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tommykinard · 28 days ago

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anon here! i would CERTAINLY love a tutorial on your colouring!!

hi anon!! i'm honoured that you like my colouring 🥺🥹 i'll walk through colouring one of the tommy scenes you mentioned (3rd gif from this post), but i use the same steps for all my gifs, just with slight variations on the settings! i've also been enjoying cool backgrounds and warm skin tones lately, so that's the effect i aim to achieve!

this is the base gif that i'll be using, and this is after i apply my sharpening. tutorial under the cut:

Section 1: Brightening and Contrast

these are the layers i use for this section and the order i apply them in:

Exposure

Curves: white eyedropper

Curves: black eyedropper

Exposure

Levels

Brightness/contrast

Exposure - so first i'll use an exposure layer and drag the top slider to the right. my settings are usually between 0 and 1 (i avoid going over 1!), and i try to get as much brightness as i can using this setting, without making the bright spots of the gif too white and glowy.

if there's bright patches in the gif (like the sunlight on tommy's face) i might use a slightly lower setting than the max brightness i can get (because we're going to add more brightness later).

Curves: white eyedropper - next i use the white and black eye eyedropper tools, and this helps with minor colour correction as well as minor brightness/contrast (but does a lot of heavy lifting!). this tutorial explains how it works best.

the first curves layer is using the white eyedropper tool. you want to click on the white eyedropper (red square) and click on the brightest parts of your gif (red circles).

sometimes this isn't too easy to identify, so you can drag the little black toggle (cyan square) to the right, and this emphasizes the bright parts of the gif (make sure to undo this step!! it's just to help us with identifying the brightest areas!!)

i then zoom into the bright part of gif (around his chin) so that i can see the individual pixels, and i try to select the brightest pixel. i usually select a pixel that has a yellow or pink tint, that way once the curves layer is applied, it counterbalances the tint.

tip: if you have any areas in your gif that are supposed to be white (e.g. a wall, a t-shirt, shoes, sometimes even eyes/teeth) it's a good idea to select a pixel from these areas.

here's what we have so far

as you can see, the curves layer got rid of the reddish tint on the gif and made the colours cooler.

Curves: black eyedropper - next we add a second curves layer, and this time we're doing the same thing but with the black eyedropper. we use the black eyedropper (red square) to select the darkest parts of the gif (red circles).

if you slide the white toggle (cyan square) to the left, this will help us identify the darkest part and especially helps us pick out the tints in the pixels (don't forget to undo this step after!!)

so now i'm going to zoom in to the dark part of the gif where his hair is, with the white toggle dragged to the left so that i can see the tints. i think i made the gif slightly too cool in the previous step, so i'm going to choose a dark green/blue pixel to add back a little warmth.

tip: if you think the gif is still too reddish/yellow, then click on a dark red/brown pixel to remove more warmth.

these are what the settings look like after i select that pixel. as you can see in the gif below, we added some of the warmth back as well as added some contrast.

Alternate: auto curves layer - sometimes scenes just have ugly colours to start, and your white/black eyedropper tools won't make much of a difference. in these cases, i just skip using the eyedroppers, and just use the 'auto' button and then sometimes decrease the layer's opacity as needed.

Exposure - next i add a second exposure layer. my offset settings are always the same. i then drag the gamma correction toggle to the left. my settings are usually between 1.00 and 1.10, and never beyond 1.20. i don't touch the exposure toggle in this step!

Levels - i first drag the white toggle to the left, adding as much brightness as the gif can take without making the white spots too glowy (sometimes as little as 250, usually never below 200). then i drag the middle toggle to the left to ease up on the contrast a bit (usually never more than 1.05, and definitely never more than 1.10). finally, i drag the black toggle to the right (sometimes as little as 4, usually never more than 10).

Brightness/Contrast - i add these exact settings to almost every gif, unless it looks like the gif can't handle it.

Section 2: Colour Correction

now we get to manipulate our colours! i keep my colour balance tabs and selective colour tabs on separate layers. you can do all the colour balance steps in one layer and all the selective colour steps in one layer, but i find it easier to modify when they're on separate layers. also if you use separate layers, the colours build on each other and you can get richer/brighter colours sometimes.

Colour balance: highlights

Colour balance: shadows

Colour balance: midtones

Hue/saturation

Selective colour layers (separate layers in this order): reds, yellows, magentas, cyans, blues, greens, whites, neutrals/blacks

Colour balance: highlights (cool) - so i start with the highlights, and drag the cyans slider to the left (usually not beyond -25), and yellows slider to the right (usually not beyond +25)

Colour balance: shadows (cool) - next i do the shadows on a new layer, and i usually end up doing -4, +2, +4 for the settings (cyans to the left, magentas to the right, and yellows to the right).

Colour balance: midtones (warm) - now this is where i add the warmth back in. i usually slide the cyans to the right, and yellows to the left, and i usually keep the values the same or very close together (so +6 cyans, -6 yellows, or +6 cyans, -5 yellows). i never go beyond a value of 10 for each slider.

Hue/saturation (optional) - so in this gif i didn't touch this layer because we have the green leaves behind tommy. however, in other scenes where there's not supposed to be any green, i'll decrease the saturation on the green tab all the way, to get rid of any stray green pixels (personal preference!) with these settings:

tip: if you go to the yellow tab and decrease the saturation, you can get a cool silvery effect, just be mindful of skin tones (you can usually correct for this later with selective colour)

Section 2.5: Selective colours

with selective colours i find it so subjective that idk if sharing the settings will even be helpful. instead i'll mainly go over my thought process when editing these. you'll need to understand what the sliders do to make good use of this step.

Cyan slider: dragging to the left makes the colour more warm/red, dragging to the right makes it more cool/cyan.

Magenta slider: dragging to the left removes warmth and makes the colour more yellow/green, dragging to the right makes it more warm/magenta.

Yellow slider: dragging to the left decreases yellow, dragging to the right increases yellow.

Black slider: dragging to the left decreases contrast in that colour, dragging to the right increases contrast.

most of my selective colour adjustments are very minor!! my settings are usually in the +/- 5 to +/- 30 range, unless it's for select bright colours (magentas, blues, greens).

Editing skin tones

so i start with fixing the skin tones first before editing any of the other colours. i start with the reds tab and drag the cyan slider to the left to add warmth (if it's too red to start, i'll cool down the skin tone by dragging the cyan slider to the right).

i then drag the magenta slider slightly to the left (especially if their cheeks are really magenta). i drag the yellow slider slightly to the left as well if the person starts looking too yellow. for the black slider, if there's a lot of shadow/contrast in the skin, i'll drag it slightly to the left, otherwise i'll increase contrast by dragging it slightly to the right.

next in the yellows tab, i first go to the yellow slider and drag it slightly to the left, and stop before the person starts looking too pink. i then add more yellow back by dragging the black slider to the right. if i want more warmth, i drag the cyan slider to the left. if i want it cooler, i drag the cyan slider to the right.

2. Editing lips/cheeks/other features

in the magentas tab, i start with the magenta and yellow sliders at +100. i then drag the cyan slider to the left as needed. this step really makes lips pop if the person has some colour on their lips (it didn't do much for this gif of tommy).

3. Editing clothes/background

i then go to the cyans tab and set the cyan slider to +100. i drag the yellow slider to the left to make the cyans more blue (sometimes all the way to -100). if i want a darker colour, i drag the black slider to the right.

next i go to the blues tab and set the cyan slider to +100, and drag the yellow slider to the left as preferred. i sometimes drag the black slider to the right to make the colour darker.

i use the greens tab only if there's leaves/trees/grass in the background or if the characters are wearing green clothes (basically if green is a large part of the gif). i make the greens pop by setting the cyan and yellow sliders to +100. i drag the magenta slider slightly to the left, and the black slider slightly to the right.

4. More brightness and contrast

in the whites tab, i drag the black slider to the left (usually about -10 to -30), and sometimes i drag the yellow slider to the left (usually about -10 to -20). this is to make the white parts super white and not have a yellow tint.

however, some scenes have really bright white glowy spots (like the sunlight on tommy's face). in this case i'll drag the black slider to the right. i might also drag the cyan and yellow sliders to the left to get some of the skin colour back.

next in the neutrals tab, i only adjust the black slider. i use anywhere from -2 to -4 to make the gif brighter, or i use up to +3 to add contrast.

same thing for the blacks tab, i only adjust the black slider set from +2 to +4 to add contrast.

Section 3: Final Touches

these settings usually never change:

Gradient map: gray to white (layer opacity: 20%)

Gradient map: black to white (layer opacity: 10%)

Vibrance (+25 vibrance, 0 saturation)

the opacity of the black to white gradient map layer can be decreased down to 5% if it makes the gif too dark.

Section 3.5: Optional Final Steps

Auto curves layer - i use the auto button on a new curves layer on top of all my other layers. i then change the layer opacity, usually around 20-30%, sometimes around 50-80%, and very rarely at 100%. this adds brightness/evens out the contrast.

Levels - sometimes i want to add back some more brightness and contrast, so i'll add a levels layer on top of all my other layers, dragging the white toggle slightly to the left, and black toggle slightly to the right (usually not more than +/- 10).

Selective colour - sometimes i'll add a final selective colour layer on top of everything else, to fix skin tones (so i edit the reds/yellows/magentas)

there you have it! i know i use a lot of layers but i find that it gives me the most control over brightness, contrast, and colours. i hope this was helpful!!

#answered #Anonymous #*tutorial #userholtz #usershreyu #usercats #userbess #uservivaldi #userbuckleys #usersanshou #tsusermels

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