I’m going to be explaining the way that I find easiest to gif and also, the way that doesn’t make my computer lag like the other ways do. I’m going to be going into a lot of detail so this is going to be really long! I’ve also never seen a tutorial on how to make gifs the way that I do so that’s one of the main reasons I’m making this. Please like/reblog if you find this useful because this literally took me two hours to make.
You’ll need:
- Photoshop (I’m using CC)
Steps:
- Clipping the video
- Getting the frames
- Cropping/resizing
- Sharpening
- Coloring
- Subtitles
- Saving your gif
Before we start, you need to figure out what it is that you would like to gif! I always make my gifs from either 720p or 1080p videos, no matter what. A good site to download shows/movies is kickass.to, you’ll need bitTorrent to be able to download anything, though. Or if you’re wanting to download a YouTube video, then I suggest videograbber for that. After you’ve got your video file that you would like to use, you can move forward to step one.
STEP ONE: CLIPPING THE VIDEO
Our first step is going to be clipping the video. I want you to open photoshop and go to File > Open and open the video you want to gif. For my tutorial, I’m going to be using the movie Goblet of Fire. Once you open the file, it should look something similar to this:
Okay, now we’re going to cut the video for the scene that we want to gif. To do this, you’re going to be using the “Split at Playhead” button to get rid of the scenes that we don’t want. The thing highlighted in red is the button:
Now to get to clipping the actual video. You’re going to need to find the scene that you would like to gif, it can be whatever you’d like it to be. I’m going to be using the scene where Harry and Hermoine are talking. To move along and find the scene that you’re looking for, you’re going to need to use this tool (I have no idea what it’s called so I’m just going to refer to it as the “Blue tick mark”)
You are literally just going to drag the blue tick mark to where you would like your gif to start (you may want to do it right before your scene though so you get all the frames) and then use the split at playhead button.
I found the scene that I’m going to be using now that I’m there and I have the blue tick mark where I would like the gif to start, I’m going to hit the playhead button that I’ve mentioned a few times. Once you do that, it should look something similar to this because you’ve split the video in two.
Also if you look in your Layers menu on your right (don’t worry if you don’t know what I’m talking about, I’m about to should you a screenshot of it). There should be two video files now which should match the file that has been split by the blue tick mark above.
See how “Layer 1″ and “Layer 1 copy” match in the two screenshots above? Now, I want you to delete the very bottom file in your layer menu. Just click the layer and then click the little trash can button at the bottom of the layer menu.
Once you do that, it’ll delete from the timeline as well so you’ll only have the second file on there. Now we’re going to do the same thing but we’re going to be finding the end of the gif. Watch the video until you get to where you would like for your gif to end (try to keep it short), now you’re going to split at playhead once again and then this time, you’re going to delete the top later which is labelled as “Layer 1 Copy 2″ or something similar.
Yay, you have officially clipped the video for the gif! Now we’re going to be moving onto getting the frames in order to make the gif!
STEP TWO: GETTING THE FRAMES
We are now onto step two which is going to be getting the frames which you need to make the gifs. First things first, we are going to need to do the following (make sure that your file is highlighted in the layer menu like this)
Once you’ve done that, then you’re going to need to do this: click the button in the top right hand corner of the timeline menu. Then you’re going to need to go to Convert Frames > Flatten Frames into Clips.
It may take a moment to do this but once it’s done, your layer menu will be filled with several frames. Once you notice you have your frames, click the Convert to Frames Animation tool (where the big arrow is pointing to)
Click on the little button you clicked on earlier in the timeline menu. Then I want you to Make Frames From Layers.
Delete all of your excess frames that you do not want. I suggest trying to keep your gif under 80 frames. Make sure you delete all the matching excess layers in the layers menu, as well!
STEP THREE: CROPPING AND RESIZING
Crop your video to whatever size you’d like. To do this, you’re going to need to click on this, which is the cropping tool:
Then you just drag around the little things untill you get to the size that you would like your gif to be. After you do that, hit enter and crop your gif.
Now that your gif is cropped, we need to resize it. To do so, go to Image > Image Size and then type in your width.
For photosets, I would suggest using the following sizes:
- 500px: Single Gifs
- 245px: Gifsets with two gifs aside one another
- 160px: Gifsets with three gifs aside one another
I’m using the size 245px for the gif I’m making. For the next thing, you can either color your gif first or you can sharpen it. I’m going to sharpen it.
STEP FOUR: SHARPENING
Now that your gif is resized, we are going to sharpen it so that it just looks nicer and much more HD. To do this, you’re going to be converting your frames back to timeline (I know this seems excessive but yeah) Anyway. click the option in the far right hand corner of the timeline menu and select “Select All”. After you’ve done this, go and select all your layers in your layers menu. To do this, click the first frame and then scroll down to the last one and while holding shift, click the last frame (this will select all off the layers)
Now click “Convert to Video Animation”
Then go to Filter > Convert for Smart Filters. You may have an error pop up, just go ahead and hit okay.
Now to actually sharpen the gif, go to Filter > Sharpen > Smart Sharpen.
Input the settings you would like to use, I suggest these. After you choose your smart sharpen settings, hit okay and then that’s done.
STEP FIVE: COLORING
Okay, I’m not going to go into major detail when it comes to coloring because there are hundreds of tutorials in this tag. Anyway, I’m going to be just dragging a PSD to the top of the file. I suggest looking through our psd tag and finding one you think will work or you can look through our coloring tutorials which is listed in the tag above. Just pull the PSD on top of the gif in the layers menu.
Open your PSD and then drag it so that it’s in a separate window. Then drag the coloring from the PSD onto your gif.
Now your gif is colored!
STEP SIX: SUBTITLES
Okay, this is optional but if you want text on your gif then you’re probably going to want to follow this. To add text to your gif. select the text tool.
Hold down from the far left of the gif and then drag all the way to the opposite side, this will make your text center!
Now your text box should look like this! Type whatever you want to and you can even adjust the height with the little handles if you want. These are my text settings btw:
Your text may look a little plain and is hard to read like mine does so to change that we are going to add a few things to it! To do this, go over to your layers menu and double click the text layer until this pops up:
We want to add “Stroke” and “Drop Shadow” so tick both of those boxes. These are the settings I use for the two.
Much better with the stroke and drop shadow, right? Anyway, now we are going to go and save the gif.
STEP SEVEN: SAVING YOUR GIF
Go to File > Save for Web and use these save settings:
Also, make sure your timing is set to forever and not just once!
You’re also going to want to make sure that your gif is no larger than 2MB, so look in the bottom left hand corner of the save screen (should look similar to whats in the screenshot above) and make sure that it’s under the 2MB. If it’s not, then you’re going to want to go back and delete a few frames to make the file size smaller.
Your gif looks like this which you may notice is a tad too fast so you’re going to want to open your gif back up in photoshop and change the timing.
Click the option in the far right hand corner of the timeline menu and select “Select All”. Now click on one of the times on one of the gifs and then hit other:
I’m going to change my delay to .05 but you can do whatever you prefer.
This is your final product, your gif should now be good to go!
If you have any questions, message me on my persoanl blog because I’m not an admin on this blog so I cannot see the questions asked.