#and as always please ignore the quality I'm not a gifmaker I'm just here for a good time

[trophywifemac]

IT'S ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA S02E07 || S10E08

Dennis and Sweet Dee passing out because of their vanity not eating for days

[tls123]

Sorry if I bother you, but I really love your gif sets! Do you know some tutorials or, app, or anything, to learn how to make good gif? I am learning and I feel very stupid because all my gifs are shit. (if my ask is inappropriate or anything, please ignore me)

you're not bothering and none of this is inappropriate, you're more than welcome in my inbox! as for your questions, let's see what i can do.

1) tutorials — i've been doing this for long enough that i don't really have much to recommend here, the only tutorials i use nowadays are all about specific things and not how to make gifs as a whole. that being said i've linked this one before, i personally do some things differently but it's a very good tutorial, well-received by gifmakers who are just starting and well written, from what i've skimmed through.

another good post to look through is this one, not a gifmaking tutorial per se but it goes into sizes, sharpening, and how to get neat & clear gifs. two of the main points are A) while you can get away with making gifs out of a 720p quality video, 1080p is what is usually recommended. you could use 4k as well, but a 1080p video is usually easier to find, will take less space in your storage, and will give you really good results already. no need for overkill <3 as for B) size matters here on tumblr dot com, mostly width. the op of the post linked in this paragraph has included a nice graphic for the size limits for gifs, you can refer to it as you make your gifs so that whatever you make won't turn out pixelated once you upload it to tumblr.

if you're curious, i've been asked about my sharpening settings here and i spoke before on tumblr sizing here

2) software — you mentioned app, if by app you mean mobile stuff then i'm sorry, i can't help you! i've never made gifs through mobile and i wouldn't even know which direction to point towards for you to find more information. as for computers, if you mean programs then these are what i use to make my gifs: potplayer (for taking screencaps) and photoshop cc 2020 (for making the actual gifs, this is the post i used but here's one with more links)

now i'd like to mention something my grandma always used to say: no one is born learned. you're not stupid just because it's taking you a while to do something, learning is a process and everyone has their own pace. i've been making gifs for a decade now and i know there are things i could do better! i'm also still learning, i make plenty of "shit" gifs before stumbling my way to something i am okay with posting, and sometimes i'm really proud of what i've made and other times i think it's just "good enough". i understand feeling disheartened but please do not feel stupid about any of this!

no use in putting yourself down, now hold my hand and let's add the finishing touches on this long ass reply <3

3) tips — we've mentioned video quality, sharpening, and sizing. what else, what else. personally i would start simple (and i did, way back when, and still do!! most of my gifs are quite simple). so: cropping/resizing + coloring + sharpening. it'll help get the basics down and then you'll have a good foundation for everything else you might want to learn. i mentioned in another ask, almost two years ago now lmao, that i used to download other people's free psds (that is, pre-made settings and layers to color your gifs) and instead of using them i would open them up and pick them apart to see how people were coloring things, which layers they used, in which order, stuff like that.

remember: there is no right or wrong to do this! you could ask ten different people how they make their gifs, and their preferences for any specific part of the process, and you'd get ten different answers. if you find a tutorial and don't vibe with it, throw that aside and look for another. pick and choose, find what works for you and what doesn't! and that means do not be afraid to experiment and try things out.

also, don't like photoshop? no problem! i started with gimp, now personally i wouldn't recommend it over ps but it's a good program, it taught me a lot, and there's really nothing to hate about it. it might have less functions than ps though, and already a decade ago there weren't that many tutorials/resources for it.

don't like photoshop AND don't want to download a program? try photopea, i haven't used it but it works directly from your browser and it should do everything photoshop does!

let me know if there's anything else i can help with <3

[thewanderingace]

Okay I need to vent about something for a second and I'm putting it under a read more so you can all just ignore it. Really. Ignore this. It's about the updates to the site that Tumblr has announced via the changes page like this and specifically about gifmaking on this site.

So first is this that the changes blog shared here

I got so excited when I saw this on the changes page! Finally I can rearrange my gifs when uploaded using the fucking beta editor which I hate so much! I much prefer using the original editor. It's faaaar superior. Better photo/gif arrangement and it doesn't break up everything into separate blocks making it impossible to select a large portion of text to copy or delete. The beta post editor makes it so you have to it one block at a time and I fucking despise it. But if I don't use the beta editor to post my sets then I can't use the edit button on mobile and sometime (a lot of times) I need to do that.

But I digress. Anyways, I checked it out and yes I can now upload all my gifs at once and rearrange them but my god it is the most un-userfriendly version ever! It still sucks so much! When you select a gif to move it stretches out the set and then you can't even tell where it is you're putting the gif you are attempting to move. And it doesn't always work properly and sometimes it just fucks everything up. It's so frustrating!!

So I still despise the beta post editor and then, while super annoyed by this still, Changes posts this:

I am irrationally upset about this.

Why is tumblr continuing to make things 10x harder for gifmakers on this fucking site!? I do not want my gifs to be forcibly changed to looping mp4s. I work hard on my gifs, I work hard on the editing and arranging and coloring. So now that won't matter because they're gonna be turning into ugly ass mp4s?

And I have so many questions about this! Like, they just drop this with no explanation at all?

What do they consider to be "pages with a lot of GIFs"?? Do they mean every single fucking fandom blog on this site? Cause there are a lot and they are full of hundreds of gifset! Like my own blogs! Or do they just mean the search and specific tag tumblr pages? If it changes one of my gifsets into several looping mp4s instead of several gifs will that fuck up the arrangement of the gifs or will they remain in the order I put them in? As of right now only one video is allowed per post so how does that work with gifsets? Will this degrade the quality of the edit? Will it compress them like it did when they switched all of our .gifs into .gifvs? Or when they changed the dimensions? And if the tag search is considered "a lot of GIFS" but my post or my blog isn't will it be an mp4 on the search but a gif on my blog? Or will it change it to an mp4 on everything? How will they determine any of that? How does any of that work? Can we opt out of this force change? How do you even make a looping mp4??? If this change is a permanent no choice we're changing them all sort of thing do I need to learn how to make looping mp4s???

I just...

I hate this so much. Please for the love of god do not turn my gifs into stupid looping mp4s. Please just leave things as they are. Fix actual problems instead of changing things like this. Please.

I understand that this might make things load a little faster but what I don't think staff understands is the difference between gifmaking on tumblr vs other social media sites. On other sites, gifs are used as single image reactions. Gifsets and gifset edits do not exist on other social media sites. They only exist here. And this website keeps making it more and more impossible to make them. Only one is allowed to posted at once and they used as reaction images. And sure tumblr uses single gif reactions too but for the most part gifs are an art form. Gif makers create entire sets that are meant to be viewed together. They created big beautiful overlaid edits that could not and should not be used on places like twitter or instagram. Because those sites are not made for them!! Tumblr was!! If you turn all the gifs into mp4s it destroys the whole point of a gif. I've read do many stupid articles about how gifs are useless now because videos load faster bit they don't take into account the beautiful edit work that goes into tumblr gifmaking. What we want here on tumblr is not faster loading but gargage quality reaction images. We make high quality large edits. There is a difference.

I don't know what to do with this information and change upsets me and I am upset about this. Gifmaking is one of my favorite things to do. I love making gifs. It's creative and calming and fun but everything tumblr does lately seems like it's trying to kill this for us and that upsets me greatly.

[supertam87]

How are you still a fan of Sam after all he's let happen to the fandom and to shippers in his name? You haven't personally been hurt by it so is it easier for you to ignore and pretend none of it ever happened? I'm struggling with my feelings about him and would love your insight.

As I have always said, I fan how I choose, and do my best to allow others the same privilege. If anyone reading this thinks I am talking about you, I promise you, I’m not.

I am sorry that there are people in the fandom who feel hurt. Its a shame that that was the result of something that should have been a fun and light-hearted experience. Please, however, don’t make assumptions, even posed as a question, such as ‘You haven’t personally been hurt by it so is it easier for you to ignore and pretend none of it ever happened?’ You don’t know what I have and haven’t been hurt by in this fandom, or by whom. I’m not pretending or ignoring anything. But I’m also not letting things have more presence in my life than they deserve.

You ask how I can still be a fan of Sam. First of all, I don’t believe that Sam did anything to fans, or allowed anything to be done to fans. I’ll talk more about that later. Even if I believed Sam did do something, that still doesn’t require me to stop supporting him. There is no one on this earth who has ever hurt me as deeply as my husband. No one has ever hurt him as deeply as I have. We don’t set out to hurt each other, but life is messy and people are imperfect. This is why I work every day of my life to practice the brutally hard art of forgiveness. Forgiveness isn’t an ‘If/Then’ equation. It’s not, ‘If this person is submissive and humble and admits all of their faults, then I will forgive.’ Forgiveness is a single party activity that is not dependent on any other person’s actions or opinions. I can forgive my husband when he hurts me because I choose to, whether or not he has asked for forgiveness. Forgiveness is for me, not him. Forgiveness makes me a better, happier, stronger person, more in control of my life. Let me ask you a question: Why would I NOT forgive my husband? Why would I hold on to anger, hurt or frustration? How would it benefit me? What would I get out of it? Heartburn, high blood pressure, anxiety - I don’t need more of that in my life. Besides, I know my husband is a really, really excellent man. His list of positive qualities is miles long. But he is imperfect, as am I. I forgive him, he forgives me, we focus on being better, learning from our mistakes and reveling in the soul fulfilling joy we find in each other. That is not ignoring or pretending, that is choosing our own happiness and health in spite of the messiness that is sharing life with another human. We are all responsible for our own happiness and happiness is a choice. My life is far from perfect and far from easy, but I am a generally happy person because I choose to be. Even if he did do something which hurt me (he didn’t), I can choose to forgive and move on. How can I still be a fan of Sam? Because I choose to be.

You ask how I can still be a fan of Sam after all he’s let happen to the fandom. He didn’t let anything happen to the fandom. We are not some unified group who get together each month and read the minutes and faithfully follow the bullet items on the agenda. Fandoms are very fluid bodies. There is no entrance exam, or document to sign, no oath to swear or dues to pay. People come and go as they please with no explanation due anyone at any time. Therefore, there is no control over what happens in a fandom at any given time, and my perception of this fandom is completely different from another fan, who may not be on Tumblr, but is on Twitter, or who is on Tumblr, but we have no followers in common. There are the Instagram fans, the Facebook fans, the multi-platform fans, the book group fans - and in each of these areas there are subsets of fans such as fanart, fanfiction, shipper, non-shipper, gifmaker, video maker, live tweeter, sam fan, cait fan, toby fan, graham fan, duncan fan, etc, etc, etc. There are thousands upon thousands of people who consider themselves part of this fandom. There are subsets of this fandom I probably haven’t even conceived of. We couldn’t possibly all share the same experiences, even in the same fandom, because there is simply too much diversity on every possible level. Therefore it is literally impossible for anything to happen to the fandom. You believe that something terrible happened to the shippers, but not even that is possible. Who are the shippers? Am I one, do you know how I categorize myself? We are all in control of our own experience. Sometimes that means not engaging or blocking, muting, ignoring, biting your tongue and generally not paying attention to people who don’t deserve your attention. It’s not Sam’s job to tutor us all about how to successfully fan, and it’s not his job to soothe ruffled feathers when one person hurts another person. How could he even begin to know? There are two sides to every story, so even if he was made aware of one side, what about the other side? We are adults. Our problems are our own. Not his. He has enough problems.

Again, you ask how can I still be a fan of Sam after everything that was done in his name. I don’t buy it. I refuse to hold Sam liable for other people’s actions. They are responsible for those actions. I am a Christian. I do not condone the thousands of years of atrocities that have been and continue to be committed in Jesus Christ’s name. I’m pretty sure He doesn’t either. I’m pretty sure Mohammed and Allah and myriad other well known figures don’t condone what was/is done in their names. I also believe that you are making assumptions about what Sam has condoned and what he hasn’t, what he knows and what he doesn’t and what his responsibilities are. Some people see malice where others see sarcasm. Some see apathy where other’s see focus directed somewhere else. We simply don’t know what has gone on behind the scenes, or what people really felt, thought or did. If someone was a horrible bully or troll (and there were several someones) that is on them. They made bad decisions. Really bad decisions. I do know that no one was required to engage with anyone else on Twitter or any other platform. Lucky for me, it isn’t my job in life to judge other people. My job is to do my best to be a good person and be good to other people. I believe we should try to lead by example. I am a fan of Sam because I don’t believe he did anything or allowed anything to be done to fans.

Do you really want to know why I am still a fan of Sam? You think you’ve been hurt by him, or someone associated with him? You think this has caused great distress in your life? Maybe it has. Here is something I know about Sam. His dad left him when he was three. Three years old. I have four kids. I know intimately what it’s like to have a three year old. I know how much they need. I know what it takes to raise a boy to manhood. It’s not easy. Sam had no contact with his dad. None. No advise, no outings, no support, no role model. He had no father. I’m sure this hurt him deeply and continues to hurt him. After years of absolutely no contact with his father, they were reconnected. His dad was dying of cancer. He did not push him away, tell him to die alone, tell him that he left so there could be no relationship, or any of a million other things he could have done. He chose the higher path. He traveled to see his father. He truly connected with him. He learned about him. He go to know him. He offered him love and support as this flawed man was dying. In short, he offered at least some form of forgiveness. I’m sure it was hard for him. I’m sure there were many horrible things he wanted to say. Maybe he did say them. But we know from his own words that it didn’t end on a horrible note. It ended on a positive, healing, healthy note. That’s pretty remarkable and admirable. That’s just one example out of many that illustrate why I think Sam is worthy of my attention. He is a good man. He is generous with his time, talent and wealth. He cares about people and he isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty in the process of helping others.

You are absolutely not required to be a fan of Sam. It’s a supremely optional activity. But my question for you is why would I NOT be a fan of Sam? I have yet to hear a single person give me even one legitimate reason why I shouldn’t be a fan, considering that I should probably hold him to the same standard to which I hold myself. We’re both pretty flawed, messy humans. Isn’t life grand?