#amazon accelerate

[clubrapunzel]

Club Rapunzel and Amazon's Black Business Accelerator

Amazon commits $150 million to empower Black entrepreneurs. Amazon launched the Black Business Accelerator (BBA) program to help build sustainable equity and growth for Black-owned businesses. The initiative—which explicitly targets barriers to access, opportunity, and advancement created by systemic racism across America—was created in partnership with our Black Employee Network and a coalition of strategic partners.

As a part of BBA, Club Rapunzel was invited to special programming at Accelerate 2022, Amazon’s largest forum for seller announcements of the year. Along with workshops, the conference included a fireside chat with Doug Herrington, Amazon’s new CEO of Worldwide Amazon Stores, and special guest speaker Venus Williams, legendary tennis champion, successful entrepreneur, and small business advocate.

Amazon’s third annual conference was hosted at the Seattle Convention Center on September 14 and 15, 2022, and for the first time, the event offered in-person and virtual attendance options.

As a BBA participant, Club Rapunzel has an access to a minimum of one year of free strategic advisory services to get the coaching, training, and insights needed to take their business to the next level. At Amazon Accelerate and through virtual programming, Club Rapunzel has connected with a dedicated network of business mentors, including Amazon experts and small business thought leaders. The inspiration, resources, and partnerships developed through this program are proving to foster and "accelerate" business growth.

Find out more about Club Rapunzel at www.clubrapunzel.com

[amzingamazongroup]

From Patent to Profit: Is Amazon’s IP Accelerator Worth Your Bucks?

Introduction To Amazon IP Accelerator Navigating the bustling marketplace of Amazon, sellers quickly realize the paramount importance of safeguarding their intellectual property. The Amazon IP Accelerator program emerges as a beacon for those seeking not just to protect, but also to monetize their innovations efficiently. But, is it worth the investment? In this deep dive, we’ll unravel the…

[jcmarchi]

NVIDIA unveils Blackwell architecture to power next GenAI wave

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/nvidia-unveils-blackwell-architecture-to-power-next-genai-wave/

NVIDIA unveils Blackwell architecture to power next GenAI wave

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NVIDIA has announced its next-generation Blackwell GPU architecture, designed to usher in a new era of accelerated computing and enable organisations to build and run real-time generative AI on trillion-parameter large language models.

The Blackwell platform promises up to 25 times lower cost and energy consumption compared to its predecessor: the Hopper architecture. Named after pioneering mathematician and statistician David Harold Blackwell, the new GPU architecture introduces six transformative technologies.

“Generative AI is the defining technology of our time. Blackwell is the engine to power this new industrial revolution,” said Jensen Huang, Founder and CEO of NVIDIA. “Working with the most dynamic companies in the world, we will realise the promise of AI for every industry.”

The key innovations in Blackwell include the world’s most powerful chip with 208 billion transistors, a second-generation Transformer Engine to support double the compute and model sizes, fifth-generation NVLink interconnect for high-speed multi-GPU communication, and advanced engines for reliability, security, and data decompression.

Central to Blackwell is the NVIDIA GB200 Grace Blackwell Superchip, which combines two B200 Tensor Core GPUs with a Grace CPU over an ultra-fast 900GB/s NVLink interconnect. Multiple GB200 Superchips can be combined into systems like the liquid-cooled GB200 NVL72 platform with up to 72 Blackwell GPUs and 36 Grace CPUs, offering 1.4 exaflops of AI performance.

NVIDIA has already secured support from major cloud providers like Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure to offer Blackwell-powered instances. Other partners planning Blackwell products include Dell Technologies, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Oracle, Tesla, and many others across hardware, software, and sovereign clouds.

Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet and Google, said: “We are fortunate to have a longstanding partnership with NVIDIA, and look forward to bringing the breakthrough capabilities of the Blackwell GPU to our Cloud customers and teams across Google to accelerate future discoveries.”

The Blackwell architecture and supporting software stack will enable new breakthroughs across industries from engineering and chip design to scientific computing and generative AI.

Mark Zuckerberg, Founder and CEO of Meta, commented: “AI already powers everything from our large language models to our content recommendations, ads, and safety systems, and it’s only going to get more important in the future.

“We’re looking forward to using NVIDIA’s Blackwell to help train our open-source Llama models and build the next generation of Meta AI and consumer products.”

With its massive performance gains and efficiency, Blackwell could be the engine to finally make real-time trillion-parameter AI a reality for enterprises.

See also: Elon Musk’s xAI open-sources Grok

Want to learn more about AI and big data from industry leaders? Check out AI & Big Data Expo taking place in Amsterdam, California, and London. The comprehensive event is co-located with other leading events including BlockX, Digital Transformation Week, and Cyber Security & Cloud Expo.

Explore other upcoming enterprise technology events and webinars powered by TechForge here.

Tags: ai, artificial intelligence, blackwell, enterprise, gb200, genai, generative ai, gpu, hardware, large language models, llm, Nvidia

[joelewisscoopglobal]

In the digital age, success hinges on having an online presence that’s as robust as it is engaging. With Scoop Global’s E-Commerce-as-a-Service, you can reap the benefits

[updatedideas]

Amazons GPT55X Unveiled

Hey there, tech enthusiast! 🚀 Grab your coffee because we’re about to dive into one of the most exciting innovations in the world of AI: Amazon’s GPT55X. Picture this: you’re chatting with a friend, and they casually mention this groundbreaking piece of tech. Confused? Don’t fret. We’re here to break it down for you, friend-to-friend. Introducing the Rockstar: Amazons GPT55X Ever watched a movie…

[cloudthat-training]

CloudThat is the world's leading training & Consulting services provider on Cloud, DevOps, Security, AI&ML, IoT, and Big Data for midsize and enterprise clients globally.

Mail us at sales@cloudthat.com

What you will learn:

Use the architectural principles of AWS to inform your selections.

Make your infrastructure scalable, dependable, secure, and highly available by using AWS services.

Learn how to manage AWS services to increase an infrastructure's adaptability and resilience.

To improve performance and cut expenses, figure out how to make an AWS-based infrastructure more efficient.

Apply the Well-Architected Framework to AWS applications to enhance architectures and much more

[webvacancy]

Amazon Web Services (AWS) Healthcare Accelerator: Global Cohort for Workforce 2023

Amazon Web Services (AWS) Healthcare Accelerator: Global Cohort for Workforce 2023

Deadline: January 8, 2023 Applications are open for the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Healthcare Accelerator 2023. The AWS Healthcare Accelerator is a virtual four-week technical, business, and mentorship accelerator that will scale high potential startups focusing on the urgent challenge of healthcare burnout, training, retaining, and deploying the healthcare workforce. The programme is unique and…

[schuylerpeck]

I hate you blue light restlessness I hate you automated call menu I hate you most of the day spent from screen to screen I hate you amazon robot delivery I hate you when did I open this app I hate you new need for background noise I hate you no headphone jack I hate you cars that all look the same I hate you DVDs were born and died in my lifetime I hate you weaker battery with every new iPhone I hate you acceleration and acceleration and to what.

[gslin]

AWS Global Accelerator 支援 IPv6

AWS Global Accelerator 支援 IPv6

AWS 的 Anycast 服務 AWS Global Accelerator 宣佈支援 IPv6：「New for AWS Global Accelerator – Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) Support」。 算是補功能，不過這個功能只對於「純 IPv6 環境」的使用者端有用 (沒有 DNS64 + NAT64 的轉換)，目前商轉給一般使用者用的 IPv6 環境應該都還是有掛 DNS64 + NAT64 才對… 另外使用這個功能會需要 VPC 有 IPv6 能力： To test this new feature, I need a dual-stack application with an ALB entry point. The application must be deployed in Amazon Virtual…

[txttletale]

I feel like a lot of people miss that the likeliest use cases for ai artwork (corporate illustrations, eye-catches for shitty mobile game, amazon book covers, etc) are already effectively algorithmically generated anyway - a human being still makes them, but the demand is set purely by capital and the specifics by the brownian motion of the marketplace, with no pairs of eyes involved especially caring as long as its occupying the place in which art is expected. I think people get caught up enough in a noticeable acceleration of commodified art that they mistake it for a whole new phenomenon.

absolutely 100%. i always come back to a very astute thing podcaster riley quinn said which is "if your job gets replaced by AI that means it was already being done by an AI" (ie, mindlessly and formulaicly)

[nasa]

The Artemis I Mission: To the Moon and Back

The Artemis I mission was the first integrated test of the Orion spacecraft, the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, and Exploration Ground Systems at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. We’ll use these deep space exploration systems on future Artemis missions to send astronauts to the Moon and prepare for our next giant leap: sending the first humans to Mars.

Take a visual journey through the mission, starting from launch, to lunar orbit, to splashdown.

Liftoff

The SLS rocket carrying the Orion spacecraft launched on Nov. 16, 2022, from Launch Complex 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The world’s most powerful rocket performed with precision, meeting or exceeding all expectations during its debut launch on Artemis I.

"This is Your Moment"

Following the successful launch of Artemis I, Launch Director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson congratulates the launch team.

“The harder the climb, the better the view,” she said. “We showed the space coast tonight what a beautiful view it is.”

That's Us

On Orion’s first day of flight, a camera on the tip of one of Orion’s solar arrays captured this image of Earth.

Inside Orion

On the third day of the mission, Artemis I engineers activated the Callisto payload, a technology demonstration developed by Lockheed Martin, Amazon, and Cisco that tested a digital voice assistant and video conferencing capabilities in a deep space environment. In the image, Commander Moonikin Campos occupies the commander’s seat inside the spacecraft. The Moonikin is wearing an Orion Crew Survival System suit, the same spacesuit that Artemis astronauts will use during launch, entry, and other dynamic phases of their missions. Campos is also equipped with sensors that recorded acceleration and vibration data throughout the mission that will help NASA protect astronauts during Artemis II. The Moonikin was one of three “passengers” that flew aboard Orion. Two female-bodied model human torsos, called phantoms, were aboard. Zohar and Helga, named by the Israel Space Agency (ISA) and the German Aerospace Center (DLR) respectively, supported the Matroshka AstroRad Radiation Experiment (MARE), an experiment to provide data on radiation levels during lunar missions. Snoopy, wearing a mock orange spacesuit, also can be seen floating in the background. The character served as the zero-gravity indicator during the mission, providing a visual signifier that Orion is in space.

Far Side of the Moon

A portion of the far side of the Moon looms large in this image taken by a camera on the tip of one of Orion’s solar arrays on the sixth day of the mission.

First Close Approach

The Orion spacecraft captured some of the closest photos of the Moon from a spacecraft built for humans since the Apollo era — about 80 miles (128 km) above the lunar surface. This photo was taken using Orion’s optical navigational system, which captures black-and-white images of the Earth and Moon in different phases and distances.

Distant Retrograde Orbit

Orion entered a distant retrograde orbit around the Moon almost two weeks into the mission. The orbit is “distant” in the sense that it’s at a high altitude approximately 50,000 miles (80,467 km) from the surface of the Moon. Orion broke the record for farthest distance of a spacecraft designed to carry humans to deep space and safely return them to Earth, reaching a maximum distance of 268,563 miles (432,210 km).

Second Close Approach

On the 20th day of the mission, the spacecraft made its second and final close approach to the Moon flying 79.2 miles (127.5 km) above the lunar surface to harness the Moon’s gravity and accelerate for the journey back to Earth.

Cameras mounted on the crew module of the Orion spacecraft captured these views of the Moon’s surface before its return powered flyby burn.

Heading Home

After passing behind the far side of the Moon on Flight Day 20, Orion powered a flyby burn that lasted approximately 3 minutes and 27 seconds to head home. Shortly after the burn was complete, the Orion spacecraft captured these views of the Moon and Earth, which appears as a distant crescent.

Parachutes Deployed

Prior to entering the Earth’s atmosphere, Orion’s crew module separated from its service module, which is the propulsive powerhouse provided by ESA (European Space Agency). During re-entry, Orion endured temperatures about half as hot as the surface of the Sun at about 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit (2,760 degrees Celsius). Within about 20 minutes, Orion slowed from nearly 25,000 mph (40,236 kph) to about 20 mph (32 kph) for its parachute-assisted splashdown.

Splashdown

On Dec. 11, the Orion spacecraft splashed down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California after traveling 1.4 million miles (2.3 million km) over a total of 25.5 days in space. Teams are in the process of returning Orion to Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Once at Kennedy, teams will open the hatch and unload several payloads, including Commander Moonikin Campos, the space biology experiments, Snoopy, and the official flight kit. Next, the capsule and its heat shield will undergo testing and analysis over the course of several months.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

[toxicanonymity]

bonus snapchats 🍆🥺

350 words, stepdad!joel x f!reader

stepdad master list

More horny and pensive snaps from Stepdad!Joel to go with his latest story, Amazon but you can read it as any Joel who's begging for your forgiveness. WARNINGS: JACKING OFF

Video: A POV shot taken by bracing his phone on one of his knees. His hard, shiny cock is in the foreground with his veiny hand wrapped around it, but you can also see his agonized face and his chest rising and falling with heavy breaths. He moans "ohh," as he strokes himself at a moderate but accelerating pace, then pulls up his shirt, closes his eyes. He groans "uggggh," as he slows his hand way down. His stomach flexes outward and he shudders and comes all over himself with a long, low sigh.  It's trickling into his belly button when the video cuts off. 

Video: A minute later, he’s cleaned up and it's a shot of his head and chest.  He slowly shakes his head and says “I’m. . ." (Deep breath) "so stupid."

Video: Lying in bed in a white t-shirt with his head propped up on his hand. Bicep bulging out of his sleeve.  Caption: had a dream that you forgave me. He sighs and pouts with his eyes, but not with his lips. ”I guess it was. . .” (sighs) “I dunno. I'm sorry."

Video: Same position but his glasses are on. "Then it wasn't real, and I was like." (sighs). "Shit."

Photo: a minute later, his hand is cupping a thick protrusion in his pajama pants, holding it down onto his body and there's a wet spot at the tip. 

Video: Looking at himself in the bathroom mirror. You can tell from the audio that the water is on in the background.  He's shirtless, pj pants pulled down under his cock. Neck and forearm veins blazing. He's breathing heavily and softly moaning "ohh." He holds his phone in one hand and jacks off with the other as the mirror fogs up. He strokes himself at a slow beat and his lips part into a louder moan.  By the time he groans and comes, you can’t really see him through the condensation. But his hand comes into the frame and braces on the mirror as if he came in the sink, and you hear him sigh "fuck" before it cuts off. 

Check out my #joel jacks off tag for more of him j-ing o.

[joelewisscoopglobal]

In the digital age, success hinges on having an online presence that’s as robust as it is engaging. With Scoop Global’s E-Commerce-as-a-Service.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The super-rich got that way through monopolies

Catch me in Miami! I'll be at Books and Books in Coral Gables on Jan 22 at 8PM.

Just in time for Davos, here's 'Taken, not earned: How monopolists drive the world’s power and wealth divide," a report from a coalition of international tax justice and anti-corporate activist groups:

https://www.balancedeconomy.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Davos-Taken-not-Earned-full-Report-2024-FINAL.pdf

The rise of monopolies over the past 40 years came about as the result of specific, deliberate policy choices. As the report documents, the wealthiest people in America funneled a fortune into neutering antitrust enforcement, through the "consumer welfare" doctrine.

This is an economic theory that equates monopolies with efficiency: "If everyone is buying the same things from the same store, that tells you the store is doing something right, not something criminal." 40 years ago, and ever since, the wealthy have funded think-tanks, university programs and even "continuing education" programs for federal judges to push this line:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/13/post-bork-era/#manne-down

They didn't do this for ideological reasons – they were chasing material goals. Monopolies produce vast profits, and those profits produce vast wealth. The rise and rise of the super rich cannot be decoupled from the rise and rise of monopolies.

If you're new to this, you might think that "monopoly" only refers to a sector in which there is only one seller. But that's not what economists mean when they talk about monopolies and monopolization: for them, a monopoly is a company with power. Economists who talk about monopolies mean companies that "can act independently without needing to consider the responses of competitors, customers, workers, or even governments."

One way to measure that power is through markups ("the difference between the selling price of goods or services and their cost"). Very large companies in concentrated industries have very high markups, and they're getting higher. From 2017-22, the 20 largest companies in the world had average markups of 50%. The 100 largest companies average 43%. The smallest half of companies get average markups of 25%.

Those markups rose steeply during the covid lockdowns – and so did the wealth of the billionaires who own them. Tech billionaires – Bezos, Brin and Page, Gates and Ballmer – all made their fortunes from monopolies. Warren Buffet is a proud monopolist who says "the single most important decision in evaluating a business is pricing power… if you have to have a prayer session before raising the price by 10 percent, then you’ve got a terrible business."

We are living in the age of the monopoly. In the 1930s, the top 0.1% of US companies accounted for less than half of America's GDP. Today, it's 90%. And it's accelerating, with global mergers climbing from 2,676 in 1985 to 62,000 in 2021.

Monopoly's cheerleaders claim that these numbers vindicate them. Monopolies are so efficient that everyone wants to create them. Those efficiencies can be seen in the markups monopolies can charge, and the profits they can make. If a monopoly has a 50% markup, that's just the "efficiency of scale."

But what is the actual shape of this "efficiency?" How is it manifest? The report's authors answer this with one word: power.

Monopolists have the power "to extract wealth from, to restrict the freedoms of, and to manipulate or steer the vastly larger numbers of losers." They establish themselves as gatekeepers and create chokepoints that they can use to raise prices paid by their customers and lower the payout to their suppliers:

https://chokepointcapitalism.com/

These chokepoints let monopolies usurp "one of the ultimate prerogatives of state power: taxation." Amazon sellers pay a 51% tax to sell on the platform. App Store suppliers pay a 30% tax on every dollar they make with their apps. That translates into higher costs. Consider a good that costs $10 to make: the bottom 50% of companies (by size) would charge $12.50 for that product on average. The largest companies would charge $15. Thus monopolies don't just make their owners richer – they make everyone else poorer, too.

This power to set prices is behind the greedflation (or, more politely, "seller's inflation"). The CEOs of the largest companies in the world keep getting on investor calls and bragging about this:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/11/price-over-volume/#pepsi-pricing-power

The food system is incredibly monopolistic. The Cargill family own the largest commodity trader in the world, which is how they built up a family fortune worth $43b. Cargill is one of the "ABCD" companies ("Archer Daniels Midland, Bunge, Cargill and Louis Dreyfus") that control the world's food supply, and they tripled their profits during the lockdown.

Monopolies gouge everyone – even governments. Pfizer charged the NHS £18-22/shot for vaccines that cost £5/shot to make. They took the British government for £2bn – that's enough to pay last year's pay hike for NHS nurses, six times over,

But monopolies also abuse their suppliers, especially their employees. All over the world, competition authorities are uncovering "wage fixing" and "no poaching" agreements among large firms, who collude to put a cap on what workers in their sector can earn. Unions report workers having their pay determined by algorithms. Bosses lock employees in with noncompetes and huge repayment bills for "training":

https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/04/its-a-trap/#a-little-on-the-nose

Monopolies corrupt our governments. Companies with huge markups can spend some of that money on lobbying. The 20 largest companies in the world spend more than €155m/year lobbying in the US and alone, not counting the money they spend on industry associations and other cutouts that lobby on their behalf. Big Tech leads the pack on lobbying, accounting for 82% of EU lobbying spending and 58% of US lobbying.

One key monopoly lobbying priority is blocking climate action, from Apple lobbying against right-to-repair, which creates vast mountains of e-waste, to energy monopolist lobbying against renewables. And energy companies are getting more monopolistic, with Exxonmobil spending $65b to buy Pioneer and Chevron spending $60b to buy Hess. Many of the world's richest people are fossil fuel monopolists, like Charles and Julia Koch, the 18th and 19th richest people on the Forbes list. They spend fortunes on climate denial.

When people talk about the climate impact of billionaires, they tend to focus on the carbon footprints of their mansions and private jets, but the true environmental cost of the ultra rich comes from the anti-renewables, pro-emissions lobbying they buy with their monopoly winnings.

The good news is that the tide is turning on monopolies. A coalition of "businesses, workers, farmers, consumers and other civil society groups" have created a "remarkably successful anti-monopoly movement." The past three years saw more regulatory action on corporate mergers, price-gouging, predatory pricing, labor abuses and other evils of monopoly than we got in the past 40 years.

The business press – cheerleaders for monopoly – keep running editorials claiming that enforcers like Lina Khan are getting nothing done. Sure, WSJ, Khan's getting nothing done – that's why you ran 80 editorial about her:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/14/making-good-trouble/#the-peoples-champion

(Khan's winning like crazy. Just last month she killed four megamergers:)

https://www.thesling.org/the-ftc-just-blocked-four-mergers-in-a-month-heres-how-its-latest-win-fits-into-the-broader-campaign-to-revive-antitrust/

The EU and UK are taking actions that would have been unimaginable just a few years ago. Canada is finally set to get a real competition law, with the Trudeau government promising to add an "abuse of dominance" rule to Canada's antitrust system.

Even more exciting are the moves in the global south. In South Africa, "competition law contains some of the most progressive ideas of all":

It actively seeks to create greater economic participation, particularly for ‘historically disadvantaged persons’ as part of its public interest considerations in merger decisions.

Balzac wrote, "Behind every great fortune there is a crime." Chances are, the rapsheet includes an antitrust violation. Getting rid of monopolies won't get rid of all the billionaires, but it'll certainly get rid of a hell of a lot of them.

I'm Kickstarting the audiobook for The Bezzle, the sequel to Red Team Blues, narrated by @wilwheaton! You can pre-order the audiobook and ebook, DRM free, as well as the hardcover, signed or unsigned. There's also bundles with Red Team Blues in ebook, audio or paperback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/17/monopolies-produce-billionaires/#inequality-corruption-climate-poverty-sweatshops

[seat-safety-switch]

Ever since Joey Tomassino got put into reconstructive surgery by an errant pepperoni chub, I've been nothing but deeply respectful of the power of pizza. While the incident happened in childhood, it's those formative memories that have a way of sticking with you forever, etched into your very being. For years, my wife would ask why my hair stood on end every time we drove past a Pizza Hut.

In a time long past, pizza delivery was a common teenage job. You'd have a cheap car, cheap gas, cheap insurance, and copious free time to spend shipping baked dough around your suburban neighbourhood. If the occasional accident happened, that's okay, they don't have that much experience driving and they have to make that 30-minutes-or-it's-free guarantee.

Sadly, the era of the cheap car, cheap gas, and cheap insurance has faded, and pizza delivery is now done by a faceless series of automatons that summon a precariously-employed worker from a white-goods industrial kitchen wedged between two Amazon drone-delivery warehouses. Give them five stars, they earned it. They're taking a risk with their own lives, and let me explain why.

When I go pick up my own pizza from the local joint, I always take precautions. Nobody is getting mad at me if I take too long, except for perhaps the hungry folks waiting for it (I can always blame the teenager working the counter.) You might think it's silly to be as careful as I am, buckling up the pizza with its own little seatbelt and wedging a bunch of crap against it.

Have you ever had anything slide off your seat or fly into your windshield from aggressive braking? What if that were dinner? You can't take any chances with it. I must make sure that any hard cornering or sharp acceleration won't redistribute the toppings unfairly. It feels like I still could have done more, like I am taking a gamble on the survival of my family dinner every time I rip the handbrake in the middle of a playground zone.

I am just one person, though, and even the President has been thus incapable of dealing with the spate of third-degree hot cheese burns littering hospitals across this once-great nation-state. Write your representative. Get some action started on making sure that every car has a little thing to put pizza into. For the Joeys of the world.

[winter-seance]

GIF Tutorial

This is going to be a long post, so I'm going to place the majority of it under the cut.

Disclaimer - There are many ways to make gifs, and this is just one way to make them - it's the process that I have figured out works best for me. I am in no way claiming that this is the "definitive" or "best" way to make gifs. There are probably other, better ways to do things, but because people have asked how I do it, I am sharing my process.

Introduction I use a Mac. I am assuming most of this will also be applicable to those of you using Windows as well. This tutorial is divided into three parts. Here is a video of the following process as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBRbWC-iMOM

Actions I use three Actions, that you can download here through my Google drive, if you want. A tutorial for how to install Actions in Photoshop can be found here.

Photoshop Layout I use Photoshop CC, but I used Photoshop CS5 for years, got used to it, so when I upgraded to CC, I arranged it to resemble what I was used to.

I have the following windows open:

And they are arranged like this:

PART ONE - CLIPPING Part 1 consists of using a screen recorder (i.e., Quicktime) to make short clips of scenes or parts of a scene that you want to make gifs of. I have a Mac, so Quicktime is what I use. For Windows users, I’m sure there are equivalent alternatives that are just as good. Years ago, when I was first starting to make gifs, I frequently heard people refer to KMPlayer as what they used, so that might still be a good option for you if you are a Windows user. The most important part is that it takes high-quality recordings, with as little detail and quality loss as possible.

With this screen recording method, you can make screen recordings of video files that are stored locally on your computer (I use VLC to play videos), or streaming on sites like YouTube, Amazon Prime, Hulu, Disney+, HBO, etc. No downloading of the video is necessary. For some of those websites, if you have trouble with getting it to work, you may have to disable your browser’s hardware acceleration. This process is described here (https://www.theverge.com/23715928/netflix-amazon-prime-screenshot-mac-windows-how-to).

I record the clips with sound, to make it easier to transcribe/write out the dialogue in Photoshop later. When I have recorded all the clips I want, I put the clips into my folder where I store all my clips, and into another folder that is labelled with the episode number so I can remember where each clip came from in order to properly label them later when the time comes to upload them to Tumblr.

Example: A folder containing clips from Good Omens 2x01

PART TWO: EXTRACTING/MAKING GIFS FROM THE CLIPS

Open video file in Photoshop To do this, click on File > Import > Video Frames to Layers

Use the markers to select roughly where you want the gif to begin and end.

With videos that have been clipped with Quicktime (not sure about other programs), the vast majority of the time there are twice as many frames as needed – every other frame is a duplicate. For a smaller gif size and smoother playback, I delete every other frame in the timeline box at the bottom of the screen. I used to do this manually (very time consuming), but now do it with the use of an action that I created that will automatically select every other frame. Downloads and installation instructions for all the actions I use are available above.

To use an action, click on the title of the action, then click the play button at the bottom of the window.

I often get an error message that says “The command ‘Extend Frame Selection’ is not currently available”, but it still works. Just click “stop” and every other frame will be selected.

Click the trash can icon in the timeline window to delete the selected frames.

At this point, you will have half as many frames in your timeline as you did before. You will also likely have extra frames at both the beginning and end of the timeline that you don’t want to be part of the gif – from the previous shot, for example. You can delete those now.

This next step is optional: There will still be some duplicate frames in the timeline that were not deleted earlier. It is not strictly necessary to delete these, and I see many gifmakers who don’t get rid of them. It’s usually not all that noticeable. However, because I’m a bit of a perfectionist, I always go through the timeline frame-by-frame and delete each duplicate. This ultimately will reduce the gif’s file size and make the movement in the gif appear much smoother. I usually find that every fourth or fifth frame is a duplicate. Unfortunately, it’s not always consistent, so using an automated action would not work to make this process go faster.

Cropping Once this part is complete, I select the crop tool. I usually make my gifs 540px wide by 350px high. You can change the height to whatever you want, but Tumblr’s max width is 540px. I find the aspect ratio of 540x350px usually allows gifs to feel large, while at the same time not cutting off too much of the sides. Depending on the type of gif I’m making I may adjust this, but generally, if I’m giffing a scene from a TV show or movie, I stick with my standard 540x350px dimensions.

Adding Text Next, I add text. Select the text icon. In the layers window, make sure the top layer is selected, otherwise the text will not show up when you start typing.

The top layer is selected

These are the font settings I currently use:

If I am just making one gifset, or one or two gifs, I’ll go straight on to the next steps. However, if I’m making a large amount of gifs, I save the gif right now, close out of it, and repeat the steps in this section for the next gifs, so I eventually have an entire folder of “raw” unedited photoshop files that have been cropped and captioned, and just need to be colored, have text effects added, and be sharpened. For me personally, I find I make gifs more efficiently by doing it in this “batch” style process.

All cropped and unedited gifs (psd files)

PART 3: COLORING, EFFECTS, & SHARPENING

Coloring I do plan on making a separate tutorial on this at some point, but will include a brief summary here. When it comes to coloring, I generally tend to go by a “less is more” attitude. I am not by any means great at coloring, but nonetheless I’ll explain the types of adjustment layers I typically use.

Note: Before making any adjustments, make sure you have the layer directly underneath the text layer selected, as shown in the screencap below, otherwise it will also apply those adjustments to the text, which makes it look weird.

I start with a Curves layer to change the overall brightness/contrast, then a Levels layer to adjust the shadows and highlights, and then a Brightness/Contrast layer to do some final minor tweaks. The only time I ever reuse gif coloring is when they are from the same scene with the same colors, lighting, backgrounds, etc. Every other time, I tailor the adjustment layers to the specific gif.

You can add adjustment layers by clicking the half light/dark circle on the bottom of the Layers window.

How the gif looks with both a Curves layer and Levels layer

Before adding the adjustment layers

After adding the adjustment layers

A lot of the time, I'll just stick to adjusting the lighting. However, if the colors look gross, or if they are over/undersaturated, I’ll add a Color Balance layer and play around with the settings on that, or use a Hue/Saturation layer and increase/decrease the saturation of specific color channels. It really depends on what you’re going for, and what you think looks good. There is no one “right” way to color a gif.

Text Effects If you are using the Actions I included in the download, you can just run the "Text Effects" action with the text layer selected, and it will do the following automatically. If not, you can do it manually by doing the following.

Right click on the text layer in the Layers window and click on Blending Options.

I use a stroke and drop-shadow on my gifs. Here are the settings I use.

Drop Shadow settings

Stroke settings

Next, to center the text, click on the text layer. With the text layer selected on the Layers window, Select All by clicking ctrl+a (Windows) or command+a (Mac). Then click on the "Align horizontal centers" icon in the “Move tool” option menu.

Important – in the Layers menu, make sure the buttons “Unify layer position” and “unify layer effects” are clicked an enabled for the text layer.

Sharpening Select all the frames in the Timeline window. Then in the lower left-hand corner click “convert to video timeline.”

In the Layers window, select all of the frame layers (do not include the text layer or adjustment/coloring layers in the selection) and right click on it. Select “Convert to smart object.”

Select Filter > Sharpen > Smart Sharpen. In the same way that coloring can differ depending on the gif, the ideal settings for sharpening can also differ from gif-to-gif. It can really depend on the quality of the source of the gif, like whether it’s HD or not. These are the settings I’m using for the current gif:

If you are using Actions, you can run the "Layers to Frames" Action. If not, do the following:

Click on the button circled in red

It will open up this menu. Click on "Flatten frames into clips"

Click the button circled in red, then click "Make frames from layers"

Delete the first couple of "junk" frames

Select all of the frames. Right click on the "0 sec." to change the frame rate. I usually use 0.05, but it might depend on the gif itself.

Exporting Click on File > Export > Save for Web (Legacy)

I cannot add another screencap because I've reached Tumblr's max for this post, but here are the settings I use: Selective Diffusion 256 Colors Dither 100%

You may find that when you try to export your gif, the file size is too big. Tumblr’s gif file size limit is 10mb – try to make it under that – even anywhere in the 9.9mb range. As long as it’s under 10mb, it should work.

To get gifs that are too large to fit under the limit, I usually end up deleting frames from the beginning or end of the gif. If you’re using the 540x350px dimensions, I typically find that the average number of frames I can fit into one gif is between 80-90. Depending on the colors in the gif, it’s sometimes more, sometimes less.