I made a Tumblr gifset!

[sholio]

Baby's first gifset.

I finally broke down and paid for a year's subscription to the full version of Photoshop. Ever since I upgraded to a new computer that can't run my old CS2, I've been getting by with Elements, but I'm doing more covers and other pro stuff now that needs the full-featured program. So naturally I'm using it in a responsible, professional kind of way ... to make animated gifs of television characters.

I'm pretty happy with how it came out, although I should have cropped the third one so you can see more of Jack's hand. That one was the first gif in the set that I made, though, and I did a ton of editing to it, so I don't think it bothers me enough to start over from scratch making a new one. (Foolishly, I didn't save any of the intermediate, pre-cropping stages.)

One thing I've noticed making Agent Carter vids, and it's also true of gifs, is that the first season is so desaturated compared to the second season, almost sepia-toned. You have to really lighten and saturate it to get it to match ...

Comments

[naye]

OMG sorcery! Moving pictures! XD

Looks great! This is a dumb question because I'm sure there are a hundred tutorials out there, but as a fellow gif newbie - what steps did you take to get these? How did you capture the many images you needed? (Is this something I need the source on my computer, I think is what I'm asking.) I just got Photoshop when I cracked and paid for Lightroom, and for Reasons (ie shiny new fandom) I find the possibility of gifs much intriguing!

[sholio]

IT IS NOT A DUMB QUESTION AT ALL. This was probably the thing that baffled me about making gifs for YEARS. I had to ask someone about it. I thought there must be some sort of complicated alchemy involving screencaps. BUT NO! Photoshop is capable of importing a video clip and converting it into a file in which each frame is a layer (which you can then edit, crop, etc like normal images), and then taking those layers and exporting them as the frames of an animation. I imagine you can do it in other ways, but that is BY FAR the easiest; everything you need to do it is built right into the program.

... however, this does mean you'll need source.

Because I make vids, I already have programs for making clips. If you don't have that, it might be harder. However, if you can get hold of the video from anywhere (youtube, downloaded files, etc) Photoshop does let you trim your clips right there in the import window. The command you want is Import -->Video Frames to Layers, and then it brings up a window that lets you select your video and use the sliders to trim it. (My first mistake: taking a clip that was too large. The first clip I tried to import was about a minute and a half. Photoshop choked on that so hard that I had to force-quit and restart. XD After that I stuck to cutting my clips down so they were only a few seconds long.)

You should definitely try it if you can get hold of the video files! It was frustrating at times, because Photoshop's interface for making layers into frames and vice versa is kind of clunky, so I kept accidentally clicking things that made everything not work and then going "why are all the options grayed out, THIS IS A TERRIBLE HOBBY AND I WANT TO STAB SOMETHING", but once I got the hang of it, it was super fun and I am definitely going to make more. :D

[naye]

Oooh that's all really handy!

Of course, I'm still at step 1: get video source. But once that's done, the rest sounds like it won't be too impossible (just frustrating).

[sholio]

Good luck with it, though! :D I hope you try it! It's a useful skill to have in fandoms that are regrettably lacking in good gifs. (Which my current one isn't, really, but there are some small fandoms I may have to use this newfound skill on ... XD)

A useful link: Tumblr dashboard sizes. This was the most useful link I found when I was trying to figure out what size to make these things! If you do get to a point where you want to make them, and have any questions, I'll be happy to help - for whatever help I'll be. :D

[naye]

It's been over a month but I finally did it! I found a program called Instagiffer that does what it says on the tin - it's very basic but lets you capture frames from streaming/on-screen video even if you don't have the whole file. And then you can open them in Photoshop and do the stuff you wrote about above and I have and it's so much fun~! Yay new skill!

[sholio]

eeeee that looks SO GOOD!! You make gifs and they are EXCELLENT gifs!