#i can also make u a list of like sharpening actions and stuff if youre interested

[soldierboys]

If you don't mind me asking, what do you use to make your gifs? I've been messing around with making some of my own and am starting to feel confident enough to post them, but I feel like my quality could be so much better.

i dont mind it at all!

for the actual gifs i’m currently using photoshop cc 2019, but i’ve used cc 2020, cs6, really you just need the timeline option.

for the screencaps i’m using potplayer

and i download my stuff with qbittorrent. i usually look for them in rarbg (for new releases) or kickass

now this is important: try to choose your episodes/movies in the 1080p x264 version. i also find the AMZN rip and Bluray versions are the better versions out there. sometimes it’s not really possible because the files can be HUGE, but that’s what makes your gifs look good!

[jinjjayo]

hi! i noticed you said you were fairly new to making gifs, and i'm also kind of new and still struggling on how to make the quality crisp/how to get good coloring. is it possible for you to provide some advice / tips for me?

ah hello !! yes, i started last year spring but i'm feeling a lot more confident these days so hopefully i'll have some insights that are of use to you 💜

i yapped a lot, so i'm putting most of this under a readmore

first: tutorials are your friend. gifmakers sharing things are your friend! we gotta look out for each other lmao. how else will we keep our timeconsuming hobby on dying website alive. try to find resource blogs like usergif tutorials section or these sorts of things. im sure lots of us muddled our way through like that. if you have a favorite gifmaker see if they have like a photoshop help or a ref tag, too, that's nice (i dont on this blog, but lots of folks do)

second: quality generally is going to be a lot bit down to your source video. u can sharpen and do everything you like to 480p and it will still be 480p you know? so for kpop, most mvs and that kinda stuff will be in 4k which you can download from youtube and that's nice enough. if you want to have better you can look for masters (which i do, i have a huge list of hoarded mvs). for performances ideally you want either like nice 1080p .ts files or uhd - there are places you can look for that like on twitter or on different sites. basically you want to use the nicest you can get (that wont brick your computer - 4k can be troublesome for this reason sometimes)

third: once you have nice quality video source, a lot of crispiness and prettiness is down to individual sharpen settings and coloring, especially contrast and white balance. curves tool is your friend for fixing tints/white balance/contrast. here's a good sharpen actions set from my mutual @/sugurugetos (and thats her resource blog so it may be worthwhile to poke around in there). i use a combination of my own sharpen settings + photoshop camera raw filter most of the time.

(aside: there are some other more complicated things you can do to nice-ify your footage, like vaporsynth/avisynth or handbrake or topaz upscale or whatever, and im here to tell you i dont use any of those things and i still make it out okay hehe. but there are many tutorials for them too if you like)

fourth: it is a learning curve like any other creative hobby so give it time & keep trying hehe. most gifmakers have their own style of coloring/sharpening and yours will become more apparent once you figure out how you like to do it. i believe in u

[renfri]

would you ever be willing to make a tutorial on how you make your gifs? they’re so hq and lovely!

ddhdjhdh omgg thank u!!!!!!!!! this made me so sosos happy huhu <3 

hmm, this is a lil hard to answer just because it’s such a broad question – for each of my sets, for each gif within a set, i’m usually doing something different because im trying to make them all match or at least be color coordinated/cohesive. i’m also new to giffing, i just started in november and i’m learning as i go, buuuut i’ll try list out some stuff!!

the few things i do all the time (aka things that my brain won’t let me Not Do): 

1) download 9gb+ films (for live action, i usually go 11-13gb / animation i’ve gone as small as 5gb!)

2) i like my gifs long and if there’s dialogue and i’m doing subtitles i always always always have it so the entire scene is giffed so you can see the gif saying every word of dialogue – so i take a lot of screencaps. most of my gifs are 50-70 frames, if there’s dialogue, they can push 100 frames each! 

3) when cropping, my dimension are usually 540x540 (big gifs), 540x300 (dialogue scenes), 268x300 (parallels)

4) depending on the set you also wanna keep an eye out for smooth looping! or at least i do. this is specially for big gifs, basically try use scenes where the character isn’t moving all that much so that when the gif loops it’s not a harsh transition. 

5) also for big gifs, slow the scene down!!! it looks sooooo much better!!! for big gifs my timing is usually at 0.07-0.08. for dialogue, its usually at 0.06. i also like to play around with speed within the gif, if there’s a certain thing i want to emphasize i’ll slow down that part specifically and leave the other frames at 0.06.

6) for parallels, just smth my brain forces me to do even if it’s not necessary or obvious, i make the paralleling gifs have equal frames so that they loop at the same time, and i color them to be the exact same shade (if that stuff doesnt bother u, dont worry bout it ffjkfjfdjfk)

7) i unfortunately don’t know what to say for coloring. it’s always different, i don’t use psds and there’s never really a pattern. everyone also has diff aesthetics, for example i try make my gifs more cool-toned than warm since i prefer cool tones! 

8) sharpening!!! for close-ups or really any people-shots, i smart sharpen (amount: 500% by 0.4px), and then i sharpen twice on top of that. once at 100% opacity, the other at 30% opacity. and then of course, alter as you go, if it’s too much noise, disable one sharpening filter, etc etc <3 for scenery or animation, i usually smart sharpen (amount: 10% by 10px, this smoothens it out) and then sharpen twice like before!

thats about all i keep consistent across my gifs! thank u for asking n good luckkkk <3