with minor colour correction as well as minor brightness/contrast (but does a lot of heavy lifting!). this tutorial explains how it works best.

the first curves layer is using the white eyedropper tool. you want to click on the white eyedropper (red square) and click on the brightest parts of your gif (red circles).

sometimes this isn't too easy to identify, so you can drag the little black toggle (cyan square) to the right, and this emphasizes the bright parts of the gif (make sure to undo this step!! it's just to help us with identifying the brightest areas!!)

i then zoom into the bright part of gif (around his chin) so that i can see the individual pixels, and i try to select the brightest pixel. i usually select a pixel that has a yellow or pink tint, that way once the curves layer is applied, it counterbalances the tint.

tip: if you have any areas in your gif that are supposed to be white (e.g. a wall, a t-shirt, shoes, sometimes even eyes/teeth) it's a good idea to select a pixel from these areas.

here's what we have so far

as you can see, the curves layer got rid of the reddish tint on the gif and made the colours cooler.

Curves: black eyedropper - next we add a second curves layer, and this time we're doing the same thing but with the black eyedropper. we use the black eyedropper (red square) to select the darkest parts of the gif (red circles).

if you slide the white toggle (cyan square) to the left, this will help us identify the darkest part and especially helps us pick out the tints in the pixels (don't forget to undo this step after!!)

so now i'm going to zoom in to the dark part of the gif where his hair is, with the white toggle dragged to the left so that i can see the tints. i think i made the gif slightly too cool in the previous step, so i'm going to choose a dark green/blue pixel to add back a little warmth.

tip: if you think the gif is still too reddish/yellow, then click on a dark red/brown pixel to remove more warmth.

these are what the settings look like after i select that pixel. as you can see in the gif below, we added some of the warmth back as well as added some contrast.

Alternate: auto curves layer - sometimes scenes just have ugly colours to start, and your white/black eyedropper tools won't make much of a difference. in these cases, i just skip using the eyedroppers, and just use the 'auto' button and then sometimes decrease the layer's opacity as needed.

Exposure - next i add a second exposure layer. my offset settings are always the same. i then drag the gamma correction toggle to the left. my settings are usually between 1.00 and 1.10, and never beyond 1.20. i don't touch the exposure toggle in this step!

Levels - i first drag the white toggle to the left, adding as much brightness as the gif can take without making the white spots too glowy (sometimes as little as 250, usually never below 200). then i drag the middle toggle to the left to ease up on the contrast a bit (usually never more than 1.05, and definitely never more than 1.10). finally, i drag the black toggle to the right (sometimes as little as 4, usually never more than 10).

Brightness/Contrast - i add these exact settings to almost every gif, unless it looks like the gif can't handle it.

Section 2: Colour Correction

now we get to manipulate our colours! i keep my colour balance tabs and selective colour tabs on separate layers. you can do all the colour balance steps in one layer and all the selective colour steps in one layer, but i find it easier to modify when they're on separate layers. also if you use separate layers, the colours build on each other and you can get richer/brighter colours sometimes.

Colour balance: highlights

Colour balance: shadows

Colour balance: midtones

Hue/saturation

Selective colour layers (separate layers in this order): reds, yellows, magentas, cyans, blues, greens, whites, neutrals/blacks

Colour balance: highlights (cool) - so i start with the highlights, and drag the cyans slider to the left (usually not beyond -25), and yellows slider to the right (usually not beyond +25)

Colour balance: shadows (cool) - next i do the shadows on a new layer, and i usually end up doing -4, +2, +4 for the settings (cyans to the left, magentas to the right, and yellows to the right).

Colour balance: midtones (warm) - now this is where i add the warmth back in. i usually slide the cyans to the right, and yellows to the left, and i usually keep the values the same or very close together (so +6 cyans, -6 yellows, or +6 cyans, -5 yellows). i never go beyond a value of 10 for each slider.

Hue/saturation (optional) - so in this gif i didn't touch this layer because we have the green leaves behind tommy. however, in other scenes where there's not supposed to be any green, i'll decrease the saturation on the green tab all the way, to get rid of any stray green pixels (personal preference!) with these settings:

tip: if you go to the yellow tab and decrease the saturation, you can get a cool silvery effect, just be mindful of skin tones (you can usually correct for this later with selective colour)

Section 2.5: Selective colours

with selective colours i find it so subjective that idk if sharing the settings will even be helpful. instead i'll mainly go over my thought process when editing these. you'll need to understand what the sliders do to make good use of this step.

Cyan slider: dragging to the left makes the colour more warm/red, dragging to the right makes it more cool/cyan.

Magenta slider: dragging to the left removes warmth and makes the colour more yellow/green, dragging to the right makes it more warm/magenta.

Yellow slider: dragging to the left decreases yellow, dragging to the right increases yellow.

Black slider: dragging to the left decreases contrast in that colour, dragging to the right increases contrast.

most of my selective colour adjustments are very minor!! my settings are usually in the +/- 5 to +/- 30 range, unless it's for select bright colours (magentas, blues, greens).

Editing skin tones

so i start with fixing the skin tones first before editing any of the other colours. i start with the reds tab and drag the cyan slider to the left to add warmth (if it's too red to start, i'll cool down the skin tone by dragging the cyan slider to the right).

i then drag the magenta slider slightly to the left (especially if their cheeks are really magenta). i drag the yellow slider slightly to the left as well if the person starts looking too yellow. for the black slider, if there's a lot of shadow/contrast in the skin, i'll drag it slightly to the left, otherwise i'll increase contrast by dragging it slightly to the right.

next in the yellows tab, i first go to the yellow slider and drag it slightly to the left, and stop before the person starts looking too pink. i then add more yellow back by dragging the black slider to the right. if i want more warmth, i drag the cyan slider to the left. if i want it cooler, i drag the cyan slider to the right.

2. Editing lips/cheeks/other features

in the magentas tab, i start with the magenta and yellow sliders at +100. i then drag the cyan slider to the left as needed. this step really makes lips pop if the person has some colour on their lips (it didn't do much for this gif of tommy).

3. Editing clothes/background

i then go to the cyans tab and set the cyan slider to +100. i drag the yellow slider to the left to make the cyans more blue (sometimes all the way to -100). if i want a darker colour, i drag the black slider to the right.

next i go to the blues tab and set the cyan slider to +100, and drag the yellow slider to the left as preferred. i sometimes drag the black slider to the right to make the colour darker.

i use the greens tab only if there's leaves/trees/grass in the background or if the characters are wearing green clothes (basically if green is a large part of the gif). i make the greens pop by setting the cyan and yellow sliders to +100. i drag the magenta slider slightly to the left, and the black slider slightly to the right.

4. More brightness and contrast

in the whites tab, i drag the black slider to the left (usually about -10 to -30), and sometimes i drag the yellow slider to the left (usually about -10 to -20). this is to make the white parts super white and not have a yellow tint.

however, some scenes have really bright white glowy spots (like the sunlight on tommy's face). in this case i'll drag the black slider to the right. i might also drag the cyan and yellow sliders to the left to get some of the skin colour back.

next in the neutrals tab, i only adjust the black slider. i use anywhere from -2 to -4 to make the gif brighter, or i use up to +3 to add contrast.

same thing for the blacks tab, i only adjust the black slider set from +2 to +4 to add contrast.

Section 3: Final Touches

these settings usually never change:

Gradient map: gray to white (layer opacity: 20%)

Gradient map: black to white (layer opacity: 10%)

Vibrance (+25 vibrance, 0 saturation)

the opacity of the black to white gradient map layer can be decreased down to 5% if it makes the gif too dark.

Section 3.5: Optional Final Steps

Auto curves layer - i use the auto button on a new curves layer on top of all my other layers. i then change the layer opacity, usually around 20-30%, sometimes around 50-80%, and very rarely at 100%. this adds brightness/evens out the contrast.

Levels - sometimes i want to add back some more brightness and contrast, so i'll add a levels layer on top of all my other layers, dragging the white toggle slightly to the left, and black toggle slightly to the right (usually not more than +/- 10).

Selective colour - sometimes i'll add a final selective colour layer on top of everything else, to fix skin tones (so i edit the reds/yellows/magentas)