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Hey, Spud
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I’ve seen loads of people searching for ways to post decent GIFs on here but never an actual explanation so hopefully this helps. I use Photoshop but I’m sure it’s not difficult to apply these instructions to other programs. https://twitter.com/gust_182/status/1311218044132380673">https://twitter.com/gust_182/...
I’ve seen loads of people searching for ways to post decent GIFs on here but never an actual explanation so hopefully this helps. I use Photoshop but I’m sure it’s not difficult to apply these instructions to other programs. https://twitter.com/gust_182/status/1311218044132380673">https://twitter.com/gust_182/...
This is also just what I do personally. I’m sure there are more detailed tutorials out there that teach better ways to do it.
Sorry if this is too long or complicated btw - I’ll try to keep it as concise as possible, and hopefully the screenshots will help. Feel free to DM me if you’re confused about anything though!
So first of all, you need a clip to gif. I’ll be using a clip from a PV so it’s already short but, say you wanna cut a scene from a full episode you’ve downloaded, I recommend using VLC Player (it’s free).
When you open your file/episode on VLC, make sure you enable ‘Advanced Controls’ like I’ve done below - the little red ‘record’ button is what you want. Find your scene and press that button a few seconds before you want your GIF to begin and press it again to end it.
It should save to your ‘Videos’ folder, btw.
Not necessary but, your episode will prob have subtitles included in the file that play automatically. If you wanna get rid of them when you’re recording so that they won’t show up in your GIF, just ‘Disable’ them like below.
Not necessary but, your episode will prob have subtitles included in the file that play automatically. If you wanna get rid of them when you’re recording so that they won’t show up in your GIF, just ‘Disable’ them like below.
NOW. Boot up Photoshop, let’s get cracking.
You want to go to ‘File’ → ‘Import’ → ‘Video Frames to Layers’. A little player will open that allows you to trim your clip. Using the two little sliders at the bottom, you can mark exactly where you want your GIF to begin and end.
You want to go to ‘File’ → ‘Import’ → ‘Video Frames to Layers’. A little player will open that allows you to trim your clip. Using the two little sliders at the bottom, you can mark exactly where you want your GIF to begin and end.
Please! Make sure to check the ‘limit to every 2 frames’ checkbox. Sure, it’d be nice to keep every single frame for fluidity but it’s going to make the file way bigger than it needs to be (it might not even save) and, usually, it slows it down too.
When you open that bad boy up, first things first, you’re gonna wanna open the ‘Timeline’ window like below. It might be called ‘Animation’ in older versions (correct me if I’m wrong). I’d set the view/zoom to about 35% so you can see the whole image (bottom left corner).
With your ‘Timeline’, you can now see each individual frame. If you have any extras you don’t want/need, you can ‘select’ them and delete them with the little rubbish bin at the bottom. You can see that I got rid of 3 frames, so I ended up with 26 frames in total.
It’s worth mentioning at this point too: there’s no rules about how many frames you should use; it’ll differ from GIF to GIF. The more frames you use though, the bigger your file size will be. Why does that matter? Well, for two reasons:
1) Twitter has a file size limit and you’re gonna have to stick to it - it’s 15mb. Keep this in mind for later.
2) The most important thing to remember is that your image size - as in, the dimensions - will be what determines the quality of your upload. This is what it looks like if I upload a GIF that’s 600 x 335 pixels:
This is what it looks like if I upload the exact same GIF at 1500 x 845 pixels:
Saving the first (smaller) GIF, the file size came in at 1.88mb. The second (larger) one was 8.29mb. I actually tried to save it at 1920 x 1080 pixels first, which is the size of the original video, but it would’ve been a little over 15mb.
If this sounds complicated, it’s not, I promise. The point is that the size of your image will depend on how many frames you use (or vice versa). If I had deleted 10 frames from my GIF, I could have saved it at 1920 x 1080 which would have ensured the highest quality possible.
I didn’t want to delete frames though - I wanted to keep as much of the original scene as possible and I wanted to avoid it looking too short and choppy, so I’ll compromise on the image size at the end.
If you DON’T want to compromise on the image size, and you’re able to get rid of frames that don’t ruin the flow of your GIF, consider deleting. If you have 40+ frames, you’re going to have to reduce your image size significantly and it’ll look... bad. Try to stick between 20-30.
ANYWAY, anyway, back to what we were doing, right. Let’s have some fun and try colouring your GIF. This is totally optional btw but it will help with vibrancy and stuff. Go to ‘Layer’ → ‘New Adjustment Layer’ → ‘Selective Colour’.
Honestly, just play around with it and see what you like!
This is what my GIF looks like after colouring. You can try out other adjustment layers too (like ‘Gradient Map’ or ‘Brightness & Contrast’) but ‘Selective Colour’ makes it look brighter and more vibrant with enough subtlety, so that’s fine for me.
Okay, now. Gonna need you to select *all* of the frames AND *all* of the layers. Then you’re going to click that little icon in the bottom left corner (I’ve marked it below) - this will convert your frames to a video timeline. You don’t need to know what that means, don’t worry.
It should look like this now. Again, making sure *all* frames and *all* layers, go to ‘Filter’ → ‘Convert for Smart Filters’, and they will all collapse into a single layer.
The reason it’s important to do this is bc it’s gonna allow you to both sharpen and blur your GIF. Yeah, sounds contradictory, but it helps, I swear. So, first, go to ‘Filter’ → ‘Sharpen’ → ‘Smart Sharpen’. After you’ve done that, go to ‘Filter’ → ‘Blur’ → ‘Surface Blur’.
FWIW you can play around with how much you want for each feature - a lot of people use a really minimal amount to sharpen and blur (they’d prob be horrified at how high my settings are lmao), but the image size is so big that these should show up well when the GIF is uploaded.
You’re almost finished, I promise, thanks for sticking with me. You can save this now, so go to ‘File’ → ‘Export’ → ‘Save for Web’ and the following window will appear:
Going back to what I said earlier: Twitter’s limit is 15mb, so pay careful attention to your file size at this point. If it’s too high, it’s not gonna upload properly, so it’s time to go back and either delete some frames or reduce the dimensions of your image. I& #39;d do the latter.
Btw if you& #39;re reducing the size, make sure it’s relative to the original. By this, I mean the ratio stays the same; if it was 1920 x 1080 pixels and you want it 1000 pixels wide, it needs to be ~560-565 pixels high. If you make it 1000 x 1000, it’s gonna contort and look awful.
This little lock on Photoshop will adjust these things automatically so just make sure it’s enabled.
Don’t need to resize or delete anything bc it& #39;s than 15mb? Amoizing, slap ‘Save’ but make sure you’ve selected ‘Forever’ in the bottom right corner to make sure your GIF actually loops. You can change the other settings and see what you like best but I think these look clean.
Finally! You’re done! At least, you are if you want your GIF to play at x3290487 speed like this one. I’m assuming you want it to look, like, normal though, so let’s fix that. Open your GIF back up and you’ll notice you have a frame timeline rather than a video timeline now.
That’s good, that’s what we want. After you select *all* frames, you need to click the little drop down button underneath - it doesn’t matter which frame you use to do it, this will apply to all of the ones you’ve selected. This is how you set the speed of your GIF.
Most people choose somewhere between 0.02 and 0.08, I think? Every tutorial I’ve ever read has warned that you should never, ever use ‘no delay’ for your GIFs. Whoops, I guess, because that’s what I always use lmao.
Once you’ve chosen your speed, you’re actually done. ‘Save to Web’ once again (you can just overwrite the file) and you’re finally ready to post! Enjoy!
