hello! an anon asked me to do a tutorial on how i do my gifs, so here is my attempt to do that but i'm so bad at explaining so bear with me
this tutorial is screenshot and link heavy!
vapoursynth
vapoursynth is really useful for resizing, clipping and sharpening gifs. i've learned how to use vapoursynth from this tutorial, if you're intrested in using it (the tutorial also explains how to set it up). with time i've started using different sharpening settings than the ones that are mentioned in the tutorial (these are settings i used to use). also you can download vapoursynth from here
i use photoshop 2020 to make my gifs
handbrake
nowadays i use handbrake for clipping, it’s super easy to use and free. upon opening the program, make sure your summary, dimensions, filters and video settings are set to this:
tbh the audio, subtitles and chapters don’t really matter. change the range from chapters to seconds, and find the time of your scene. type it into the boxes:
name your file at the bottom. make sure it ends with .mp4 then click the green start button. as soon as it’s finished, you can open it up in photoshop and start giffing!
i'll start with the very basics of my gif process, so if you know the basics of gif making, you can skip these few steps.
making the gif
first of all you go to file>import>video frames to layers
once you choose the video, a box will pop out (if you've chosen a video that has been encoded in vapoursynth or clipped in handbrake you can just click 'OK'. (if you're uploading a downloaded youtube video you'll have to trim the video with those two slides to your desired length)
i use the timeline to do my gifs (if you don't have it already opened go to window>timeline)
resizing
since I don't use vapour synth I crop and resize my gifs directly in photoshop. here you'll find a very helpful layout, made by @.dazzlingkai, with tumblr's dimensions for gifs and images. i usually do 540 x 450 for mvs. for cropping simply use the crop tool:
click on it and crop your gif. make sure you’ve set your dimensions at the top (this will help you with resizing):
after you’ve cropped it to your liking, click image at the very top then image size, and type in your dimensions:
hit enter and your gif will be fully cropped and resized!
sharpening
before you should delete any frames that you don't want in your final gif. to do it choose the linear menu above your timeline and then delete frames
after deleting the unnecessary frames choose the same menu again and this time choose select all frames
once the layers are selected, click on the little chevron down to set the delay of the gifs. i choose other on the pop out menu and my delay setting is 0,05s (for vids resized in vapoursynth 0,04s might be better)
afterwards convert it to video timeline
now onto the sharpening itself.
the sharpening will depend on the quality of the file and/or how grainy it is if it happens to be.
select all your layers (hold shift and then scroll to the last layer that is visible, it has the little eye next to it, and the delete the ones you don't need)
then go to filter>convert to smart filters
go to filter again, then select sharpen>smart sharpen
these are my first sharpening settings for 4k vids:
then i add another smart sharpen filter but with this settings to:
then I flatten the frames to clips.
click the linear menu>convert frames>flatten frames into clips
then convert it into timeline again and make frames from layers:
then delete the animation
select all the layers again and set the delay to 0,05s as before
good news! to make the process of sharpening shorter you can use this action created by @.lildohnut
coloring
i adjust the colouring accordingly to the video, but i always include these adjustments:
in most cases:
i set exposure to +0,25
gradient map 1 is a white-black gradient with it's blend mode set to soft light and a 15% of opacity
gradient map 2 is basically a copy of the first one BUT reversed and the opacity set to 30% and fill to 70%
gradient map 3 is a rainbow gradient with blend mode set to saturation, 15% and fill to 50%
in selective color 2 under the blacks tab set the black +10
saving
to save your gif go to file>export>save for web (legacy)
this are my saving usual settings
hope you find this tutorial helpful! 💜
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