#wanted to animate the text but photoshop bit me :(

[graphic--horde]

How do you make your stamps? :0

Disclaimer: this is an obscenely long explanation, with pictures. Efficiency is stupid

So, for the static ones, I make a 99x56 px file on ibis paint x. Other programs are probably available online but I don't use them.

After that, I either upload an image I want to make into a stamp, or I draw one.

Then, I find a frame I want to use. Ill upload them here but let it be known I stole all of these right from deviantart

Most of them are from Lil-Devil-Melii on deviantart. The rest i have no idea. They're not all 99x56px but you can crop the canvas it's fine

Make sure to erase the edges of the picture , so they're transparent. It's not as cute otherwise

Upload those frames over your image in whatever art program you're using and viola, stamp.

For moving ones, it's a lot harder. Mostly because I refuse to download Photoshop.

There are a couple ways to do this. Some are simple animations, like with flashing text and whatnot. For these, you download the individual animation frames from your art program. Make sure it's transparent.

Then, upload each frame to ezgif.com under the option "GIF maker." You can play around with how fast each frame goes and whatnot but in the end, it'll be a stamp with some rad text that moves. This is easy, and doesn't make me want to shit my pants and cry. If you're new, do this. This is fun. This is good. This does not kill me inside

I made that↓ stamp with this method :)

this next one is how we turn gifs into stamps. This one makes me sad. It involves math and sucks. But we gotta do it. For the vibe

First, grab your gif. I'm using this cow gif because it's awesome

Then, I resize it using ezgif. Literally everything for this will be using ezgif. I am a simple man

At this point you should decide what frame to use. I'm using this one because its the first one I clicked

Figured out what size the inside of the frame is. That's what I resize the gif to, so the edges can be transparent. The inside of this one is 93x50 px, so those are the dimensions I'm making the gif.

Figure it out by putting the frame into ibis paint and realizing the canvas to fit just the inside of the frame, then seeing what the dimensions are. But there could be easier ways

Woah it's so small now

Then, still on ezgif, I go to the "crop" option.

Make sureeee to upload the smaller gif

press the button that says "extend canvas size", and then put the "width" and "height" as the dimensions for your FRAME. This'll put a bit of a transparent border around the gif. For this frame, I did 99px and 56px.

The "left" and "top" boxes show how many pixels the cropping happens from the edges of the canvas. The formula for finding that is

(width of gif / 2) - (difference between gif width and frame width / 2) = left box

For me it's (93 / 2) - (6 / 2) = 43.5

Then you do the same.for the height, which for me ends up being 22 from the top

This is reallyyy touchy and annoying though

Here's my result , with no visible difference

Okay so THEN you go to the "overlay" option, under "effects." And upload your frame. If the cropping was done right, you shouldn't have to move the frame at all and can just download it

Here's my result:

if you don't care about transparency, you can resize your gif to be the same size as the frame, and then put the frame over it. But I'm a slut for transparency

Anyways. I'm sorry if anything was unclear, it's two am. And I hope this was helpful :) these really are fun to make once you get it down

also if anyone has an easier way to make stamps from gifs, please god tell me

[eddiediaaz]

Hi, me again!

Ty for the reply, I would love an in depth tutorial if you don't mind as i really wanna get this effect to work and I kinda work best when it's spelt out for me when learning new techniques lol :)

hey anon, no worries! here's how i used this amazing template by @danesdehaan and added a rolling effect like this (from this gifset):

this effect uses photoshop's timeline. i use cs5, for reference.

detailed tutorial under the cut :)

I. PREPARING THE TEXT

when you open the template, you should have a group called "songs" with 3 groups for each song. what you wanna do is duplicate these numbered groups until you have the amount of songs you want. for each group, use the move tool or your keyboard's arrows to move the duplicated song text layers/groups on your canvas so they're under the first three that are already there. make sure these new duplicated layers are in the "songs" group.

then type the numbers, song titles, artists, song durations, etc. it should look like that:

i wanted mine to have a smaller gap in between each song, so i used the arrows to move each song group closer together, and it looks like that before the animation:

II. ANIMATED EFFECT

once you have typed everything, make sure there are no mistakes and that you won't need to edit anything about the songs or durations or anything like that, because you won't be able to go back. when that's done, select all of the numbered song groups and right click > Merge Layers.

that will give you one layer with all of the songs together. i've renamed mine "SIX SONGS". make sure this new merged layer is still in the "songs" group.

once that's done, you're ready for the animation. and it's pretty easy, because you only need two keyframes: one at the start of the gif, and one at the end.

go to the start of your gif on the timeline, and toggle the position keyframe animation by clicking on the little stopwatch icon. a little yellow keyframe should appear where the cursor is, at the start of the gif:

then go to the end of the gif with the cursor. with the "SIX SONGS" layer selected, use the move tool or keyboard arrows (my preference) to move up the text until all the songs are inside the darker rectangle. once you move this layer's position, a keyframe will appear on the timeline and the animation will be created.

the animation now looks like this:

if you want, you can now edit the speed of the animation by moving the keyframes. the closer the two keyframes are, the faster the animation will be; the further apart the keyframes are, the slower the animation will be.

III. LAYER MASK

since we want the songs to be contained in the dark rectangle and below the line, we need to add a layer mask. i started by creating a shape of where i want the songs to be contained with the rectangular marquee tool:

then, on the layers panel, select the "songs" group and click on the layer mask icon to create a mask with that rectangular selection.

if you play the animation after making that layer mask, it should now look like this:

if you like it that way then you are done, yay!

but if you'd like softer edges, like i have done for mine, click on the layer mask's black and white thumbnail. use the brush tool with a 0% hardness and the black color to make the edges of the mask softer. make sure you are making your brush strokes with the layer mask's thumbnail selected.

once you have brushed a bit of black with a soft rounded brush on the top and bottom of the mask, the animation should look like this:

and that's it! i hope this was clear enough :)

[nicknelosn]

FALLING LETTERS ANIMATION tutorial

hello! @kimmomi asked for a tutorial on how i made the letters "fall" in this gifset and so i figured i would make it and post here! this effect isn't hard to achieve but it might get a little tedious if you have a lot of letters.

note: you will need photoshop with a timeline!

STEP ONE: create your base gif! be mindful of number of frames in your gif. the number of frames doesn't really matter here, altho the longer the gif the better the effect. i'd say try to limit it to 60-70 frames, depending on how big your final gif will be.

STEP TWO: make your text the way you want it to look. this effect is basically the last step of your gif making process. (i will be using the typography from my set as an example as i already have that psd saved)

this is what my typography looks like now.

STEP THREE: i would recommend that the word at the bottom be the word that "falls". for me that is forever.

now, you will have to duplicate the "forever" layer and make your non-copy forever invisible.

what you will want to do now is delete all the letters but the first one in the duplicated layer. for me that is f. then you just duplicate the f layer and write your second letter instead of it, in my case o. you will have to do this for all letters. also as you do that make sure to move them a bit away from each other.

now, what helps to align those letters where they start off, is making your non-copy layer to be visible again.

after you've aligned your letters, make the non-copy layer invisible again.

STEP FOUR: so now we come to a bit of a tedious part.

what you will do now is move the playhead (blue timeline arrow) a bit further from the beginning of the gif (this allows for the text to stay still a bit before it starts "falling") and click on the first letter.

next step is to click on the little arrow next to your letter and clicking on the stopwatch next to Transform.

then, you will take the playhead and drag it to the end of the gif where you will start with transforming your letter with Free Transform tool (shortcut ctrl+T on windows). and what you will do is, while in Free Transform mode, drag your letter to the bottom of your gif while also rotating it a bit. when you're happy with your placement of the letter, hit enter. see below gif for how i did it.

you will have to do this for every letter, but make sure to rotate some in the other direction. also make sure that the beginning of the stopwatch mark is the same for every letter.

and that is basically it! after you transform every letter, you can go and save your gif.

this is my final result:

for some extra dramatic look, you can duplicate your initial layer with the whole word on it, drag it above all layers, clear layer style and add a stroke and make sure its FIll is at 0% where you will get the outline text that stays behind.

i hope this was helpful and understandable. if you have any questions, feel free to send me an ask or dm me <33

[hordraomin]

Krita tutorial the way I know it.

Basics: What is where.

Gimmicks.

Specific advice on specific tools.

Basics: What is where.

Upon opening the program this is what you're met with. First of all, must comment: The layout is HEAVILY editable so you can just drag menus anywhere you want, even leave them floating amidst the sheet you're drawing on.

You can create custom art templates, I have two o'mine here as both have my signature background color.

As well, you can edit the custom document settings, as in what size you want it, what resolution, even the initial content of the image. As well you can create from clipboard: Just copy some image from your browser and Krita will recognize it (useful for making meme edits lol).

Now, once you have your file, I will show you what is where.

Brushes:

Brushes are easy to edit and there are tons of free bundles to download online. I myself only got one bundle, Jackpack (bit hard to find now due to original source being lost, it is still available but bit tricky to come by).

There. Are. Tons.

Some of these are my custom brushes for calligraphy in neography, you might even guess which ones. You can edit existing brushes, make new ones from the ones you've edited without changing the original, and all sorts of stuff (more below in the third chapter).

There are numerous packages of brushes once you enter Krita, but only one/two are available when you first open it. To unlock them all, click here:

And make sure all bundles are dark gray in color (example of both dark and light below).

Now Tools Options: those will pop up depending on what tool you're using.

Symmetry: Fun stuff. You can drag the lines depending on how you need them and then center them back to the center of the screen if needed.

Gradients and Textures also have their tools options, you can play with those to get the feeling what they can do (more in third chapter).

The Filters tab is useful too. Blurring, motion blurring, color mapping, artistic filters and all that: Quite fun.

Gimmicks.

Krita allows you to customize your workspace freely. Floating menus, tabs, anything you want. It has quite many drivers at that-

To access the workspace templates, go to Window and choose Workspace.

Krita allows for copy-pasting any image onto the sheet. Though, for me it sometimes crashes if I accidentally copy-paste text into it without choosing the Text tool first.

The software allows for both raster and vector work. It is basically Photoshop sharpened to be used by artists primarily.

There are some interesting mechanics regarding the Eraser (default bind E).

You can use it with any brush, allowing for textured erasure/quick work. Good for sketching.

You can use it on gradients (given there's a transparent point on the gradient preset).

There's a Multibrush tool:

People say Krita is good for animation but my brain can't wrap around it yet honestly @~@.

The keybinds:

B - Brush tool.

E - Erase tool option.

M - Mirror (useful for checking accuracy from a new angle).

Ctrl - Color pick (when used with brush or other color-using tools).

Shift+L.Mouse+drag - Changes the size of the brush by dragging left and right.

Ctrl+E - Merge layer with the one below.

Ctrl+G - Group selected layers.

Ctrl+A - Select whole sheet.

Ctrl+Shift+A - Deselect everything.

F - Bucket tool.

G - Gradient tool.

Ctrl+S - Save document.

Ctrl+Shift+S - Save As document.

Ctrl+N - New document.

Ctrl+O - Open document (will be seen in a new tab on top of the sheet).

Ctrl+C - Copy selected layer or selection.

Ctrl+X - Cut selected layer or selection.

Ctrl+V - Paste copied/cut layer or selection.

Q - Multibrush tool.

R.Mouse - Interesting thing: Opens up a quick selector for brushes and colors you've already used in the piece.

1 - Zoom 100%.

2 - Zoom to fit the piece vertically.

3 - Zoom to fit the piece horizontally.

4, 5, 6 - Turn 15 degrees (4 and 6) or undo the turning whatsoever (5).

Ctrl+I - Negative filter applied to layer.

Ctrl+U - Color editing on the layer.

Ctrl+Y - Soft proofing mode (for color mistakes and stuff like that, mostly annoying for me tbh).

Ctrl+T - Transform selection/layer.

Ctrl+R - Square select tool.

Ctrl+J - Lasso select tool.

Honestly you can just hover your mouse over tools and see their shortcut binds, as well. Or edit them in Settings.

Specific advice on specific tools.

Brush:

Brush editor is a great tool for making custom brushes, and it even has a sratchpad to test them out. Lots of settings, but no need to be afraid; Most of them you might never use on purpose.

Use Brush Smoothing for great and pretty lines in lining pieces or making calligraphy.

Gradient:

The four icons to the right top are:

Mirror gradient.

Arrange by lightness value.

Arrange by color value.

Space the stops evenly.

Click the gradient to add a new stop. The three things to the left are:

Make the stop use Primary Color.

Make the stop use Secondary Color.

Make the stop use a fixed color.

[cookie-nom-nom]

How to Kidnap Bruce Wayne in 6 Easy Steps

The Batfam decided to have a nice evening together. They had it all planned out. The Joker was JUST put into Arkam, Harley and Poison Ivy were having a date night, and they sent the Riddler a 5k puzzle piece, so they should have a few hours. Hopefully.

But then entered...the comedian. Not a knockoff Joker, mind, an actual comedian serving as the entertainment for the night. The kids were running a bet on the odds of Bruce laughing. Not actual laughter, naturally, but how many fake laughs Bruce would decide to manufacture. Dick maintained it would be 8 times at most, despite what the others thought.

And then a PowerPoint presentation started, with the words Bruce Wayne emblazoned behind the comedian. "Brucie Brucie Wayne. Local philanthropist, runner of jobs and charities and orphanages. Gotham's number one eligible bachelor if and only if you like kids. But Ladies and Gentlemen and Folks, I'm here to tell you otherwise. Because this right here? It's alllll a mask. I know the real Bruce Wayne, and I have the proof to reveal his secret identity."

Bruce was very carefully keeping his eyes on the performer, refusing to acknowledge the eyes latching onto him, or the occasional covert elbows.

The comedian dramatically flourished the remote and changed the slide. A stock photo of a man littering had Bruce's face crudely photoshopped over it popped up. "See! A menace to society! And I have an extremely reliable witness who swears that the recycling bin was three feet away. Tsk. Some people just want to watch the world burn. Which maybe I'd be okay with since we Matched on Tinder, and yet not a single spark despite how much chemistry we'd have!" A wall of unanswered Tinder messages of bad pick-up lines and far, far too many winky faces filled the screen, all sent to a profile claiming to be 'Bruce Waine'. "This MONSTER left me on read! Can you believe it? Ghosted. And that definitely isn't on me, because my Mom says I can make anyone swoon. Who do you trust between the two? Wayne? Some millionaire who could never relate to your everyday experience?" The slide flipped between Bruce suavely dealing with paparazzi and a sweet older woman. "Or Mom, who can make wonderful potlucks, whereas we all know the Wayne Manor has nearly burned down on three separate occasions thanks to Brucie trying to use a toaster!" Technically all villain attacks, but the public needn't know that.

The Wikipedia page's list of philanthropic acts and charities sponsored by Bruce Wayne scrawled across the screen, the comedian gesticulating wildly. "All this?? PROPAGANDA! This is what he WANTS you to think! When in reality, he's a two-faced, duplicitous, littering, puppy-kicking monster who REFUSES to answER MY TEXTS, IT'S NOT HARD! I'M FUNNY AND HOT AND--!" The comedian paused in frothing at the mouth, as if suddenly realizing the audience was there. They straightened, pointedly adjusting their collar. "We all know the true darkness that lies behind his friendly, ditzy, sexy façade. And so our goal is simple: we are going to kidnap this menace for the wellbeing of Gotham (and my love life)."

Step 1: Become an orphan.

"Alright, the first step of Plan 1 is simple. Now that you're an orphan..." the slide changed with a silly transition animation.

Step 2: Irreversible and extensive surgery.

"Now this step is a bit expensive but-" they feigned a surprised face at the protests in the audience. Planted, no doubt. "I'm sorry, what's the hold-up? We don't have all night! This is literally the first step and you already have questions?" The comedian gestured wildly in the direction of the Batfam. Bruce narrowly avoided recognition thanks to his fondness for sitting menacingly in the shadowy corner of the room. "Seriously! There're KIDS in the audience! They're far too young to know how easy it is to get tragically orphaned at a young age and left with no stability and an empty hole in your life to be filled with grief, rage, and fear!

"Sheesh. Some people have no consideration for the faint of heart. Think of the children! Literally, think of the children you will be infiltrating." A flick of the remote and Step 3: Infiltrate an orphanage popped up. "We all know the easiest way into the Wayne household is adoption. Now that you've gotten extensive surgery to appear like a child, the hard part begins.

"Little is known about the entity known as children. I have put together research to aid in your mission. You need to know how to walk, how to dress, how to speak. Do you know what rizz is? Can you dab on command? One mistake and you're dead. You can fool the hearts of men, but children will rip a poor performance to shreds. I should know, I was bullied severely on the playground every time I tried to bring up the question of what the deal with airplane food is..."

The comedian went on, detailing the absurd plan to trick Bruce Wayne into adopting them. It hinged entirely on the fact he was a well-known moron. The Batkids found great glee in piling on the jabs as the comedy bit went on. Step 4: Marketability analyzed the various personalities and attributes of the Batkids to extrapolate how to lure Bruce into adopting the infiltrator, highlighting key traits like 'small' 'looks like a drowned cat' and 'a glare that is really terrifying for a baby to have'. Bruce found that portion almost tolerable, given some of the kids turned upon one another in something akin to a feeding frenzy. But it wasn't long before the full brunt of their teasing returned upon him as Plan 1 concluded with Step 5: Buying rope and duck tape while not looking suspicious and Step 6: Using flower language to apologize (for the abduction).

"...Alright. So, maybe you don't have the funds to shorten the length of your leg bones. Or maybe you don't have black hair and blue eyes. I get it, re-dyeing is messy. If Plan 1 is infeasible for your budget or lifestyle, then I've kindly considered a second revenue of attack."

A massive picture of Batman filled the screen. The crowd descended into mayhem. "Oh don't tell me the entire audience believes the butts match! We're conspiracy theorists here, but I thought you had STANDARDS!" It was possible Bruce's face was going to freeze in that perpetual rictus. Dick waved a hand in front of him, not sure when he last blinked. "Come on people! They're clearly different people. Which is why I'm going to recruit Killer Moth to do a little crime. All the funds that would've gone to child surgery can now be injected directly into the criminal underworld. It's basically the same thing our taxes do but faster! I've thought this through. Killer Moth will do anything for a price and you won't like actually be in danger. I mean, can you imagine dying to some D-tier villain? Cringe. Anyway, this is your 'in' with Batman. He saves you and it's all very heroic. And then you start chatting, maybe get his number; it's going great. It's been a few months of him rescuing you over and over again, and hopefully you haven't died or whatever. At that point you bring up Bruce Wayne. I mean he's getting kidnapped all the time! It has to be incredibly inconvenient for Batman, and he deserves a break for all his hard work. So the next step of this plan is to convince Batman to kidnap Bruce Wayne..."

.....................................................

The comedian paced backstage during intermission, rehearsing the next segment. It seemed to be going well, a good-sized audience. There was one group in the back that was particularly uproarious, save for one adult in the center. But then, the comedian was suddenly surrounded by children who seemingly melted out of the shadows. "I don't think you are supposed to be back here. Are you lost? Do you need help finding your parents? ....wait, shouldn't there have been guards...?"

"Didn't see any," Tim shrugged. Hard to, when they were strung thirty feet up in the rafters of the auditorium. "Anyway, we've just been adoring your act. Our Dad? Not so much, though."

"Eh, can't please them all. Some people just put celebrities on the craziest of pedestals."

"More like he's listening to someone ramble about trying to kidnap him." Beneath a mask a mile thick, Dad was writhing in mortification.

The way the stages of grief so clearly filtered through the comedian's face was fascinating to watch. "..........Bruce Wayne is in the audience?" they asked weakly. "Like. Right now? Watching? Waiting to ambush me with lawyers?"

"Dad's in the bathroom." Batman was desperately out on patrol to avoid his family's heckling.

"Actually, I don't think he's caught on that you're talking about him yet." Jason grinned evilly.

"Man, I heard he was a bimbo but I didn't know it was that severe. My condolences, truly. Thank god the second half of the interview is about trying to plan a dinner date that doesn't get ruined by supervillains. I do NOT need him coming after me for slander. Uh. You aren't offended, right...?" They could not afford any type of lawsuit. Or controversy. The comedian stuck to petty Twitter bait, not actual problems.

The hoard of children beamed. Suddenly, the comedian realized the exits were cut off. A teen's arm looped around theirs, another surprisingly firm grip across their shoulders. "Nah. Actually, we had some suggestions. How'd you like to do a live interview...?"

.....................................................

"Alright folks, you're never going to believe this, but during the intermission I was cornered by children. It was terrible, I was having flashbacks to second grade..." an artistic shudder. "But thankfully, these ones just wanted to harass me after listening to me ramble about trying to seduce and/or kidnap their dad for the last half hour. Can we get a big welcome for the Wayne kids! I'd introduce them but they all look identical to me!" A fantastic roar of applause at the sudden special guest segment. "Luckily, these kids have graciously elected to let me interview them so that I have better data to act on when trying to kidnap their dad. And is he in the audience still...?"

"Nope! Still in the bathroom. Has been for thirty one minutes."

"Either he needs to see a doctor or he's locked himself in again. How often does that happen?"

"At least twice a month," Jason grinned. It wasn't an infrequent excuse to explain disappearances.

"One wonders how he survives. I like that in a man. Now, quick question. Which of you is the cutest?"

"Damian!" the hoard chorused. The youngest one snarled at once, rounding upon the others. The comedian scrambled away in what was unfortunately not a particularly exaggerated fashion. There was pure murder in the twerp's eyes.

Luckily, three brothers restraining him appeared to be enough. "Don't worry he has his rabies shot yearly," one smirked.

With cautious steps, the comedian approached where Damian was being dangled like a baby kitten. A few moments of examination, and they delivered the verdict that Damian was, in fact, a precious baby boy. The child hissed nastily. "Look at his beautiful eyes! Adorable. You could just get lost in them. Which is why I plan to print out approximately 30k pictures of this child and plaster Bruce's entire room with them. He'd never be able to leave, absorbed in his adorable adoptee."

"I'm his only biological offspring!" Damian snapped, literally. Dick had to jerk out of the way to avoid losing his fingers to the chomping child. "And that would never work!"

"Really? Doesn't he keep little picture rolls of you and corner near strangers into cooing over them?" The comedian is passed Bruce's wallet by Stephanie. "Wait, how'd you get this?"

"I took it from Dick, who stole it from Jason who stole it from Tim, who took it to reprimand Damian for stealing it from Dad."

"Wow, he is not observant in the slightest! I feel even better about my odds now. Oh, would you look at that, countless pictures..." They pulled out a roll. And then kept pulling, and kept pulling, the camera roll beginning to puddle at their feet. It was almost like a clown's handkerchief, save the fact the string of photos was sturdy enough to be used as a rope if needed. More than one of Gotham's rogues had been captured under the guise of Bruce rambling about his children.

"How much can he fit in one wallet?!" Something metallic clanged to the floor of the stage, and the comedian held up a pair of expanding handcuffs for the audience to gawk at. "Well well well, looks like I have excellent taste in men. Wait, there's also some pepper spray. When in Gotham, I suppose. Wow that's a concerning number of pocket knives...and approximately 2k in 100 dollar bills-- well isn't this scarily similar to the list of supplies I recommended in step 5! What, did he just hold someone ransom? Wait. Oh my god, that's how he made all his money. It's guilt that makes him a philanthropist! And all this time we thought he was perpetually haunted by his dead parents! WAIT." The comedian let the crowd howl, periodically interjecting as they paced the stage with grandiose graveness. "I have had an epiphany!" The laughter finally petered out, the comedian allowing the silence to linger. "Guys," they said, deadly serious. "If he made his millions kidnapping people, and I kidnap him....does that make ME Bruce Wayne???"

Batman had to dodge jokes from his kids for weeks afterward.

[creativexspirit]

Rolling playlist gif for GIMP: a tutorial ▬ by Joy from @creativexspirit​ 

Credit where credit is due, I fell in love with this gif tutorial but EH I don't use Photoshop anymore so I made it my mission to recreate the effect in GIMP.

This tutorial uses AnimStack, a Script-Fu script for GIMP to give you tools for the creation of animated GIFs. As it's super useful, even if you don't follow this tutorial I highly recommend to download. How to install AnimStack to GIMP in tumblr's FAQ: https://animstack.tumblr.com/faq

This tutorial uses my playlist template.

Tutorial with screenshots is under the cut.

Like or reblog if you download. Please don’t request as your own, respect my work. Don’t hesitate to tag me if you follow the tutorial! I would love to see your edits.

STEP 01.

Change the titles, the colors, the icons. Tip if you want to change the song title that are not visible: move the layers group "Song list", so you can see the text you modify.

Add songs by copy/pasting the "Song 5" layers group. Keep this layers group inside the "Song list" group.

Try to move the layers group so that it is aligned with above songs.

To place back correctly the "Song list", here's a tip: use the align tool and click on the "Song list" group. In the tool's options, in the "relative to" drop down menu, choose "Selection". Back to the layers window: in the "Background" group, right click on the "Color nuance" layer and choose "Alpha to selection". Now you are free to align your "Song list" layer group to the top and center of that selection, and it should be alright!

STEP 02.

Now the tutorial actually begins. Flatten all layer groups using Image > Flatten Layer Groups. (Don't mind my GIMP language, it is in French but the AnimStacks tools are in English, you should have the same menu.)

And now your layers window should look like mine, minus the links on the layers.

Now, see the linked layers? Merge them all together. You should end up with only 4 layers: "Song list", "Background", "GUIDE MASK SONG LIST FOR GIF", "Arrière-plan".

Note: you don't really need the "Arrière-plan" layer, so if you want to, you can delete it or you can merge it with the background layer. In my case, I will delete it.

STEP 03.

Reorder your layers. This is very important as AnimStacks will process the layers from top to bottom, so the layers order counts.

Put your "Background" layer on top, your "Song list" layer under it. As for the guide mask, we don't really care as we will delete it later.

STEP 04.

We are now going to add AnimStacks tags to our layer names. Here you'll have to do a bit of maths because you can choose the number of frames your gif will ultimately contain and adjust the tags parameters accordingly. This might seem complicated but it really isn't. I'll start by showing the tags to add, and explain how this will be processed. I will then give you the maths to choose your parameters accordingly.

Below, the tags I have added to my layers. You will have to write the same things as I do but what you might change is:

the number of "30" in Background.

the y parameter of the offset tag "-12".

YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO REMOVE THE [copy:0] and change it.

OK but what does each tag do? Remember, AnimStacks process is from top layer to bottom. Here the first layer is our Background layer: [*30] means it will duplicate the "Background" layer 30 times.

Now, onto "Song list" layer: [copy:0] will check all layers above the "Song list" layer that has no tag (at this point, all of our 30 "Background" layers have no tag), create a group for each found layer and place the "Song list" layer at position 0. Ok this explanation is wacky, for better explanation, please check the documentation.

The offset tag is necessary for the rolling effect: at each addition of the "Song list" layer, it won't just be a simple duplicate of the "Song list" layer, but the layer will have moved a little by (x,y) = (0,-12), allowing us to get that "rolling" effect in our gif. (And now you get why I said "y parameter".)

OK now, but how did I choose my parameters? So for reference, I only have 5 songs - I didn't add any song to the song list. For my maths, you need the height of the "Song list" layer. Check it with the scaling tool.

The height of my layer is 353 pixels (awful number meh). I choose to have 30 frames. So the move of the layers will have to be of 353/30 = 11.77 pixels. I choose 12 pixels because you can't have floats for the number of pixels, can you?

DO NOT FORGET the minus in front of the y parameter. My y parameter is "-12". Otherwise, the playlist will roll towards the bottom.

STEP 05.

We are now going to add a mask to the "Song list" layer to avoid seeing the title songs where we shouldn't see them. See that obnoxious orange layer "GUIDE MASK SONG LIST FOR GIF"? Yes, it is its time to shine.

Right click on the "GUIDE MASK SONG LIST FOR GIF" layer and choose "Alpha to Selection". (Well in French it's Alpha vers Sélection.)

Now, we are going to use that selection to create a layer mask on the "Song list" layer.

Right click on "Song list" and choose "Add a layer mask". /!\ Your selection must still be active. (Well in French it's "Ajouter un masque de calque" but you can see the icon right? By the way, you can also add a layer mask by clicking on the icon in the layer window, see circled icon in red.)

Now, choose Selection for the creation of the layer mask.

If you don't have the above results for the mask, it might be that you foreground and background colors are not the same as mine, meaning black and white respectively.

If you don't have the same colors as me above, click on the small pair of squares the blue arrow I draw is pointing to. It will default your foreground and background colors to black and white. Keyboard shortcut is D. (I don't think I changed it.)

And now, we don't need the orange guide mask layer anymore, so you can delete it.

STEP 06.

Last check before process: make sure you have no area selected (or you will get a weird result). Cancel all selection with Selection > None.

STEP 07.

We now begin the AnimStacks tags process.

In Filters > Animation, find "Process Animation Tags" and click on it.

The process might take a while depending on the number of frames you have.

If everything is correct, you should have something similar to that. Now, we can check if the gif is correct and if we liked the number of frames and y parameter by previewing the animation in Filters > Animation > Playback...

STEP 07.

This step is optional but you might want to change the time of our first frame to be longer so people have time to read the beginning. Do so by changing the layer group name by adding (800ms) to it. This means the frame corresponding to that layer group will be 800ms.

You can check if it's long enough by doing the playback again.

STEP 08.

Now, we have to flatten all layer groups if we want to export to a GIF. In order to do so, we will just use the same trick as the beginning: Image > Flatten Layer Groups.

STEP 09.

Optional, but good to do: to make our gif lighter, we are also going to optimize the gif. In order to do so, do Filters > Animation > Optimize (for GIF) I don't know personally the difference with the other optimization method. Choose either you'll have similar results it's a difference in the implied algorithm I guess.

This step might take a while, but it's ok. When it's done processing you should have a new image created with the same results as me above. You can playback to check if everything is correct but here our job is done! We will now export the GIF.

STEP 10.

You can now export to GIF! Go to File > Export as..., choose the name of your file and end it with the .gif extension.

If you get an error message because some layers are not cropped, no worries: just choose the "crop" option (but you should not with the optimization).

Now, don't forget to check "as animation" when saving the GIF, if you haven't done the optimization, choose the delay between frames (the first frame will still be of 800ms), and choose "replace".

WITHOUT OPTIMIZATION:

(With the optimization process, all layers already have delay and animation replacement type thingy specified.)

AND VOILA, YOU HAVE YOUR GIF! If you mess around more with AnimStacks, you can do cool stuffs with it!

Now, how do you pronounce the G in gif? Also shh, don't say you saw the mistake I made when changing the title's songs in the tutorial, I wanted to write Everybody Talks by Neon Trees.

[onlyyouexisthere]

can you please make a tutorial for your santa gift graphics? i'm not totally new to photoshop but i could use some help <3

Ohh okay, this will be a bit long, so bear with me, dear Anon.

I'm going to use this one as an example:

You'll need three new documents: one for creating the watercolour portrait, one for the watercolour elements in the background, and a third one for the final edit.

Let's start with the portrait. I'm using a free photoshop action for the watercolour effect, which you can download here with a complete tutorial. After using the action, you'll need to make some adjustments, but it's still faster this way. Change the blend mode of the "watercolor artist" group to screen and slightly turn down the opacity if needed to make the details more visible

In the second document, use the watercolour action the same way again to create the red elements in the background. You can download the photo I used here. I highly recommend using Unsplash, they offer plenty of free high-resolution stock photos, and unlike on Pinterest, the photographers are actually credited.

Create the third document; mine is 540x750. I used an ivory paper as a background, but it should work with a canvas texture or even a simple white/light layer. Pick whatever you like.

After you're done with the watercolour actions, paste the portrait into your third document. Adjust the size and position, then change the blend mode to multiply. Name the layer "portrait."

Next, paste the background elements too, and also change the blend mode to multiply. I changed the saturation and vibrance to make the red pop more, but it's optional. Name the layer "background elements." Now that you see everything together, you can play around with different adjustment layers, contrast, colouring, etc.

Now, open the video you'd like to use for the animation, in a separate document. I used this one, but there are other similar free videos on this website, pick what you like the most. If you want to make the process quicker, pick one that's already a high-contrast black and white.

After you've opened it, you can use the timeline to cut out the part you'd like to use, adjust the speed, etc. In this case, I just doubled the speed which you can do by clicking on that little triangle, and used the full video.

Create a video timeline in the third document. Go to Window -> Timeline -> Create Video Timeline. It's an important step, don't forget about it. Once it's done, copy and paste the video layer into the third document, and name the layer "video." Make sure the "video" layer is right above the "background elements" layer because you're going to need to create a clipping mask. You can do that by right-clicking on the "video" layer and choosing create clipping mask, or you can hold down the alt key and left-click between the two layers. When it's done, you can adjust the size of the "video" layer, rotate it, flip it, etc., depending on how you want your animation to look

After that, set the blend mode of the video layer to screen. If you've done everything correctly, you should have your animation now.

It's time to add the text. I used this font, size 16. I divided the text into 4 lines for easier adjustment of the position.

Once you're happy with the layout, create the white stripes, each on a different layer. This way, you can move them around separately if you'd like to change the position of the text. I like to make the text and stripe layers into a group so the layers are less chaotic, but you can skip this step.

The only thing left in the editing part is the invisible frame. Click on the "background elements" layer and add a layer mask. Select the brush tool, 50px, 100% hardness, and set the foreground color to black. Now, draw a line from corner to corner. Holding down the Shift key, click on one corner using the brush, then click on the next one, and repeat until you're done with all four sides. Your layers should look something like this now.

Before saving, make sure that all the layers on the timeline are the same length and start/finish at the same time.

If you're done, go to File -> Export -> Save for Web (Legacy). These are the settings I used for this particular edit, but feel free to experiment and use what you like the best.

I tried not to complicate it too much, but it's difficult to explain everything in writing, so if you have any questions, I'm always available :)

[beachyserasims]

📩 Simblr question of the day: Do you have a process for making your simblr posts?

answer in whatever way is most comfortable for you and feel free to share this SQOTD around, make sure to use the hashtag SQOTD and tag me in separate posts ~ 💛

This question was contributed by an anon !

Yay! I am so happy to get an ask from you, thank you <3

I guess I will just specifically talk about my story posts because sometimes I like to do renders too, but they're not my specialty.

Play the game/create the characters!! I do have a bit of a storyline planned out in my head before I go in game. My characters all have their own arcs that I want to show them working through at some point in time, so I do a lot of monitoring to make sure they don't go too off course with autonomy. But a lot of the time I do just allow whatever happens in the game to add a new direction or expand on a scenario I've already had in mind (it's so nice when the game works and things happen the way I imagine it would IRL). With things like segs, I almost always let it play out.

Write out storyboards with dialogue. I imagine important scenes in my head the way that I would ideally want them to have gone down in the game. I like to picture it all as a movie, going through the specific camera angles and dialogue moment to moment. Then, I will write it all down with good ol' pen and paper (lol). A small intro of the scene followed by dialogue, then a very rough storyboard of shots, angles, and poses I want to use alongside the dialogue.

I re-create the important scenes/scenarios. Before I go in game, I add all the animation mods that I think might work well for the scene I'm about to make, along with all the poses. I use whatever cheats are necessary to get the shots cause I never save while I'm doing this.

Editing. I take all the screenshots and put them into photoshop to add text and small things like light leaks or bokeh. Sometimes I have to adjust the contrast or brightness, but gshade does most of the work for me beforehand.

That's it! The posts will usually sit in a folder undisturbed for about a month or so until the queue catches up.

[cinamun]

Hey fren! I have a ton of questions. Lmk if I’m being too intrusive or nosey lol.

I love your story, I always have to give you your flowers when I write you!! All hail the Queen 🙌🏾🙌🏾💐💐💐

Ok my questions:

For starting out posting and editing, do you keep a schedule for yourself to stay organized? Rn I’m finally posting on my simblr after 3 years but I find myself just constantly taking screenies instead of posting and organizing the story. It feels chaotic lol the only organizing I’ve done just for game play in general is shopping for CC every other day (it’s an addiction)

A question I wanted to ask for a while is, if you are commissioning someone for poses what are the average prices you pay (or better yet, what do you think a good price is to pay for pose commission)? Sometimes I have these perfect poses in my head and when I’ve searched for hours I normally just end up giving up.

Lastly, I noticed your post from yesterday said you had 25 photos loaded in photoshop. Do you have all the art board (or images) side by side to edit them consistently and simultaneously?

Thank you if you answer!!

Good morning bestie!! Let me just go on ahead and adjust this crown right quick lol THANK YOU and I got you!

I'm chaotic and impulsive but I have a little bit of a routine. Follow me under the cut!

Okay, SO!! For the first question about posting and editing.... I usually have an idea for the next scene while working on the previous one. So when I go in-game for story updates, the idea is already there and I'm just setting up shots and making the scenes look good. I don't have a schedule other than my posting schedule, so when you mention last night, I was editing pics that I had taken earlier in the day or the day before. So my schedule is usually sitting in photoshop all night the day before I post.

For pose commissions, I've only done that twice. I've had real good luck over the years finding poses or animations for anything I've needed. I would say make an offer to donate to them if you know their shit is dope and move anywhere between $5 to $10 USD. For the poses I commissioned, they weren't released publically so that's extra special (tip them more!). Also keep in mind if you're asking for accessories to be used, how many sims are in the pose, etc. For pose searching, try to be as vague as you can. "ts4 cleaning poses" and then see what comes up is one example and don't shy away from animations! They work with pose player, most without WW and can make for some great screenshots.

I load up all the pictures in Photoshop plus whatever templates I'm using (like the texting one or the dust overlays), and edit in order of sequence. This is where all the dialogue happens so sometimes I edit out of order if I know the dialogue for one scene already and maybe not the others. I hope i'm making sense lol. I spend a lot of time on this part because the words might change given which picture I've decided on (some scenes I take multiple screenshots of and multiple angles and then decide later which one to use). I go pic by pic, doing editing and adding dialogue individually then saving them, closing them and moving on to the next one. Once I'm completely done then I flip through them a few times as if I were the reader to try and catch any typos, etc.

This got really long but let me know if that helps or if I can elaborate more!!

[queenhawke]

hey, i'm sorry if this is a weird question, but i'm wondering how you personally make gifsets? i wanted to make some basic ones for a post and i love the ones you make. thank you!!

yeah sure! here's my method:

First things first, I use Photoshop CC (a tooooootally legal version of course. so legal. so not pirated), and idk how to make gifs in other programs so uhhhh find a copy of Photoshop, if you don't have it already. Also I'm assuming you already have the video you want to gif somewhere (also gotten through entirely legal means, of course).

Also it's entirely possible there are better ways to gif, this is just how I do it! Lots of people use actions to streamline their process for instance, but I don't. So. There's that.

Anyway:

Clip the part of the video you want to gif

I personally use Microsoft's in-built program Clipchamp, because it's there and it can handle mkv files and output as mp4, but you can obviously use whatever program you like.

2. Import the video in Photoshop

Use File > Import > Video frames to layers

Select your clip. You now get this screen:

Select the part of the clip you want to turn into a gif. Keep in mind Tumblr's 10mb limit, so don't make the selection too long. If you do want a longer clip, and don't mind the gif looking a little less smooth, you can tick "Limit to every 2 frames" to cut down on the number of frames.

Click OK, and PS will convert the clip into layers. Make sure to have the timeline on (Window > Timeline)

Your workplace should now look like this:

3. Adjust the frame delay

Adjust the time between the frames by selecting all the frames in the timeline and clicking the little arrow in the bottom right of one of the frames.

I tend to set my frame delay to 0,05 seconds, but do whatever you like most!

4. Convert to video timeline

Convert the frame animation to a video timeline by clicking on the hamburger menu in the top right of the timeline and clicking "Convert to video timeline"

5. Convert the layers to a smart object

Select all the layers, right-click and select "Convert to smart object"

Cool, all your layers have now been converted into one video layer. Easier to work with.

6. Cropping

Crop the video to whatever size you want it to be (keeping in mind that 540px is the widest the tumblr dashboard goes). I'll crop this one to 540x350px.

7. Apply adjustment layers

Now apply adjustment layers to colour the gif to your liking (Layer > New Adjustment Layer). You can do this any way you like, but the adjustment layers I tend to use most are Levels, Curves and Vibrance

Here's a before and after.

But again, you can just go ham on this in whatever way you like. Just fuck around with the layers until it looks good to you!

8. Sharpening

Now it's time to sharpen the gif, to make it look extra crisp. Select the video layer and go to Filter > Smart sharpen and just fiddle with the settings until you're happy with it.

9. Text

I'm just gonna assume you know how to add text lmao. But to make that text stand out, go to the layer style by double clicking the layer and selecting Stroke and Drop shadow.

10. Saving

To save your gif, go to File > Export > Save for web (legacy)

Select gif and set the looping options to Forever.

Now, make sure to check whether your gif falls under tumblr's image limit of 10mb. This one is 9mb, so I probably should've cut it down a bit, but I like big gifs, sue me. If you don't want to cut the length of your gif (which you can very easily do with the timeline), you can also cut down on the amount of colours. I wouldn't go below 128 though, that just makes it look ugly lmao. But hey, the option is there.

Anyway, save the gif and you're done! You have made a gif!!

Hope this helps!!

[crabcrabcrabmeat]

Anon has got me thinking abt Gundam again -_- apologies. Specifically Gwitch, which iirc had a preproduction w a ton of market research vs First which has more auteurism imo. They have opposite pitfalls in a way.

Gwitch is undoubtedly made with the international market in mind. For example, the UI at the school, on characters phones etc is exclusively in English, and not even basic phrases or wasei-ego a Japanese audience could easily infer or read. (Granted, the font makes it tricky for anyone to, lol) Someone's job was to write it grammatically accurately and meaningful, as opposed to just plunking in filler text about operating photoshop or whatever like someone at the studio did for Wing. It's a notable choice, but also a poor one for narrative flow, because it necessitates fumbling at the edge of the 4th wall a bit (and for anglophones, redundancy) when characters talk abt the text they just sent/read. (It happens multiple times too lol) It's a very good choice however, if part of your metric for success is getting foreign eyes on your show AND having nerds pour over the phrasing as easter eggs to analyze. It's free marketing!

Using English can absolutely be an artistic choice, esp when only a Japanese audience is going to be watching the show (there has been tape-sharing from pretty much the start, but that's not what finances a production) Early UC used English/Anglophonisms all the time for an international and narrative intent, such as calling female federation cadets "Waves" a la WW2 USA, having western name orders ("Amuro Ray" even though "Ray" is his family name) and saying that the canon name spellings are in katakana, even with Japanese names like 'kobayashi' and 'deikun'. Part of that is futuristic world building, but it's a very political choice, even before getting into 0079s obvious themes. I'm no expert on race/ethnicity in anime, but to put in context how new the 'racelessness' design approach was in 1979 as opposed to today, Yasuhiko Yoshikazu semi jokingly told coworkers a possible kanji spelling for "Ray" if any higher ups audit their choices. A non (Yamato) Japanese lead was something artists had to defend! (Another example off the top of my head is Jotaro from JJBA having a Japanese father....who is never even pictured lol. It's a compromise with editors for "daring" to show a minority lead)

In that sense, having characters of color, having women characters who aren't pigeonholed into "women's roles" etc are choices that today are taken for granted. It's fun to point out the silliest Tomino names for example, but it's far better than ethnic homogeneity. And make no mistake, representation is a good thing! I just hold a higher bar for productions that have the benefit of less scrutiny. If my understanding is correct, absolutely no toy sponsors or TV execs back in the day would've pushed for more POC in Gundam but the studio did anyways! Whereas I assume such a thing was a given at sunrise today, not out of anti-racism goodness nessessarily (Shaddiq was done SO dirty) but because it's generally profitable to avoid ruffling too many feathers, as well as to target as wide a demographic as possible. And in this day and age with high-speed internet, quick translation, vast supply chains for producing and and disseminating merch, etc, "wide audience" means an international one. "Representation" is incentivized, not nessessary a choice made against a status quo.

This is all obvious and fun to parse if you're aware of the socioeconomic context in which media is made, questions like "who is the audience? Who is the producer? How is this being made and why?" show a more objective picture of it all. I'm not here to beef w other fans who feel less alone when there's someone like them on the screen, I want people to think About media more is all. If you find Sulemio meaningful, I'm not going to take that from you, as WLW are in fact good. I'm just painfully aware that someone somewhere was calculating, financially, if an onscreen lesbian marriage would be profitable or not (Gundam and other big anime IP are federally subsidized by the 'Cool Japan Initiative' iirc) and the choice to be less gay than possible (and promised, imo) was made, maliciously or not, to bow to the wishes of a conservative, misogynistic nation-state.

[tbcanary]

do you have a guide to making your animated comic edits?

i don't, actually! in part because i'm relatively new to these parts and no one has asked for one, and in part because every gif i do is kind of a unique little adventure into teaching myself a new skill, so there isn't just one approach. but! i'm delighted that you want to know! so i'll try and walk you through a couple of them.

we'll start with this guy, because he's a favorite of mine and showcases a lot of the steps that i usually have to do:

tools you'll need: photoshop CS6; digital versions of the comics you'd like to edit.

(i assume you can use any version of photoshop or any editor capable of creating gifs, but CS6 is my preference. photopea is a fantastic free alternative, but figuring out timing and transitions is a lot harder there and requires more effort.)

step one: find your panels and elements

it's worth noting here that i cannot - and i mean this - cannot draw. at all. a lot of my life would be easier if i could, but here we stand. as such, nearly every element of these gifs is pulled from the comics themselves.

for this particular gif, which is admittedly on the simpler side, i needed two things: the initial panel, of jason leaping into the air, and a still image of jason as robin. preferably from the same run with the same artist, because that way, the art matches. i found these:

and that's all i needed for this one. sometimes i need to pull several panels for the vibe i want, or for specific things -- leaves to drift through the frame, magical elements, text and sound effects, speech bubbles, etc -- but adding those in follows pretty much the same processes either way.

step two: prep them!

easier said than done, really. what i needed to do here was make myself a blank canvas around the elements that i would be messing with. this varies from project to project, but for this one, it goes as follows: remove the narration box and jason from the first panel; create an isolated version of jason that can be pasted back in; create an isolated version of robin that can be pasted in the same place at a similar angle.

this is a lengthy process, because i work off my laptop and have a touchpad and no artistic skills. here, it requires drawing in a lot of building and making a successfully blurry, ombre sky. and, because robin!jason's toes are cut off, i have to draw those in and try to match the shading.

(there's also some work here with color balance and photo filters to match coloration; i had to add some highlighting and change the colors on robin!jason a bit to match the background lighting of the overall image, but not by much. sometimes, this step is more involved.)

after some fiddling, i usually end up with things i'm happy with. for this gif, those are as follows:

(this is done through the blur tool, the magic wand selection tool, refining the edges of a selection, or -- in many cases, because comic lineart is my enemy - erasing every pixel of the background or character by hand. yes, there are easier ways to do this, but i like my time-consuming methodologies. they're soothing to me.)

and now we're ready for the fun parts.

part three: assembly!

so we take that background we just made and we paste hood!jason back on it on a new layer. silly that we have to, but yknow. it's fine. he's in there. and now the goal is to find a way to successfully transition from hood!jason to robin!jason in a way that's satisfactory.

i follow a lot of standard gifmaking practices, i feel like? but i'm also self-taught, so i actually don't know how true that is. i create a timeline in photoshop and set it to have a delay of about 0.2 seconds to start with, just to see how the transitions go. i usually start with 10 frames, and then add or remove depending on what seems right.

(the variations here can be broad, by the way. i have a green arrow gif with 140 frames with no delay and a wonder woman gif with six frames on a one-second delay, for example, but those are for another time. starting with 0.2 seconds' delay across 10 frames is just a comfortable starting place for me, is my point.)

this is what the timeline looks like for this project:

(it's that bar at the bottom. you can see the settings and all that as they appear in the final product: 0.1 second delay over 12 frames, so not too far off from my default. nice.)

operating within that 10-12 frame range, i mess around with photo filters and the blur tool to both make hood!jason disappear and make robin!jason appear. this involved a heavy use of the "accented strokes" setting in the filter gallery and smudging and blurring until they looked how i wanted them to, which is to say, rather silly.

here's red hood vanishing:

and here's robin appearing:

there are a few additional versions of these, but i think you get the idea. these are all the bits and bobs, and i just have to lay them out in the timeline in order to get the transition as i'd like it to be.

so i start with jason as hood, and then i move through the timeline and click and unclick the little eye to view them. this is also a heavy process; this gif has about twenty layers, and i'm revealing/hiding each one individually. that is actually not as bad as it could be; one of the poison ivy gifs i've published has about 600 layers that i did that with, and i have a green arrow gif with about 800 layers and 70 frames that i didn't even end up publishing because i wasn't happy with it. c'est la vie.

the end product should look something like this:

which, when played at 0.1 second delay and looped, looks like this:

part four: in conclusion...

i recognize this "guide" is messy and skips over quite a bit, but that's because every gif really is its own beast. i am very familiar with trial and error, and with trashing things that don't end up working out. each gifset takes me about 10-12 hours, depending on complexity, without even counting the time to track down panels or read the comics themselves.

if you want to start with something simple, i suggest animating text bubbles. all you have to do for those is erase them from the background and then drop them back in over the top for about 0.5 or 01 seconds apiece for readability. this gif of mia, for example, was just isolating her from her background, creating a new background from a different panel, and then flipping the text on and off. it's got five frames on a 0.5-second delay.

basically... fuck around and find out. a lot. once you know how the gif timeline works and how to hide/reveal layers, the world is your oyster, because that's all this is.

again, i know this is messy and all over the place, but i hope it helps! have a little fun with it, and don't be afraid to mess up. it's fun either way. <3

[eddiediaaz]

hi lovely!! do you have any tips on making cool fun and sexy typography?

hey joanna!! this made me giggle haha, i'm not quiiiite sure how to answer that, but here are some tips i keep in my when i do typography, and some examples:

FONTS

don't be afraid to "shop" for fonts and try funky fonts you've never used/seen. i often try so many before settling. i almost always use at least 2 different font for gifsets, even 3 sometimes. i think a good font pairing can do a lot for a gif. it's usually something like:

serif + cursive/funky fonts (example)

sans serif + cursive/funky fonts (example)

serif + sans serif fonts (example)

two different cursive/funky fonts (example)

or even simply the same font but all caps + all lowercase (example)

in case you're unsure where too start or want inspiration, here's a great resource: usergif's font pairing guide and its fonts page

BLEND MODES & LAYER STYLES

i think playing around with different blend modes and layer styles will always elevate your typography game, in my opinion. it's usually a bit more dynamic than just an opaque color. tho this minimalist typography can also be really good.

when you double click on a text layer, you get all the layer style options, as well as the blend modes. a very popular layer style is setting the layer's blending option to difference, paired with a color and/or gradient overlay (often set to multiply/color dodge). a drop shadow is also important so the text is more easily readable. we often see a black soft drop shadow, but don't hesitate to be creative with it, for example a thick, hard line, colorful drop shadow.

i feel like this step often takes the most time for me because the possibilities are endless. definitely play around with layer styles, especially drop shadow, color overlay, gradient overlay, stroke. and also try different blending modes for these settings.

as for the layer's blend mode, also definitely play around with them. and keep in mind that the text's color will also give a different result, it doesn't have to be white + blend mode set to difference, even tho this is a classic that works well.

TEXT WRAPING & POSITION

a great feature on photoshop is definitely the text warping tool. to access it, right click on a text layer and go "warp text". from there you'll get a few different styles and setting sliders. my favorites are flag and wave (example). you can always go back to edit these settings once they're done by right clicking again. and you can even keyframe/animate these settings!

typography doesn't always have to be centered and straight, i often prefer it on a side and rotated a little. you can easily rotate typography by selecting the layer(s) and hitting ctrl + T. you can also play with the skew and pespective after hitting ctrl + T by right clicking the canvas and clicking on either. these will give different ways to move your text.

SIZING

i love playing around with different font sizes, it makes the typography more interesting in my opinion, and it's a way to emphasize some words.

so for that reason i usually put each word on a different layer so i can edit each word separately. sometimes i will also put each letter on a different layer, because it can be interesting to offset/rotate some letters sometimes (example) (another example).

i often pair a quite small serif or sans serif font with a much bigger funky font (example). and often that bigger font will also have different sized words (example). i play around a lot with this!

ADDED EFFECTS

there are some things than can be done to enhance typography:

adding a colorful rectangle block behind the text (example)

using text symbols such as quotation marks or backets (example)

using lines around the text (example) (another example)

these can definitely bring typography to a different level

MORE RESOURCES

great font website

usergif's typography tag

my fonts tag

this is all i can think of right now, i hope it helps :D if you have any question on a specific text effect let me know, i can definitely make a tutorial!

[nicknelosn]

SHATTERED/EXPLODING TEXT tutorial

hiyaa! @krystaljungs asked me for a tutorial on how i made the shattering/exploding animation of the text in this gifset and so i figured i would make it and post it here, like i did with the tutorial for "falling" text.

i must warn you, this one is really tedious and requires a lot of time and patience. honestly maybe there is an easier way to do this but i didn't find any tutorials for when i needed it so i just went off my ps knowledge and did it myself.

note: you will need photoshop with a timeline!

STEP ONE: create your base gif! be mindful of number of frames in your gif. the number of frames doesn’t really matter here, but if your gif is bigger than 10mb and you have to go back to adjust it all again after you have to delete some layers....you might lose the will to live 😂

STEP TWO: make your text the way you want it to look. this effect is basically the last step of your gif making process. (i will be using the typography from my set as an example as i already have that psd saved)

this is what my typography looks like now.

STEP THREE: now, you will create a new file (with background) and transfer the text you want to "shatter" in it.

here is when things get tedious.......

tip: zoom in the document, it will be easier for you.

select polygonal lasso tool aka this

STEP FOUR: before you start, you need to rasterize type layer. then you will have to "shatter" every letter into smaller pieces. using polygonal lasso tool, select a smaller part of your first letter.

then you will click on that part with the right click of the mouse and selct layer via cut.

now you need to make sure that your new layer is selected and using the move tool move that part of the letter somewhere away.

you will have to do this for every part of the letter and every letter. also move every new layer on top of other layers because they will line up better later like that. then create a new folder with every layer of said layers and rename it after the letter you're shattering. see below. (idk why my screenrecord didn't catch me making layers via cut but you should do that after the use of polygonal lasso tool, as stated above)

note: feel free to şelect parts of other letters as you get one letter, for an even better effect.

this is what i have after "shattering" every letter. the lineup doesn't have to be perfect as you will arrange these parts in your main document. (click on images for full view)

STEP FIVE: go back to your main document and make sure the visibility of your text is turned on.

what you will do now is open the shattered text in the new window and transfer letter by letter (letter folders) to your main document. BUT after you transfer every folder, you need to rasterize EVERY layer and convert it to a smart object. i made an action for this part to make it easier. download here.

(okay i really don't know why my screenrecord doesn't show "pop-up" windows but i was moving the C folder from the document where i shattered the text and then used my action on every layer)

after you transfer the folder to your main document and rasterize and convert to smart object, select the folder and use Free Transform to move it so it aligns with the letter from your complete typography. then you will select each layer and align it with the typography. see below. (click on the gif, i made it bigger so you can see better)

i did this one hastily so the recording wouldn't be too long but i'm hoping you can see what i'm doing.

now, do this for every letter.

after that is done, make the original typography layer invisible, and you should have something like this

STEP SIX: another really tedious part BUT it's time to animate the text.

make your timeline space bigger so it's easier for you to work with it. then select the first layer and click on the arrow next to it (in timeline) so Transform is revealed to you.

now, you don't want the animation to start from the very beginning of the gif, but a bit later so the text is readable before it shatters.

for example, i did mine like this, but that is your personal preference.

note: make sure that all animations start at the same time.

tip: do this for all layers in one folder before you transform them, as it will go faster.

STEP SEVEN: bring the playhead (blue arrow with the red line) to the end of your gif and select one layer in timeline.

now it's time to transform it. use Free Transform (windows shortcut ctrl+T) and drag the part a bit away and rotate it. press enter.

okay ignore the way my text moved upwards, i used the text i used in my edit and i did that animation in the upper part of the gif and i was too lazy to redo the whole animation lmaoo but i hope you can see what i'm doing with the letter C.

do this for every letter. play around with placing and rotation. then save your gif. when you're done, you should have something like this.

again, i was too lazy to redo the whole thing on this new gif so i'm using the one from my gifset i linked in the beginning.

i hope this was understandable and helpful. if you have ANY questions, don't hesitate to shoot me an ask or dm me! i'm always here to help <33

[k00297230]

Graphic Design 4

Hello you loquacious lollipops!

On Friday we spent some time on the computers designing a little book to convey what our project is all about.

I missed most of Thursday's workshop but i know they mostly folded paper, introduced the concept we did today and that I should research an artist who deals with paper. I'll try and catch up on this in the next post or the post after.

Anyhow, we went on Illustrator and divided our A3 (420mm x 297mm) page using guides. I also added a 10mm border around each page and numbered them in a way that when folded the book was in order. Lydia helped me with this as it was more explained in yesterday's class.

I realised I needed to design a cover and back cover page that were cohesive and matched my project so I immediately thought of one of my earlier designs. I added text and aligned both pages so that they would match up.

I used a Cooper Black Font because I thought it matched the rounder parts of the design but was still bold but I might change this. I might also rearrange the bottom text but I quite like the way it looks right now. I want to know what my tutors think first as I don't feel too confident with typography.

This is the back cover where the design matches the cover's as a continuation of it from the back. from my initial design where the box was in the middle, Sharon felt there would be more balance if it was at the end of the page, but with this I can still get that effect and meaning of the first design without throwing off the balance on the singular pages.

I realised I want a better picture of my girl on the swing to put in this but I didn't like any of the later ones I took so I went to photoshop. I was using the magic wand tediously to select every part until Lydia saved me with introducing me to masking. This sped up the progress of selecting things for me and although I was aware of it I didn't properly understand it until then. This made the whole cut-out process much easier.

Here is a picture of the book template layout and some of these assembled pieces in it. You can see how the pages are numbered and how some have to be upside down before the paper folds so it lines up. You can also see the guide on the first one to see how I divided up the page.

You can see I've also put in a bit of my character design work from animation where I also plan to put another bit of my Animation work into page 2. The next two would be Graphic Design and then the last two being Painting. I also added a line of text on each page or the ones I have done to tell that story of what my project's about.

I was also thinking of doing another one of these but with illustrations of my animation work and a designed book cover of my animation's story. It depends if I have the time because I still want to get more of my animation done.

[sirtadcooper]

12, 14, 16 ❤️

Hi there! Thank you for these questions - any excuse to ramble about editing.

12. What gifset made you feel the happiest to work on? (link)

There's perhaps some irony in this, but this edit of Crozier and Fitzjames. I was knee-deep in a Terror fixation at the time, and finally feeling inspired to make and edit after a few months of nothing. The idea I had for the edit is almost exactly what I ended up posting, which is unusual for me. I was able to locate good quality screencaps and cut out and colour what I needed to cut out and colour. I was happy because I was editing again, happy because the editing was going smoothly. The point of that edit is to make as many people cry as possible, but I had fun making it, and that's the main thing.

14. What gifset was the most difficult to make? (link)

This edit of Fourteen and Donna turned into a bit of a nightmare, actually, and not in a way that I expected. Two specials deep into the 60th Anniversary, I was very much in the mood to make a Doctor Who edit. I didn't really have an idea, but I coloured that promo photo of Donna and Fourteen and then fiddled around in Photoshop until I came up with the rotating galaxy idea. I did not know, however, that rotating a layer in Photoshop reduces its quality. I was animating the background by duplicating it and rotating the layer by one degree as I went along, leaving me with a stack of slightly different layers. By layer 40 the starry background was a blurry mess. I just didn't understand it. I had to delete all of my rotated layers, and I found another starry background, this time with light trails, but by layer 50 it was also a mess. I still don't know why that happened, but I realised that I could get away with rotating the light trailed stars by about 30 degrees and they looked like they were moving more than they actually are. The finished edit is only three frames or so.

16. Do you have a favourite gifset you made this year? (link)

I'm still very proud of this edit of Silver and Flint. The screencaps of the scene I wanted to use didn't lend themselves to being cut out and coloured very easily, so I decided to just use them as they were. I like the balance I managed to achieve between the two parts. I remember the struggle I had with the second half especially, trying to get that text to look right. When I finally came up with the idea of using the Gaussian blur and flickering animation on both Silver's "shadow" and the text I was over the moon. I think it looks great and also tells a story. I always try to shove as much symbolism into my edits as possible.

gifmakers (and editors) asks | send me an ask