#a screencap only does so much

[gross-gal]

Was there an instant hook when you saw that first Repo Mantis episode or did it take awhile for him to become awhooga-attractive?

i've told it before but it's roughly like this:

[a-shadowedvales]

LETS TALK ABOUT BECKY IVES FOR A MINUTE!

when you think about becky, you have to remember that she spent at least four years listening to terry’s “crazy theories” about hawkins lab, and the big bad man taking jane away. she knew terry took part in “hippie crap” and assumed that messed with her head. that those experiences combined with miscarrying in the third trimester had a terrible strain on her mental health, ultimately losing her connection to reality. she spent those years watching terry fight and lose legal battles against brenner and hawkins. she pleaded for her to stop, to get help, as their relationship grew stressed and strained because becky didn’t believe her, and terry hated her for it.

and then when terry’s mind was completely broken, she spent her days and nights caring for her. the show never touched on this. just what did becky think happened to terry? what story was she told? was terry put into a random hospital with doctors from hawkins lab, under a guise of caring for her, just to tell becky there was some kind of accident? maybe a car accident. did they claim the drugs used in the mk ultra testing from all those years ago took affect on her mind? probably not, because then becky would be in an opportunity to sue. i highly doubt there would have been any mention of the lab, opposed to some, "unfortunate accident." it really bugs me that there’s no story about what becky believed made terry catatonic. terry knew becky didn’t believe her, and as such, definitely did not tell her about her plans to break into the lab. so a story could have easily been concocted.

and then, one random day, a kid shows up at her doorstep, claiming to be the daughter she didn’t believe existed. immediately, by jane opening the door with her mind, becky held some kind of belief for she'd heard terry’s rants about her baby being used for experiments, experiments which gave her powers. and in comes jane, demanding to see her mother, able to open a locked door, blood dripping from her nose. all too soon she realises that there has so be some semblance of truth. the girl says her name is jane: she fits all the descriptions. the descriptions of the niece she never had. this child who her sister fought tooth and nail to get back. i can’t even imagine the guilt that would begin to fester for not believing terry, for thinking she was having a mental break, for trying to get her to see therapists and get her some real, serious help.

scared and confused for herself and her sister, and unable to fathom what is happening, what does she do? she comforts jane. there is distance, there’s awkwardness, but this girl is her blood and every moment that passed only proved that she could actually be jane ives. she makes her a sandwich, tries to comfort her, tells her that her mother is in a dream. probably a good dream. she comforts and tells her that terry never stopped believing.

she always believed you were out there. she always believed you’d come home one day. home? yeah, home.

she offered her, this strange little girl, a place in her home with her and her mother. she didn’t push, she didn’t need to know everything in that moment; she focused on jane and nothing else. the girl was obviously traumatised judging by the way she spoke, the way she sheltered herself. if everything terry claimed was indeed true, then becky couldn’t even begin to think about what she’d gone through.

i wanna help you, but to really do that, i need you to talk to me, okay? it doesn’t have to be now. it doesn’t have to be today. when you’re ready, okay?

she never moved a single thing in jane’s room. although she didn’t believe terry, she respected and loved her enough to keep it exactly as she’d planned. and at least she could give jane that, the vision her mother had for her, what the first steps of their wonderful life would have been like. becky claimed terry was “stuck” living the “same dream” over and over. where becky, too, was the one who was stuck. terry became 24/7 care, and unless she had helpers (which i highly doubt), becky would have given up her job, her out of home hobbies, her entire life to care for her sister. stuck in an endless routine until jane came along and struck her with the reality of it all.

as soon as jane contacts the void, you can see becky looks on edge and nervous. which, fair enough! she asks if she can sit and watch, but doesn’t interfere or distract jane. she even sits a little further away from her, perhaps out of fear (which would be completely justified. this girl physically moved things with her mind, who knows what else she can do) or just trying to take this all in within her own time and space. but the moment, the second jane departs the void and is in a state of distress, she moves to comfort her. she isn’t sure how, and doesn’t expect it to be returned, but offers it nonetheless. as far as she knows jane just spoke to her sister; she would be dying to know what happened, if she said anything. but remains silent and focuses on the child.

unfortunately we really don’t see much else of their dynamic on screen, but it is very justified that becky contacted hawkins and tried to get a hold of hopper. he and joyce were the only ones who seemed to have some kind of understanding; of course she would want to contact them. she put on a brave face in front of jane, focused on her and her needs. but as soon as she put the bed down and jane wanted some time alone in her room, becky had a moment to breathe. to think about her, her sister, all those wasted years because she didn’t believe. so, weeks later, when she gets a phone call from a weak sounding girl, saying she was sorry, the relief is immense. when recovered from her illness after closing the gate, the first thing jane wanted to do was call her aunt. hopper got on the line after the initial apology and asked if becky would come to hawkins, so they could work things out from there.

i just think becky is such a neat, complex character for the literal twenty minutes (probably less) screen time she gets. i adore the way she treats jane, and think she is such a good influence in her life. imagine all the stories becky could tell her about terry. things no one else could. her relationship with her aunt is one like no other, for both the sake of her mother, and that she is the only true family she has ever known, or as far as she knows, even has. becky never expects anything from jane (unlike a lot of the people in her life), and in that respect, jane does actually open up to her overtime. to becky, jane isn’t a girl who’s saved the world a few times. she’s the niece she didn’t believe in, and would spend the rest of her life making it up to her and terry.

[shrimp1y]

As cute as satosugu's anime appearances are so far don't u guys think they kinda... is mischaracterizing them....

[shaunashipman]

i told my friend i would find him some beginner’s giffing tutorials, but all the one’s i could find were either years out of date, used a method that made me go “huh”, or incorporated ready-made actions. all perfectly fine, but if i’m sending someone a tutorial i’d rather it be one for a method i understand enough to help with.

so, here is a beginner’s guide to giffing, as told by cleo, a neurotic, detailed, and organization happy individual. there will be many pictures.

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.

steps within the actions can be clicked and dragged, both within that action and moved to other actions. actions can also be moved between folders.

[userpeggycarter]

COLORING + SHARPENING TUTORIAL

someone asked for a coloring tutorial and my sharpening settings, so here it is! there are also a few tips to achieve more HQ gifs. :)

tutorial under the cut!

FOR HIGH-QUALITY GIFS

FILE SIZES

it doesn’t matter what your sharpening settings are if the file you’re using to gif is too low quality, so i tend to look for the best that i can get when downloading stuff. 

usually, movies (+2h) look better if they’re 5GB or more, while an episode (40 min/1h) can look good with even 1GB. the minimum definition i try to find is 1080p, but i gif with 2160p (4k) when available. unfortunately, not every computer can handle 4k, but don’t worry, you can gif with 1080p files just fine if they are big enough. contrary to popular belief, size does matter! which means sometimes a bigger 1080p file is better than a smaller 2160p one, for example.

SCREENCAPPING METHOD

this can too influence the quality of your gifs. as a gifmaker, i’ve tried it all: video frames to layers, directly opening video clips, loading files into stack, and i’ve finally settled down with opening screencaps as an image sequence. with bigger files, it doesn’t matter much what technique you use, but i’ve noticed with smaller files you can do wonders if you screencap (either by loading files into stack or opening as an image sequence) instead of using video clips. for example, this gif’s original video file was only 4GB (so smaller than i’ve usually go for), if you can believe it!

here’s a tutorial for setting up and screencapping with MPV, the media player i use to screencap. again, you can keep using video clips for bigger files, but you’ll find this useful when dealing with dire causes. i don't file loads into stack, though, like the video does. i open as an image sequence (open > screencap folder > select any image > click the image sequence button). just select OK for the speed. this will open your screencaps as a video clip (blue bar) in timeline mode (i'm a timeline gifmaker, i don't know about you). you will need this action pack to convert the clip into frames if you're a frames gifmaker. i suggest you convert them into frames even if you're a timeline gifmaker, just convert them into a timeline again at the end. that way you can delete the screencaps right away, otherwise you will delete the screencaps and get a static image as a "gif".

ATTENTION if you’re a Mac Sonoma user, MPV won’t be an option for you unless you downgrade your system. that is, if you have an Intel chip. if you have M1 Max chip (or even a better one), here’s a fix for MPV you can try while keeping that MacOS, because nowadays MPV is skipping frames in its latest build. or you can use MPlayer instead for less hassle. here are two tutorials for setting and using MPlayer. Windows users are fine, you can use MPV without trouble.

FOR EVEN MORE QUALITY

ADD NOISE

here’s a tutorial for adding noise as a way to achieve more HQ gifs if your original material is too low quality.

REDUCE NOISE WITH CAMERA RAW

instead of adding noise, you can reduce it, especially if your gif is very noisy as it is. 

the path is filter > camera raw > detail > nose reduction. i do this before sharpening, but only my video file isn't great to begin with. because it’s a smart filter, you can reduce or increase its opacity by clicking the bars next to its name in the layers panel.

TOPAZ AI

i use Topaz Photo AI to increase the quality of my screencaps when i need to. it’s paid software, but there are… ways to find it for free, usually on t0rrent websites. if someone’s interested, i can make a tutorial solely about it in the future.

SHARPENING SETTINGS

here are my sharpening settings (filter > sharpen > smart sharpen). i sharpen things twice: 500% 0.4px + 10% 10px. here's an action for it, for more convenience. here's a tutorial on how to use Photoshop actions. for animated stuff, i use this action pack.

COLORING

here’s the gif i'm gonna use as a base. it’s already sharpened like the way i always do it.

LIGHTNING THE SHOTS

half of the secret of a good coloring is good lightning. i always useCurves (layers > new adjustment layer > curves) and Brightness & Contrast (layers > new adjustment layer > brightness & contrast). the settings depend on the scene you’re giffing, but i always try make my gifs bright and with high contrast to make the colors pop.

CURVES

besides lighting your scene, the Curves adjustment layer has four automatic options that will color-correct it for you. it’s not always perfect and it doesn’t mean you won’t need to do further coloring, but it’s a great start. it’s a lifesaver for most ridiculously yellow scenes. look at the difference! this gif uses the 3rd automatic option (the screenshot below isn't mine btw so that's why the fourth option is the chosen one), from top to bottom. what automatic option you need to choose depends on the gif.

sometimes i like to tweak my Curves layer. not everybody does that, it’s not that necessary and if you’re not careful, it can screw your gif up. to modify your layer by hand, you will need to click and drag points of that straight line in the position you desire. this is the concept behind it:

basically, the lower part of the line handles the shadows, while the upper part handles the highlights of the image. if you pull a highlight point up, the image’s highlights will be brighter. if you pull it down, it will make them darker. same thing for the shadow points. you should play with it to get a grasp of it, that’s what i did when i first started giffing.

BRIGHTNESS & CONTRAST

then i added a bit of brightness and contrast.

CHANNEL MIXER

the scene looked a bit too yellow, so i used the Channel Mixer (layer > new adjustment layer > channel mixer) adjustment layer. here’s a tutorial of how it works. not every scene needs the Channel Mixer layer though, i mostly use it to remove heavy overall tints. in this particular case, the Curves layer got rid of most of the yellow, but i wanted the gif to be just a bit more blue so the Channel Mixer tweaks are very minimal.

SELECTIVE COLOR

now, this adjustment layer i always use: Selective Color (layer > new adjustment layer > selective color). this is THE adjustment layer to me, alongside the Curves one. this is how it works:

ie, you can separately edit a color this way, giving it tints. for this gif, i wanted to make the colors more vibrant. to achieve that, i edited the selected colors this way:

for the reds, i added even more red in them by moving the first slider to the right, making the color more vibrant. for his hat to have a more warm tint, i added yellow to the reds (third slider, moving it to the right). finally, to make the reds stronger, i moved the last slider to the right (more black).

for the yellows, i made them brighter by adding white to them, thus making the tile wall and Paddington more bright as well.

for the cyans and the blues, i just added the maximum (+100) of black that i could.

i wanted for Paddington's nose to be brighter, so i added more white to the whites.

lastly, i added depth to the blacks by increasing their own blackness.

you should always play with the Selective Colors sliders for a bit, before deciding what you want or need. with time, you will automatically know what to change to correct the color grading. it all takes practice!

HUE/SATURATION

i don’t know if you noticed, but there are some green spots on the blue wall behind Paddington. to correct that, i added a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer (layer > new adjustment layer > hue/saturation) and made the saturation of the greens 0%, making that unwanted green disappear from the background.

while the green spots on the wall are specific for this gif, i use hue/saturation a lot to tweak, well, hue and saturation. sometimes someone’s skin is too yellow, i made it redder by tweaking the reds and the yellows, or vice-versa. the hue bar follows the rainbow bar, so the maximum settings (+100 and -100) give the selected color to change its hue to something more red or pink (the rainbow extremities). changing hue can give pretty whacky results, like turning someone’s skin tone to green, so you will need to play with it to get the hang of it. you can also tweak the opacity of your hue/saturation layer to further improve your gif’s coloring. i didn’t do it in this case, the opacity is still 100%. the reds and the blues had their saturation increased to make them pop just a bit more, without affecting the other colors.

COLOR BALANCE

the highlights of the gif still had a green tint to it due to the automatic correction of the Curves layer, so i used Color Balance. this is how it works: instead of giving specific colors some tints, you can give them to the shadows, highlights, and mid-tones. if your shadows are too blue, you counterbalance them with the opposite color, yellow. same thing with the cyan-red and magenta-green pairings. in my case, i added a bit of magenta.

B&W GRADIENT MAP

now, if this gif was a dish, it’s time for the salt and pepper. i always add a Gradient Map (layer > new adjustment layer > gradient map) (black to white gradient) with the Soft Light blending mode, thus giving my shadows more depth without messing with the mid-tones and highlights. it also doesn’t “deep fry” (you know those memes?) the gif too much by adding even more contrast. usually, the opacity of the layer is between 30% to 70%, it all depends on the gif. it always does wonders, though!

COLOR FILTER

finally, i like to add Color Filters (layer > new adjustment layer > color filter) to my gifs. it’s very handy when giving different scenes for the same minimalistic set because it makes them kind of match despite having completely different colors. in this gif’s case, i added a “deep blue” filter, opacity 50% density 25. you can change the density and the opacity of the layer for further editing, again, it all depends on the gif.

VIBRANCE

if i feel like it, i add a vibrance layer (layer > new adjustment layer > vibrance) to make the colors pop. this can ruin your coloring sometimes, especially when regarding skin color, so be careful. i didn't do it in this gif because i felt i didn't need it.

TA-DA! 🥳

AN OTHER EXAMPLE

the color grading of the original scene it’s pretty good as it is, to be honest. let’s see a worse scenario, a VERY yellow one:

no channel mixer this time because the automatic curves option dealt with the yellowness, but you can see it made the gif too green. i needed to correct that with the following adjustment layers:

curves (automatic option) (gif 2) >> same curves layer (tweaks) (gif 3) >> brightness & contrast (gif 4) >> hue/saturation (tweaked cyan+blue+green) >> selective color >> color balance (gif 5) >> b&w gradient map >> (sepia) filter >> vibrance (gif 6)

i added a hue/saturation layer to remove the blues & greens before my selective color layer because i thought that was more urgent than tweaking the tint of all colors. color balance (gif 4) was the real hero here, though, by removing the green tint. the selective color layer was meant to make the red pop more than anything else, because the rest looked pretty good, especially her skin tone (despite the green tint). you can notice that tweaking the curves layer (small gif 3) also helped A LOT with the green problem.

tl;dr 😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫

here's a list of my go-to's while coloring and lightning gifs. it's not a rule, just a guide. there are gifs in which i don't use all these adjustment layers, or use them in a different order. it all depends!

1. curves (automatic option + tweaks) 2. brightness & contrast 3. channel mixer 4. selective color 5. hue/saturation 6. color balance 7. b&w gradient map 8. color filter 9. vibrance

i'll suggest that you study each adjustment layer listed for more info, either with other Tumblr tutorials or YouTube ones. the YouTube ones focus on images, but you can translate what they teach to gif making very easily. you can ask me to further explain any adjustment layer, too! i was brief to keep this short (which i kinda failed lol).

feel free to ask me for clarification or something else about gifmaking wise, i always like to help. ❤️

[rootspiral]

Agatha All Along deep dive: episode 9 part 2

(Wandavision entries: [1][2][3])

(AAA entries: ep1 [1][2][3][4] ep2 [1][2][3][4] ep3 [1][2][3] ep4 [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][+1] ep5 [1][2][3][4][5] ep6 [1][2][3] ep7 [1][2][3][4][5][6] ep8 [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9] ep9 [1][2][3][4][5][6])

I'm glad nicky came up with a cool new tune because according to period movies and shows greensleeves is the only song anyone ever knew

look at that meek little smile, ughhhh. nicky is like two days old and this asshole has already figured out he's the perfect prop for her murder sprees. and these poor women are calling her sister and are willing to help too.

the spell is te accipimus in circulum, we accept you in the circle, and yes that makes me cry a little. we accept you in our community. and the spell is yellow air magic, which sounds like the most empathic kind if Lilia is any indication.

that's interesting, you can't really tell that well from screencaps but go rewatch the scene, this witch is making mushrooms grow with yellow magic instead of green?? is it just a spell (she is holding a book) or have I been getting it all wrong and color has nothing to do with the type of magic one has?

or maybe??? the color depends on the coven you're in?? the salemites all had blue magic for example. and now that I think about it the stone circle is a protection spell but it's not red/orange.

the meaning of this scene is so glaring dear lord. agatha was never going to give these women a chance to prove that yes, there are people out there who could love and help and accept her. she has shut herself up to that possibility a long time ago.

and she stole the soup too. awful.

I've seen all the different theories about nicky needing to feed on witches too, or nicky needing soul sacrifices to survive because he's the son of death etc. we don't have enough evidence to prove anything yet, but personally I headcanon nicky as a totally normal kid, that makes this story even more tragic.

and aww that baby suckling on the little pudgy fist

nicky doesn't look that happy about what he's been asked to do, does he?

we establish that nicky was sickly (maybe he was born with some internal defect that rio temporarily patched up?) we also see him steal the bell agatha will use for her Road scam in the future.

and we meet yet another witch being kind and wanting to help.

agatha: I love this six year old so much I'm gonna make him accessory to murder

dO yOU ShaME YouR MOtHER

and the big fake gasp too. as usual this bitch has conned a whole community

like, she's convinced herself that other witches are bad and are after her WHILE relying on witches's good hearts to con and kill them. what sort of mental gymnastics???

color goes from yellow to purple. nicky waits outside while his mom commits murder, it's not a good look on agatha. completely fucked up, actually.

(I'm terrified that the goat will end up being an agent of mephisto or something idiotic like that, lemme tell you. I hope they're just keeping it for milk and company.)

and here's the million dollar question. nicky has seen his mom kill literally since he was born, and now he's old enough to start realizing what that means.

oooh I know that look, that's agatha when she's put on the spot. she avoids his gaze, she can't be sincere with him.

and of course she's teaching herself spells from a book. nerrrrrrd

nicky, bless his soul, appears to give it a good thought and then offers a practical suggestion. I guess he wouldn't mind to have a roof on his head and some friends too.

GREAT acting from kathryn here. the quick OH SHIT face followed by the super final NO, with her jaw so rigid. in typical agatha fashion, when she's upset she becomes avoidant.

this is evanora's legacy. despite agatha's immense love for nicky, she is passing all that pain down and inflicting it on him.

remember when she called billy a survivor? this is the greatest asset in her opinion, the one she wants to teach her son. the truth is, she is angry at witches because she is scared of them, she's scared of being targeted again. but look at that kid's dark circles, I can't believe she's making him sleep in the woods, sick as he is!

really really fantastic subtlety. agatha wants to sound wise and strong, but she looks scared, uncertain, guilty.

see how nicky looks at agatha while he sings? he's checking to see if she's noticing, because his mom likes music and likes his voice. he's afraid he has upset her and wants to make her smile. he tried to reason with her, and now he tries to soothe her. this is what happens when you have an immature parent, a child will want to help, they will try to fix things. they'll end up parenting their parent, and it should always be the other way round.

agatha takes the bait. she's relieved that the conversation has moved to a safer subject. but oh, this script is so good. this is a mostly innocent, mostly sweet remark, but with a possessive undertone. don't forget that you are mine, she says.

and still, the love is real. even in a fucked up situation like this, these moment of happiness are precious and genuine and will linger on. look at how adoringly nicky looks at his mom, she's literally the sun and center of his small world, and that's how agatha likes it: she created nicky because she needed someone who could be hers without any baggage or consequences. but it turns out that raising a child is not a cheat code for love, it's one of the most difficult, most significant and impactful decisions a human can make.

go to episode 9 part 3

[actual-changeling]

this one is thanks to a post by @thegroovyfool because she is very much correct - we do not talk about aziraphale's "i need you" enough.

so once again, with a deep breath and a sigh, welcome back to alex's unhinged meta corner, where i tear apart the confession scene frame by frame. i'm gonna say, watching this particular clip over and over and focusing on aziraphale's face almost took me out.

let's get into it.

first, how about a little look at our starting point. (any blurry screencaps are due to a LOT of movement on michael's part rip)

crowley is very pointedly facing away from him, he turned after aziraphale said "we can be together - angels!", presumably because being offered exactly what he wants in the one way he cannot have it fried his brain, cause besties it surely fried mine.

aziraphale on the other hand looks openly desperate, which is why he says "i need you." more on that later. let's have a look at how he says it, because michael "microexpressions" sheen is putting in the work.

to me, he seems close to tears, his eyes are glistening in that specific "i'm about to cry my eyes out" way i know from looking in the mirror while crying

he is trying to get crowley to listen to him and to turn around. he wants crowley to face him, which is something most people tend to want during an argument. talking to someone who is not looking at you tends to make someone frustrated and like they're not hearing you/do not care about what you have to say.

aziraphale looks close to despair, his i need you is a plea to crowley to come with him. he is opening himself up not just emotionally but physically, too.

he slightly leans forward, his arms are raised and seem to both slightly grasp for crowley and point towards his chest/heart for emphasis. the pure pain visible on his face knocks the air out of me every single time i look at it.

aziraphale is admitting to needing him, something he has never done before, hell, he has told him the exact opposite on numerous occasions. i don't need you. and while they both knew it was a) a lie and b) a way for him to deal with his conflicting emotional standpoints and cognitive dissonance, it still hurt crowley every. single time.

crowley was there for him no matter what, he knows aziraphale needs him but he came back and remained at his side even when he was pushed away and more or less openly insulted. he endured it all.

aziraphale saying i need you now is pretty much a slap in the face but also what crowley needs to hear. as with everything that happens during the entire conversation, the timing is fucked up and they're talking past each other.

in my opinion, that is why crowley does not react.

only when aziraphale turns spiteful and starts questioning his understanding (aka calling him stupid without outright saying it) does he re-enter the conversation.

aziraphale, however, is upset. now, i will put on my tinhat for just a second and turn up the insanity because there are two more things i want to talk about.

first, the little stutter at the beginning.

"i ngk - i need you."

my question is - why? why does he stumble over these words in particular when it does not happen with any other sentence? the only other time is right after crowley walks away with his "good luck", he stumbles over crowley's name.

so, in short, it happens when he is either caught off-guard or saying something incredible emotional.

and this, everyone, is where i go unhinged in my interpretation.

what if he initially did not want to say "i need you?" what if he was so caught up in getting crowley to stay/come with him that he did not think and almost confessed another three word sentence?

what if he was about to say "i love you" but stopped himself because no, that's too direct, they don't do that, they can't do that. it goes against EVERYTHING they have silently build over the last six thousand years. so he chokes on it. he chokes on it and instead he says "i need you" because it means the same thing.

i need you. don't leave me. come with me. be an us. go off together.

i forgive you. i love you.

they say it over and over again because that's the only way they can say it.

that is why aziraphale is so angry and upset after saying it. he told crowley he loves him, he needs him, and all he got in return was silence.

the funny part is that this code may have worked before, but it no longer does. crowley is too hurt to listen to what aziraphale is trying to tell him, and aziraphale is equally as hurt and also not listening anymore.

the funny part is that it stopped being about love and started being about sides again. my side, your side, our side. choose a side, choose our side, choose me.

the funny part is that beelzebub and gabriel told them what they need to do, i found something that mattered more to me than choosing sides.

[beatle-07]

Hisoka 95% of the time he is on-screen during this arc:

The ‘99 hunter exam arc is so funny because they introduce hisoka as this super threatening scary bad guy and then just have him spend 20 episodes doing nothing but building card houses and standing exactly three feet away from illumi

[gffa]

I'm going through my screencaps from Inquisitor: Rise of the Red Blade and it really kills me that I can't recommend this book to more people because it's from the point of view of a character falling to the dark side, so on the surface it comes across as very Jedi critical, but as someone who constantly keeps a hawk's eye out for what the other Jedi say and do so I can put it in my citations project, let me tell you, this book drives me absolutely up the wall with how much I was handed on a silver platter for how it's structured. It's a book that's set from the point of view of a troubled young Padawan, Iskat Akaris, and everything in her thoughts is about how she does try to let go of her anger, which she finds very difficult, but she also constantly craves battle and violence and seeks to find ways to justify that. She's offered by multiple people to find avenues to help her, but she always turns away from them, because they're not exciting enough for her. She never tells anyone directly of her struggles and any time another Jedi expresses support, somehow it's never good enough, she assumes it's not real empathy (because she thinks they wouldn't agree with her feelings--she doesn't want to be an archivist, she wants to fight, she doesn't want to take a regular position with the children in the creche--despite that she was really good with them and felt calmer afterwards--because she wants to be out in the galaxy fighting), and when she makes mistakes, she looks to justify why it wasn't her fault (she doesn't actually care about the civilians her actions hurt, she just cares that Adi and Yoda are telling her she has to be more careful). She's offered mentorship multiple times, by Jocasta, by Josk, Master Klefan talks to her frequently, Adi and Yoda make a point to tell her that two specific Masters are available to speak to, the Council offers her a position in the creche because they think she'd do well there--but that's not the excitement she craves, it's not the admiration for her battle skills that she wants, so she turns away from it. She's offered a position that's clearly very dear to them, it comes with multiple compliments and that they say it's meant to be beneficial to her as well (with the implication of how much it calmed her), and yet she sees it as a demotion, because it's not a mission with action and fighting. Everything that is the opposite of what a Jedi needs to seek. And it's done with such deftness to Iskat's point of view that, if you're not paying attention, it might seem like she is justified in these things. But when you look beyond her, you see how hard the Jedi are trying to help her, how many hands they hold out to her, and I want to write entire essays about this book but arrrghhhh I'm probably the only one who read this book in this specific way and who still has tolerance left for unreliable narrators who unfairly criticize the Jedi, but I can see the consistent pattern of how compassionate they are beyond it, so I feel I'd just be yelling into the void even more than I usually do, so instead I just sit with my feelings, like, I enjoyed this book through this lens, but it's a lens that scrapes a lot of people's nerves raw, so I can't blame them, but also oh man there's so much to chew on in this book and I just have to delete these caps as I make my way through my backlog. Arrrghhh.

[just-another-nerd-blog]

Okay, so we all know that Rory Sucks and doesn't actually care about Lydia. So I am going to use his behavior with Lydia to prove just how much Betelgeuse actually cares about and respects her, in comparison. Because he really does love her, and all of his actions in the movie show that.

First, let's talk about kisses. Rory kisses/embraces Lydia on three notable occasions. Betelgeuse kisses her once, and it is perhaps one of the more memorable scenes in the movie for all the Beetlebabes fans. Obviously, one of the big differences between the Rory kisses and the BJ kiss is the fact that Rory's are all on the mouth, while BJ's is to the back of her hand. But another big difference I noticed is the force with which Lydia is kissed.

Analysis with photo evidence under the cut!

The first time we see Rory kiss Lydia is after her anxious break during her show taping. In the moment, she is vulnerable and shaken, but Rory grabs her for a kiss anyway. It's a bit aggressive, he's holding her tightly, and Lydia looks a bit stiff when he pulls her in. It's not a great moment for a kiss like this, and doesn't seem to be the most welcome either.

The second notable time we see Rory kiss Lydia is when he proposes to her and she finally and unenthusiastically agrees. As we can see in the first screencap, he is practically yanking her in. Lydia looks shocked and perhaps a bit afraid or nervous. When Rory finally kisses her, it looks as if her head is somewhat turned away, and her shoulders are even stiffer than the first time. Once again, this seems semi-unwelcome, but mostly it seems needlessly aggressive.

The third Rory kiss/embrace I want to talk about is when Lydia finally gets to the church for their wedding. Once again, her head is turned away, and this time, in addition to looking stiff, she is leaning away, with Rory following her for the embrace. He's holding her tightly, but her hand isn't even fully resting on him, least of all holding or grabbing him. Once again, this is a situation of him seeing her when she's nervous or anxious and using force to pull her into a kiss or embrace. It's a little rough, and doesn't seem entirely pleasant.

Now let's compare those to the one time Betelgeuse kisses her. By the time this scene comes up, he's already gone through pretty much the whole wedding scene with her, not doing much more than just dancing with her and singing to her. And, notably, he kisses her on the back of the hand.

Look how gentle he is with her. He's holding her hand and has an arm around her back, but he isn't gripping her the way we see Rory do. He carefully brings her hand to his mouth to kiss it, and it only lasts for a brief second. Again, compare that to Rory's kisses, which all go on for what seems like a little too long. Lydia's a bit stiff here too, and I can't blame her, but she moves with Betelgeuse's lead much easier than she does with Rory's. She's not trying to get away, she lets him spin her, she lets him kiss her hand. Her expression is also a bit questioning, but not really afraid or even surprised.

Even when you look at the still of this scene, she mostly just looks confused and perhaps a bit curious, as if she's not sure why he's doing this. It's because he's in love with her but I digress. BJ's kiss is slow and deliberate. He gives her a chance to pull her hand away if she were to want to, he kisses her in perhaps the most respectful place he could kiss her without prior consent, and he doesn't draw it out.

Ultimately, Betelgeuse's one kiss to Lydia's hand is worlds more romantic and worlds more respectful than any of Rory's kisses to her mouth. Every time Rory kisses her, it's aggressive and forceful, and he never really takes a chance to see how she feels about it. He just kisses her because he wants to, regardless of Lydia's anxiety or uncertainty. Obviously BJ wanted to kiss her too, but his eyes are watching her the whole time. He's searching her expression and body language to make sure she's okay. He is so beyond gentle and careful with her. He doesn't draw it out.

Rory kisses in a way that makes it seem like he's trying to prove to anyone watching that he loves Lydia. He's putting on a show. But Betelgeuse, ever the showman, is only doing this for Lydia. The rest of the people in the church are frozen in time, no one is watching. Most importantly, the tenderness with which he brings her hand up and kisses her makes it seem like he's only trying to prove himself to her. No one else's thoughts matter, not as long as Lydia knows how he feels, how genuinely and tenderly he actually loves her.

When Rory kisses her, he only thinks about himself. When Betelgeuse kisses her, he's only thinking about Lydia.

[marikbentusi]

I wasn't interested much in the Gwenpool Fortnite collab (fingerless gloves are a cute tweak), but someone asked on Twitter about "evil future Gwenpool" being labelled "Dark Gwenpool" ingame (which is what I've been calling my fan character variant since 2020):

"Dark" is a very common prefix for evil alter egos, so even if people occasionally mistake my comics for official material, I was certain this was a coincidence. But then the person also casually pointed out that she's called "Dark GwenPool" on Wikipedia. Huh?

No sources cited as far as I can tell. One of the original Gwenpool creators even agreed that "Dark Gwenpool" was never official:

I hunted down the Wikipedia changelog where apparently someone injected all the Dark Gwenpool stuff on 8th of April this year (2024). So maybe someone on the Fortnite team checked Google/Wikipedia instead of making up the name from scratch.

I tried to hunt down the wiki editor for questioning only to find out they are banned for being a sockpuppet account. In fact, that user was such a prolific sockpuppeteer that they've got their own Wikipedia page listing all 164 suspected alts. One of them is called "Batrocfrogg", what kind of canonization assist from beyond the grave is this?!

Since that lead went cold, I looked at the sources the wiki edit gave when talking about the character more generally. Aside from the official comics where she isn't called Dark Gwenpool, we've got:

"Peter Parker & Miles Morales: Spider-Men Double Trouble #2" – evil Gwen just has a cosplay background cameo there, no name drop.

Marvel Duel, a niche F2P mobile card game, where she's an antagonist.

The person who first pointed out to me that "Dark Gwenpool" was also on Wikipedia dug around and found a screenshot that evil Gwen is indeed called "Dark Gwenpool" in Marvel Duel:

Obviously I assume the Marvel Duel devs just made that one up without knowing about my comics. Case closed on that lead! But I'm not sure if the Wiki edit was based on this.

Marvel Duel, if we can still trust its wiki page, only released in eight countries. They are mostly in the UTC+8 time zone. The edit was finished on ~22:00 UTC+0, which would be Tuesday 05:00 AM local time if the editor is from one of those countries themselves. Of course, maybe the person played an emulated/jailbroken version (the game does come in English), watched a foreign Let's Play, or is just a super night owl. None of these are stranger than having 146 sockpuppet accounts. But it also doesn't exactly help the edit's credibility like I had hoped.

I also don't know if Marvel Duel included the name variations "Dark GwenPool" and "Dark Gwen" that the Wiki editor used specifically (in the screencap above she's stylized differently). The editor also called her the "evil alternator future version" tho, so maybe they aren't a stickler for details.

----

But yeah the TL;DR is that "Dark GwenPool" is currently the main name for evil Gwen on Wikipedia with no source cited. Marvel Duel calling her that as well was probably just coincidence. Maybe Fortnite also made it up, or they copied it from Wikipedia, or maybe they copied it from Marvel Duel itself.

I thought it was weird and funny enough to share. 164 sockpuppets. WTF.

[kimsuyeon]

complete beginner's guide to [kpop] giffing, as explained by me!

keep in mind everyone has a different style and process, so there are some things in mine that may not feel intuitive or helpful - if so, don't include it! if you can make the gif, and have fun doing it, that's good enough. this post also assumes interest in specifically kpop giffing, but can for the most part apply to other content as well. i would just recommend different sharpening and coloring for those.

separated by headings (not images, since i need those... for examples) - if you are skipping to a specific section, look for the orange text of what you are looking for!

table of contents: - picking your programs - additional tools and programs (optional) - finding files - importing to photoshop (vapoursynth, screencaps, etc) - photoshop shortcuts and actions - sharpening - coloring - export settings - posting on tumblr

programs:

if you already have photoshop / your giffing program installed and set up, go ahead. if you don't, i would recommend looking here to get photoshop. please make sure you follow instructions carefully and safely! i do know photopea is an alternative people use, and i'm sure there are others. i unfortunately don't know any tutorials to link and probably won't be much help in regards to those programs, but i'm sure there are some floating around on tumblr!

my gif process uses photoshop, so this tutorial assumes that as well. if you use a different one, you might be able to transfer this to what you use, i'm not really sure :(

additional tools and programs: - handbrake: upscaler, found here. i make my own settings and generally only use this on lower quality sources to give vapoursynth a better chance with encoding in higher quality. - davinci resolve: a program i use to make clips appear 60fps when they are choppy or too few frames for the gif to look nice, and occasionally to do pre-photoshop coloring! i use the free version. i do not use this all the time and it is a big program, so definitely don't get it if you think you'd forget to / not want to use it. - yt-dlp: open source, downloads pretty much any file i could want quite well. i use this for most of my downloads and for subtitles as well. does require some knowledge of code, or, at the very least, willingness to troubleshoot set-up. find it here! i can share the command lines i run for: video, audio, vid + sub. - 4k+ downloader: what most people use for youtube-source sets, i believe. you have a limited number of downloads per day on the free version, thus the other downloading programs. - jdownloader2: no limit but sometimes a little slow or will refuse to download because of not being logged into an account, etc. a good download alternative if you plan on downloading a lot and yt-dlp is too much. - vlc: free program, standard on some devices, good for viewing files. - mpv: excellent file viewing, can also deinterlace and screencap (if you do not have / use vapoursynth) - vapoursynth: mac users beware, it's not optimized or set up and is a huge headache. windows users, once you get it set up, it's golden.

finding files, what to look for, and how to use them: how to use is explained here, with a focus on smooth and nice speeds! but finding the file is the first step, so let's head there.

stages: k24hrs (invite only, feel free to private dm or send an ask off anon for a file - i will do my best to get it to you); kpopbuzzhub; sharing korea torrent (requires a torrent app); twitter (shrghkqud (only has recent files) and a few other uploaders, requires much more active searching). there are a few other places you can look, but it is often more trouble than it is worth (or costs $). i am also always willing to help people find materials, so you can ask me to help you look for something or to link a source i used for whatever set.

music videos: also sometimes on k24hrs. i use vimeo a lot (color graders, directors, etc., will upload clearer versions). sharemania.us has some kpop mvs, typically bigger groups (i.e. blackpink). this is a place i check for ggs. and if none of these places or searching for torrents on btdigg, or on google in korean works, i just download the highest quality setting from youtube.

other types: like vlogs and fancams, normally directly downloaded from youtube, instagram, or twitter using yt-dlp or sites specifically for the app (i.e. twittervideodownloader).

what do i look for? 1080i for stages (or 1080p) are often super nice as they're a .ts. 2160p/4k is often ideal, but it also depends on your computer and what you are comfortable working with! generally - not always due to ai upscale - a bigger file size (in the gbs, high mbs like 800) is better and has more detail that will look clear when you work on it. older stages (2nd gen and before, some 3rd gen) and music videos often always are lower quality due to camera quality, and much harder to find. if you have to use the youtube upload for a stage, it is definitely doable, but it may be slightly disappointing in the quality you want to achieve. it depends on what you're comfortable posting and making!

how do i use them? if you use vapoursynth, scenedetect (encode/process whole video) or timestamp (just a small clip) your file - if upscaling, using davinci resolve, or any other pre-processing, do that first. it will pull up a resizer and a program and once you encode, it will give you an output file using the size and settings you put. this will import to photoshop. if using mpv or another screencapping method, take your screencaps (again, all pre-processing first) and prepare to import. there are two ways to do that for screencaps. you can also just watch whatever you downloaded, i'm guilty of downloading concert files just for fun 😅

in the next sections, i will be using four different files of varying quality and sources to explain my steps. hopefully that is helpful!

example file 1 (4k and 60fps, obtained using yt-dlp) example file 2 (1080i, obtained from k24hrs) example file 3 (1080p HD, obtained using yt-dlp) example file 4 (pulled from the gg archive i use, master)

importing to photoshop (vapoursynth and mpv explained): using example file 1, i am processing in vapoursynth - i always do one extra second before and after the clip i actually want so it doesn't cut off any frames i'd like. i adjust my sizes based on what works best for tumblr (540px for wide, 268px for 2 column, and 178 for 3 column). i always use finesharp 1.5 (this setting is up to you! i used to use .7, so totally ok if it changes over time, too!) when you export in vapoursynth, you need the y4m header. i use export to mov preset.

when importing to photoshop using a video (so vapoursynth, video files, not screencaps):

i recommend making your selected range a little bigger than the frames you want so they don't accidentally not get included. delete any extra frames while in the frame animation and then turn it into video timeline. i turn all my layers into a smart object (select them all by clicking the bottom layer and then shift-clicking the top one, or use (on windows) ctrl + alt + a to have it select faster). set timeline framerate (if you want to, i always use 60).

now your smart object is ready to sharpen and color!

using example file 2, i am processing mpv - i hit 'd' until deinterlace is on 'auto'. find the clip you'd like and hit your screencap shortcut (alt+s) for me - your screencaps should be super clear, it depends on how you set up your software (if mpv, what compression you told it). screencaps can take up a ton of storage so i recommend only screencapping what you need and deleting them after. when you hit your shortcut, play the file to the end of the clip you went and hit the screencap shortcut again to stop. your frames should be in the folder you designated as pngs now. delete extra frames now!

you now have two options: import as is, which can be a little slow, or turn them into dicom files. importing as is is done through stack. it will prompt you to select what is being loaded - change Use: to folder, and let it process. it will be slow. hit ok when the file list updates.

when it is done loading: create frame animation -> make frames from layers -> reverse frames. i would crop now using the crop tool for processing speed, and then proceed to do video timeline, smart object, and frame rate. when cropping: on the top, above your document names, the second image should show up on the crop tool - this can set your dimensions. i zoom and crop screencaps using this.

the other option is DICOM files, and what i use. when you have your pngs, do alt + d in the folder (windows), type cmd, and run this command: ren *.* *.dcm. press enter. it will update the files. on macOs, just rename the file type to .dcm.

then, import as so (it will prompt you to select the folder your .dcm are in, and will not work if the files are not actually DICOM). i find it much faster than the stack import. crop when it is done importing for processing time, like the other screencap import style.

create frame animation -> make frames from layers -> video timeline -> smart object from layers -> 60 fps.

photoshop shortcuts and actions: (windows) - ctrl + alt + a: select all layers - ctrl + shift + alt + w: export as image - ctrl + alt + shift + s: save for web (legacy) - this is the gif one!

actions are imported or created, i've shared my sharpening ones before. there are plenty you can find (or make) for a variety of things, such as aligning objects to a fixed position on all docs, doing the screencap reverse and import for you, etc. they are imported using load actions - select the [downloaded] .atn file and it'll pop up.

sharpening: explained here, and has my actions (feel free to use). very important to the quality and clarity of the gif. the better the file, the clearer a gif looks, sharpening can only do so much. play around during this step!

coloring: very much the most personal taste stage of giffing. i explain my process here. in kpop giffing, we tend to focus on unwhitewashing. other giffing tends to be more aesthetic tastes and fun since the source has better colors to work with.

export settings: these are what i use! you need the 256 colors. i do not recommend lossy or interlaced. i think bicubic sharper is the clearest i have tried.

posting on tumblr: use these dimensions FOR GIFS. edits can be different. height is up to you - i would not go over 800, but i think my quality looks weird past 600 range anyways.

example gifs: yeji, from example file #1, imported using vs. uses no. 1 sharpening (altered) from my pack. colored. zhanghao, from example file #2, imported using mpv and the load via stack. uses no. 4 sharpening (altered) from my pack. colored. taeyeon, from example file #3, imported using mpv and the load via dicom. uses no. 1 sharpening from my pack. colored. eunbi, from example file #4, imported using vs. uses no. 2 sharpening from my pack. colored.

if your gifs don't look how you want right away, that's okay! it takes time. my first ones were not great either. i am always improving on and working on my gifs. good luck and have fun hehe ♡

[jazeswhbhaven]

A Christmas Beneath Heaven | React | Days: 1, 2, & 3

Alright ya'll let's see if I can get myself back into the swing of things with this christmas event which has me all over the place so far lmao.

It's funny how the plot is this cold that causes MC to be overly horny because I'm recovering from the flu and all I felt was p a i n and n o s l e e p

I've been liking the format that I've been doing my reacts lately as I think it's a little easier to read? (Ya'll let me know if it is or isn't or no change)

Summary, Screenshots with unhinged reactions, recap and what I think so far

So let's jump in with that!!

What's going AWN?!

We're in Gehenna for Christmas once again, and this time it seems the decor is more traditional to Earth standards instead of what they did in the angel cards.

MC keeps running off somewhere and it's pretty much confusing everyone. There's a point where Leraye and Paimon suspect it's a bathroom issue and Leraye says some crazy stuff like???

Leraye apparently doesn't mind if MC were to go to the bathroom in front of him or fart in front of him and Paimon shuts him up by saying don't reveal your kinks <3 So confirmed Leraye is that boyfriend you can go to the bathroom while he's showering or brushing his teeth. (see screencaps below for receipts)

Well, the matter of the fact is that MC is running off to the bathroom but it's not for that. It's because they literally have to jack off as if they're going through a second puberty (honestly I don't remember being horny in my adolescence at all....I was annoyed by everyone else being horny lmaoooo)

Like we're talkin' there's a scene where they rush off to a bathroom in Hades to touch themselves (in detail) and they can sense Foras is in the bathroom (he is)

MC tries to relieve the issue by visiting different devils, I'm talking like bouncing off to every country to get their mind off it. Eligos, Stolas, Vassago, Morax...it doesn't help at all because they're finding something erotic about them in every way.

MC decides to take it upon themselves to find a sage to help figure out what's wrong with them. And well when we get to who it is??? It's fucking Jjyu in a poorly disguised costume. I cannot make this up like you can tell it's him and it's so funny.

So, facts are his full name is Jjyursei. He only works 9-5 as Belial's voice (does Belial know that? lmao) and he's a part-time sage. Crazy. And he was being so rude as per usual I'm just like....you're the size of a trinket/candy I can flick you across this room.

It's also revealed by Jjyu that MC has been hella touchy, rubbing up on the nobles during battles but it's not like anyone minds it because it helps with "morale" (what kinda bs....LMAO i'm sorry I was expecting them to be focused while fighting) and that seems "normal" but MC swears this is different than before.

So he gives them a thermometer to stuck up their ass, and they are literally losing their mind doing that. They also had to spit in a jar, take off their sock, and Jjyu was smelling the thermometer (W H A T) The results are...their desire is off the charts indicating a "hell christmas cold"

So another cool fact: A devil's first time masturbating generates 100C of heat, first time they have sex it's 200C of heat, MC is currently at 800C (gawd damn, like if that much heat is generated I wonder what keeps MC from burning up having sex unless it's regulated to where it doesn't hurt them)

So Jjyu calls a meeting and all hell is breaking loose lmao. Beel even showed up. (Lucifer did not, probably had something better to do) And after getting glared at and nearly jumped, Jjyu explains that MC has caught the Christmas Cold. Beleth doesn't know what that is (bless him) and Sitri explains that it affects humans much differently, because if it was rampant on Earth it wouldn't just affect sexual desires but other unsavory desires (think: THE PURGE).

Naturally, everyone is trying to figure out what to do to save MC, but there's another matter that gets brought up. Mammon wants to fucking buy the thermometer that was in MC's ass. 💀💀💀💀

Satan is pissed off, saying he's not letting that happen because it's Gehenna property (we know the real reason Satan but it's not like he's lying lol) Levi is upset because he thinks this is interfering with him getting proper context. Beel agrees with Levi and Asmodeus is over here like "oh let's make this a threesome <3"

Asmo. pls.

Belphie oddly is being serious when he wakes up to mention that he's never seen anyone get it. This being true because devils don't repress their desires, but MC has been? (I find that hard to believe based on events...)

(Also some of ya'll may have noticed a pronoun mix up but Satan refers to fem!MC as "that guy") Satan though does bring up that he has to remind MC to give in to their desires, and that's indeed true. We see it happen. So perhaps MC does repress enough for the christmas cold to be that bad.

BUT there's someone else who had it. Solomon himself! He caught it when he first arrived in Hell and it was bad, but it cleared up for him. Beel suddenly orders Bael to go find the devil that treated Solomon and to bring him back (poor Bael)

So now MC is being held in a quaratine room. There's nobles watching them, and apparently MC has been masturbating so much they lost weight. Also, they can't see the nobles through the one-way glass but they can see them....so yeah when MC starts up their self-play the nobles have a front row seat. WHATS CRAZIER is that they start masturbating too????? HELLO??????? (idk to me that's kinda hot not knowing that they're watching)

Also, Sitri being shown to be the favorite....MC is like "I wanna finger his hole" and Sitri is out here about to bust down doors to get in there and Beleth stops him lol (NO LIKE he was literally about to tear things apart to get in that room)

AND now it appears that Bael has found the devil that treated Solomon. WHICHHHHHH we get to see on day 4~

SCREENCAP TIME

They are so damn cute, Paimon likes scritching Ppyong on the belly and I'm like yeahhhh when Juno's around they probs fuckkkkk~

Leraye not beating the allegations of having a bodily function kink....maybe even a fart kink (that's real btw and I've heard of folks making content for it 💀)

First, the bathroom in Hades look nice asf. Second, when I said in detail??? Yeah this is for fem!MC btw even the masturbating descriptions. MC is down bad like?

Yup his freaky ass was there watching lmao. He did say he was always gonna know what MC is doing and I bet he was having a hard time not jacking off

Satan being like-

He hates being interrupted or ignored so I can just hear him being irritated lmao

Eligos the bby~ seeing how he reacts to being touched on his head means he probably gets going by intimate soft touches. He was being so sweet <3 (even though MC was fucking HAVING A NOSEBLEED ALL OVER THE PLACE)

Don't stare at him or he will f i g h t

I find this funny because you can literally just be standing there admiring him and he's like YEAH SQUARE UP. Silly.

Vassago also just staring like ???? I found this funny because he's probably an eater but will we ever find out??? H O P E FU L L Y

Now MC, this was a damn mistake.

Yeah Morax I'mma need you to stick three fingers in and see if you can find that nice spot that makes my brain go brrrrrr. Thank you.

Uh huh....sure. (though I wouldn't mind a little Juno in my life forealllll)

Asmo would have have a field day, I wish they would have went.

Jjyu if you don't get yo-

Okay but same. Barb is rideable

Okay so when do they even have time to do all that? Real talk when the devils are supposed to be fighting 💀💀💀💀💀💀

I can picture the pose, he got that big D energy.

Beel and that nose of his. Don't let him catch you with anything else that has MC's scent on it....we know how he gets

The husband and wife are present <3 Love them.

Mammon be fr right now p l e a s e (wonder how much he'd pay for feet pics or used panties)

Astra's bf's are fighting again <3 (they do this often anyway in their relationship lmao)

Levi don't threaten him with a good time. This also sounds sexual

Asmo being like: sitri you goddamn cockblocking bitch i was trying to get some dick and here you go ruining it

😭🥺

BELETH MY POOKIE

Anddddd we're doneee~

So basically the christmas cold for MC is being very fucking horny to point of masturbating to death so here we go. Sounds like Solomon was just coughing and doing normal shit and then got healed. Levi even brought up that MC isn't the same so that means that Solomon most likely handled this a lot better than MC.

So far this event is hilariously amusing. Like I know folks tend to not like the consistent "MC is down bad" writing but in this instance I'm just finding it entertaining because what do you mean we're sick and masturbating every time we glance at someone? (it reminds me of that one episode of 1000 ways to die where the gf had a disorder where she had multiple orgasms a day just doing regular chores and the guy she was dating got knocked down the stairs during one of her episodes and he died from a broken neck)

ANYWAYS let's see how the other days go from here....I actually had to omit a couple screenshots from my react list but it's f i n e.

Stay tuned~

[lacefedora]

Armand's smile is crooked. Not his pristine perfect lilt of lips that he does when he knows he's being observed. When he's happy or emotional and his smile is genuine. Then his smile is crooked. It tilts up more on the right side than on the left. It's the best goddamned thing that Daniel has ever seen and he bets none of those fuckers that used to paint him ever captured it. He bet they never fucking bothered to catch it, or worse tried to 'correct' it into the pristine practiced tilt of lips. Made Armand correct it. Right now Armand his smiling, his small fangs on display, Daniel's blood on his mouth, dripping down his chin and pooling on his chest. His head is in Daniel's lap. Laughing over something Daniel said about his old Poloroid that they'd just unearthed from a closet. Both of them blood-drunk and giggling. Daniel from the man he drank at the bar, and Armand from drinking from Daniel. "The film is so old I don't even know if it will take, man." Daniel tells him, laughing. He brings his hand to Armand's hair, fingers tangling in mussed curls. "Well try it out." Armand insists. "But if it works it's only for you." "Only for me." Daniel takes the picture awkwardly with one hand while Armand laughs at him. He ends up dropping the camera before he could even tell if it would come out, Pulling Armand up and kissing that cooked smile. As if he would ever want to share it.

Took a million screencaps of this scene suffering watching Hotel Portofino and knew I needed a smiling Armand so much I did two versions and even write a ficbit. Needed it so much that I did line art without being paid to do it.

[moutheyes]

gelboys cinematography go brrr

I don't have a way (or time tbh) to do this coherently but I did want to point out some of the visual aspects of gelboys that have invigorated my brain so far.

1. depth of field and visual texture

I loved how long the mall scene was and how it was shot to take maximum advantage of the space. in the first screencap below, the dialogue action is taking place all the way at the back, but because everything is more or less in the same field of focus (blah blah phone camera depth of field but i'm not getting into the technical nitty-gritty) the viewer can take in everything all at once, while also following the spots of color—baa's pink guitar case, bua's green sweater—that tell the eye exactly where to look. compare that to the second shot, which maintains a very similar framing: now the action has moved to the front, so the camera's focal point does naturally focus on fourmod and baa, but chia and bua are still in the same spot they were earlier, in the center of the frame, inescapable for both the viewer and fourmod. you get so much information from every single shot, and the way the action moves forward and backward in these spaces to create visual texture in this show is so pleasing to me.

2. ambient + diagetic nighttime lighting

I was SO happy about this. we always complain about how people in QL are always sleeping with the lights on but the gelboys team is out here showing us you can have it all! you can have a realistically dark room that utilizes natural sources of ambient lighting! in this scene, there's the various LED computer lights, the phone screen, the lava lamp, and the street lights coming in through the window. that overhead shot with the phone screen illuminating fourmod's face through the glass table is one of my favorites from the show so far.

3. montage of decorative elements

serves a few purposes: scene transitioning and shorthand exposition (fourmod suggested they all get gel nails for the performance so the implication is that these are the designs they chose), reinforcing the visual motif, and revealing the individuality of the characters. the bassist seems to be more minimalist compared to baa and fourmod, but even they have different decoration styles, with baa repping his favorite girl group, while fourmod goes for cute and hodgepodge (and changes his mind quite a bit—stickers and nails are good for the fickle-minded because nails grow out and stickers are generally easily removable).

4. dirty framing (with additional layers)

semi-related to the first point, but the use of dirty framing to show both context and conflict is so effective. back to the mall scene—fourmod seething while creeping on chian and bua via spotify playlist was a pretty classic use of this, but when he comes back a third time (these are unprecedented levels of downbadness, I'm afraid), the crowd action has surged to the front and grown even more chaotic. now, not only are there more people between fourmod and the object of his obsession, but this time he's behind the glass, and thus smaller in the frame—an even more isolated position.

also want to shout out my favorite dirty shot from ep 1; the scene is populated with students but the framing of bua and chian's faces in the foreground keeps the viewer grounded, and I especially love the second frame, where you can only see fourmod's eye.

oh! and these; the amount of contextual information the viewer gets here is so pleasing. the intense flirting is the centerpiece, but the framing and body movement also shows you baa's annoyance/displeasure one moment, followed by fourmod's other friends playing documentarian. the social aspect of how this is all unfolding—not only the use of social media, but the monitoring of said social media as well as real-life interactions—adds additional textual layers on top of all the visual layers in this show. it's so good I wanna cry.

[rootspiral]

I'm curious if you have anything more to say on the fight at the start of ep8 between Agatha and Rio. Like, about anything, the face acting, why this was Rio's last straw, why Agatha was surprised it was Rio's last straw.. Or just how good they looked lol.

Fuck, am I really going through these scenes to screencap them again? I guess I am. Let's pretend it's an extra deep dive.

Agatha has just left Lilia behind dealing with the Salem Seven. She was acting super casual and unbothered with Lilia, but as soon as the door of the iron maiden closed and Jen started screaming, she bolted. And she's running now and she looks terrified, but of what? The Salem Seven killing her? Or Rio catching up with her now that more bodies are dropping? Does she feel particularly guilty about Lilia's death, after seeing her display of incredible power and grace in the trial? All these things together probably, and whatever she's running from, here is her face when she sees Rio ↑

Then she has to close her eyes and steel herself like we've seen her do so many times, she was completely unfiltered a moment ago, terror showing plainly on her face, and now she's trying to regain control, but notice how it doesn't quite work: she's too shaken and her true feelings are still showing. Also heartbreaking and maddeningly stupid that she feels the need to hide and posture in front of Rio who is just begging for the opposite.

It's also interesting that Rio, as angry as she is, takes the time to tell Agatha that the Salem Seven are dead and she can relax and stop running – at least from them. Despite putting on her angry face, despite being determined to confront Agatha this time, she still wants to make things easier for her too. But it's no coincidence that she mentions Alice and Lilia, we saw her reap Alice's soul at the beginning of the episode, and right here? She just reaped Lilia. Like, that literally just happened. And it's obviously affecting her. Add to it the whole issue with Billy and Agatha's general behavior, is it any surprise that Rio is upset?

The finger pointing, the pursed lips and strained smile. "Here you are, breaking rules and breaking my heart again. And here I am, letting you do it like the fucking loser I am." I really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really like Aubrey Plaza's more subtle acting choices.

And the more she talks, the more Rio gets subdued. She stops acting menacing and scary and you can see vulnerability coming through. I know how you feel about him. I watch you just as close as you watch everyone else. This walk with another's woman son. This is Rio trying to keep it professional when it couldn't be more personal. She's hurt, she's jealous, she's lonely. Fuck, why can't Agatha acknowledge it?

Meanwhile Agatha is just fidgeting and grimacing and shaking and trying to deflect and run away from the conversation. Rio, even when she sets out to yell at Agatha, ends up trying to reach out and communicate and do the emotional work instead, she still wants this to work so much. Agatha won't let her. She won't move an inch.

You call what you did special treatment? Look at all that venom, dear lord. Here we have Rio practically begging Agatha to see things from her point of view, to at least try to understand. Agatha, in pure Agatha fashion, grabs her pain like a weapon and starts slashing. She's jealous of her pain, she protects it, she feeds it. It's what helped her survive. Carrying around those three swords in her heart is the only way she knows how to function, no matter how agonizing they are.

You know when a parent is trying to reason with a toddler, and they sit down at their little table and say stuff like, "I know that you're angry, but your words are making mommy sad," and the toddler inevitably throws a pen or yells or calls them names? And the parent just wants to slap that little shit, and it takes them a hot second to collect themselves? Yeah.

Unfortunately, despite her best efforts, Agatha is not a toddler and Rio shouldn't have to do this. It's undignified, it's unfair, it's too painful. Rio is supposed to be her partner, not a surrogate parent.

And Rio does collect herself, and she keeps trying. Look at her body language, she's leaning back, tentative, less intrusive. She did the same thing when she was trying to help Agnes, she pushed a little, and when Agnes recoiled she stepped back and regrouped. She's pretty much spoon-feeding Agatha at this point. "Okay, let's talk about the case" becomes "Okay, let's talk about Nicky. I know it's hard but I'm with you. One step at a time. I only need to figure out the best way to save you from yourself and then everything will be fine."

This is what Rio has been doing, watching Agatha and studying her, acting like a therapist, trying to ease her out of her pit of despair as Agatha yells and throws stuff at her. And what I find really poignant is that Rio is literally the physical embodiment of balance, but she's going against her very nature and putting Agatha before everything else, even herself. Rio loves Agatha that much. And it's wrong. It's not sustainable. No wonder Rio lashed out so spectacularly at the end of the episode, she needs to feel big after shrinking and shrinking and shrinking in front of Agatha.

And yes I still love that Rio the Agatha wrangler has managed to calm her enough to sit and talk. Defenses are tentatively lowered, Rio's plan for getting through that thick skull is going splendidly. Or not.

Agatha is not letting Rio have her way, not even for a second. She's going to make it as hard as she can. And like I said in my deep dives, despite all she is still expecting Rio to always come back, no matter how much shit she throws at her.

There is a lot to be said about the way Agatha is addicted to hurting people. It is an addiction, it's her main/only source of endorphins at this point. It makes her feel powerful and in control of the narrative. And it's a vicious circle, she punishes people so when they lash back she can go, "See? See? They hate me, I was right, I was justified!" Rio was only feeding that addiction by coming back over and over again to let herself be pushed around.

Hey, Agatha? You don't want Death to look like someone just kicked her in the stomach. You literally took her breath away, and not in the fun way.

You dumb fuck.

Wow, this is still really fun to do, despite it being maybe the two of them at their lowest.

You know what? If you guys want you can send some other scenes my way, especially from the first episodes because I didn't comb them that thoroughly. And Agatha's scenes in WandaVision too, I want to watch those again. But only one scene per ask, please.