Questions & Queries Corner 2012 - Page 66

Anonymous asked for a gif tutorial for this gif:

• Most other people who make gifs make them differently than I do, but since I have a mac, I have to work around certain things like not being able to screencap DVDs and such, but when I need to make a gif I have to go to file>import>video frame to layers

• Once you have your layers, it will look like this

• Now, when I make gifs, I go through and delete every other frame to prevent it from being too long, therefore too big. So, on a mac I press command + left click every odd numbered frame on the animation bar AND the layer pallet.

• Next, I got up to filter>sharpen>sharpen more to sharpen each of the frames before I size it down

• Once I've sharpened each of the frames, I then go to the crop tool and set the pre-sets (idk the real name for them) to 245 px by 200 px. You can set the height to whatever size you want, but for this size gif in a photoset, tumblr posts them at 245px.

• After I've resized it, I then go back up to filter>sharper>smart sharpen, and resharpen each of the frames again.

• Once each of the frames are resharpened, I then change the speed setting (shift + click the first frame & last frame to change the speed on every frame at once).

• Feel free to change the speed to whatever you would like, but I'm comfortable with .13 seconds for this particular gif (**If you delete every other frame, you are going to want a speed around .1-.15).
• After I've changed the speed, I then edit it however I want, and I've made a .psd out of the coloring I've gotten comfortable with, but just mess around with the brightness/contrast, hues, curves, etc.
• But, because I do use a gradient fill in mine, the bottom half of the gif will be slightly darker, meaning Misha's skin tone will be basically split in half, and I don't like that. So, all I do is make a new layer, go to the paintbrush tool (make sure your color is set to white) and I paint over the darker area.

(***I use a soft brush and feel free to change the brush size to whatever you want***)

(**new layer**)

(**it will show up on your layer pallet like this**)

• As you can see, it shows up as a big white blob over his face, but all you have to do is go to layer style>soft light and then change the opacity to whatever works for you

• After I did that, I just go to file>save for web & devices

• Make sure the colors are set to 256 & the size of the gif is under 1MB AND always, always, always click the nifty little preview button to see what your gif will look like when you post it.

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