valentina, twenty, classic film, attractive dead people, foreign cinema, black&white pictures, i like the old, i like the new, and i love amna more than you. i lead a jessica chastain appreciation life. my rachel weisz. +. formerly emmanuelleriva

two girls &  sailor(s) online.

easy way to make a gif

I know there’s tons of good gif tutorials on tumblr, and I’ve tried so many of them, but this is the way I make my gifs, its easy, faster and simple, you don’t need to load the video into photoshop or convert anything, and since most tv shows are .avi this works perfectly.

updated: the gif limit is now 1MB, so your gif has to be around 990, to work properly.

WHAT YOU NEED:
- Photoshop CS3 or superior
- Screencaps (capping programs like vlc, kmplayer, etc, super simple and fast)

I am using KM Player (windows only) but VLC works almost the same way. ( click here to learn how to screencap with KMPlayer)


STEP 1:

  • Have our screencaps ready 

as you can see I don’t have so many screencaps this is important since I am making a 500px gif and making it under 1MB is quite tricky.
STEP 2:

  • Open photoshop and go to File > Scripts > Load Files into Stack

  • and this window will open, you just click on browse and select your screencaps




  • Click OK, and they will load into photoshop.


STEP 3:

  • After they finish loading photoshop will look something like this:

  • If your “Animation Box” is not there don’t worry just go to Window > Animation , and it will show.
  • Go to the animation box and click on the side

  • and then click on MAKE FRAMES FROM LAYERS

  • After its done making the layers click the side botton again but this time click on REVERSE FRAMES, this is VERY IMPORTANT if you don’t do this our gif is gonna go backwards


STEP 4: 

  • Now I have 7 frames on my timeline

  • I’m gonna select them all and click on the small arrow of one of them, then im gonna go to OTHER and I’m gonna write down the time I want every layer to last, I usually put around 14 - 17 it depends on the video and the facial expression.



STEP 5:

  • Cropping, coloring, sharpening etc.
  • This is up to yourself the coloring and the cropping, it depends on the gif you are making, if its a photoset, if you want to add any subtitles, etc.
  • This is a simple gif all I did was crop it to 500 x 290 px, and then sharpened every layer, yes by one, there’s scripts around but they never worked for me.
  • To sharpen your gif go to Filter > Sharpen > Sharpen

STEP 6:

  • To save your gif go to File > Save for webs & devices

  • A window like this one will open

  • IMPORTANT: Tumblr has a 1MB limit, so you need to make it smaller, usually around 989 works, there’s an option that brings the gif down to size, you click the arrow on the side and go to OPTIMIZE TO FILE SIZE

  • A window will open and just copy my settings and click OK


STEP 7:

  • Save your gif


THE FINAL RESULT

TIPS & ADVICE:

  • Having neutral colors as backgrounds will always make your gif size smaller, so if the video has a white background and the person walking there it will make it easier and shorter.
  • Black & White gifs are better quality than color gifs and smaller (yay for the classics!)
  • Never go under 120 colors for color gifs and 32 for black and white, if you go under those settings you’ll gifs look grainy and ugly
  • SHARPEN YOUR GIF, it always makes a difference.
  • I always use the pattern option, in my opinion makes the file a bit smaller and it gives it a cool “look”