#also idk if it's noticeable but i'm experimenting with my sharpening and coloring

[elderwisp]

hi! im in love with your pictures! idk if anybody else already ask about it, but how do u edit it? do u spend a lot of time in photoshop? or does gshade do most of the work???

hihi! thank you! i've had a few questions in the past about my process but i find that my process has changed quite a bit since then! as of late, it's a 40/60 of reshade and then photoshop! sometimes it'll change depending on the mood of a picture but i've been trying to experiment with photoshop more. in game, there has been more focus on framing with srwe and lighting with relight. in photoshop, i add texture, like film grain or borders, to my photos. i don't use the noise or film grain filter in photoshop because i find it to be a bit too uniform and i want something out of a film photo for this current experimentation with editing styles! sometimes i'll draw in hair, dust specks, extra lighting, vignettes, light leaks and clouds. i'll either color grade with camera raw filter or the curves layer if i'm feeling speedy. lately, i've been messing around with gaussian blur and field blur in photos. lastly, i'll sharpen and yeah!

i'll also link some prev asks as well!

☆ adding textures to photos + a texture pack

☆ speed edit

☆ shaders i like to use

☆ editing ask but i mention what i use to sharpen pics

☆ mini relight tut

+ mini note, with the relight tut, i mention moving relight to the top of your load order to avoid murky lighting however ! after some time messing around with relight and shaders in general, if you move the order of your shaders (just by clicking and dragging the active shader) you can get some really neat effects or even solve any strange issues you might notice!

[sophsun1]

Your gifs are always so gorgeous! I love the variety of different things you gif, there’s always something I like ❤️

I was also wondering if you could help me. Whenever I try to gif anything animated, the colors turn ‘sparkly’ or ‘noisy’ I guess you could say, both when I do and don’t touch the coloring. Basically any light color looks like it’s glittering dots, and I don’t really understand what I’m doing wrong, because it doesn’t happen when I gif live-action stuff.

No problem if you can't help. I noticed your animated gifs always look great, and I love them.

Hey anon!

Tysm, that's extremely kind of you to say 🥰💛

I love being a multi-fandom girlie otherwise I get bored if I'm giffing the same one or two shows, it's much more fun having a variety I can keep on rotation and go back to if/when the hyperfixation quietens down.

With live action vs. animated, in my experience live action stuff will never look the same as animated, you won't get a beautiful, sharp, crisp finish like you do with a live action gif as seen here due to how they are filmed. Ultimately, there will always be some level of noise and graininess to animated gifs it's just how you execute the finish that can help cover up some of that.

Plus the more saturated with colour a scene is whether it's animated/live action it will always look better than light scenes eg any background with a white base or certain skin tones so faces, hands etc and the evil outdoor natural lighting. Probably something to do with the pixels idk😅

*All of this is going on the assumption you are using photoshop, are working with 1080p or higher because that's what I use. It doesn't make a huge amount of difference if it's 720p but any lower could be a factor as to why they are looking like yours do. I always say 3 things will affect your gif: quality of your download (always aim for 1080p where possible) sharpening and colouring*

To note, I colour all my gifs from scratch. I don't use a blanket sharpening for everything, I know some people do it's all down to preference. I have around 4 that I tweak depending on the gif/media, it's what I prefer and how I work as I deal with 480p/4k, no gifmaker is the same.

I don't know what your sharpening is like as that will affect the graininess of the gif, so if you say it's not your colouring maybe your sharpening needs some tweaking and you need to change it up.

With my animated gifs, regarding colouring I always make sure to utilise, gradient maps/curves/levels more to balance the lights and shadows, alongside the colour balance, vibrance and saturation tools to add the colour. Here are some examples below which I hope demonstrate what I mean.

GIF 1: I haven't coloured it exactly how I would colour wise as it's just an example so it's basic colouring to get the point across.

I used no gradient maps, levels or RGB channel. Only brightness, selective colour, slight curves and saturation with a basic sharpen. The result is a grainy, noisy, crunchy finish on Pooh's face and the background with a dull looking gif.

GIF 2: I used the same basic colouring as above but added a gradient map, adjusted the RGB channels in the curves tool & levels to balance those lights and shadows, increased the saturation, colour balance, added vibrance and an exposure layer on top to make the gif brighter and pop!

The same basic sharpen but this time with some noise on top around 2% you can increase/decrease it slowly never more than 5 and see what you prefer. The crunchiness and graininess has decreased and you get more of a smoother finish on Pooh's face and the background.

GIF 3: When applicable I will use a stronger, fancier sharpen bear in mind this means you have to tweak your base colouring as you don't want a deep fried, over sharpened gif eeek and the final gif size will increase. Adjust your dimensions etc. I love making huge gifs and hate small ones so I'm forever fighting the gif limit and am used to it.

There's an increase to the grain to Pooh's face and background, the finish is slightly more HQ and the colours again pop. Some might find this too much grain but again preference, depends how I feel on the day tbh. I think I used this in my original set here.

Sometimes, no matter what you do, you can end up with glittery spots it's the way it is with animation as seen below. But by playing with colouring and changing it up completely, it draws your eye to the background and how pretty it looks that it doesn't matter about the spots on Pooh's face.

If you managed to get to the end and understand a single word I said, then congrats lmao. I always ramble when explaining and my process is different from other people's but seems to work for me. It's simply based on vibes when I'm in Photoshop 😂😂😂

Good luck anon, I hope something from this helps you!!!

[aliciavikander]

Hi Szabina! I wanted to ask you a somewhat technical gifmaking question but it's totally okay if you don't want to answer, i simply don't know if you answer these kinda questions or not.

You are one of the few gifmakers I follow who has really quality edits --regardless of color settings etc, which is sth personal i think. I really like gifs that similarly look like when we're watching that scene, sharp but like smooth sharp. Like a 4k quality of tumblr idk.

I'm new to gifmaking game, and i've found some people kindly sharing tutorials, and i've been experimenting on ps too. But i haven't quite figured out that 'smoothly sharp' thing. I had a 4k video, and it looked really shitty --like pixels-- when i sharpened it so edited it without sharpening settings but it still didn't look the way i hoped, and i'm not sure if it's about coloring or contrast etc either. And at this point i guess adding grain woulf make it even worse? Idk

So I was wondering if you could have any advice on that or perhaps you know some people here who have tutorials on that kind of details. I'm constantly trying stuff myself but i'm one of those people who best learn with some guidance so i thought i just asked.

Thank you for yor time in any case ✌🏻

Hi! Thank you for your nice words, and let me start by saying I'm really bad at explaining stuff, so I apologize if I say something confusing and feel free to send me an ask again if that happens <3

First, there are a few questions that popped in to my head: which version of PS are you using? (i have cs5) Do you use clips or frames? And how do you normally sharpen your gifs?

You usually don't really have to sharpen 4K clips a lot since it's already pretty sharp and clear. But when I do work with them I just sharpen them with my regular sharpen settings (put it under the cut) and then I adjust the opacity if it's too sharp.

What I've noticed over the years that the more adjustment layers you use the more "grainy" or "lossy" your gif will be. It could be that you have a lot of adjustment layers? Idk if you use brightness/contrast layer but too much of that will also have a negative effect on your gif. I usually use exposure or levels instead.

Since I don't see your gif it's pretty hard to tell the root of your problem tbh. If you want to, you can come off anon and send me a link/screenshot to it or something (I will answer to your privately and I promise I won't judge or anything <3).