#sometimes you need to make a low quality gifset

[userparamore]

THE STARLING GIRL 2023 | dir. Laurel Parmet

[demivampirew]

Welcome to my Ted Talk

Hi! Hope you’re having a great Sunday! With that being said, let’s begin...

This morning I was scrolling through Henry’s tag on my phone and I saw this post (I took an screencap)

As you can see, this person posted one of my gifs -which has its own post on my blog, so I don’t see why couldn’t just reblog it instead of posting it -and of course, I haven’t been approached by her/him/they to ask me for permission either.

This isn’t the first time this has happened. Some time ago, a blogger even posted an entire gifset of mine - I don’t mean that said person made a gifset with different gifs of mine but posted an entire gifset just like I posted it.

Now, you probably wonder if I approach said bloggers to asked them to take those post down or if I reported it to Tumblr and the answer is no for both. First, my introverted ass feels like I’d be a diva if I go to someone to asked them to erase the post -like I feel like they’d see me as if I think so highly of myself or something like that or just as a bitch. And for sure I did not report them because I know how much a blog can mean to someone and I’d not like them to be flagged because of a, probably, innocent mistake.

The reason I’m making this post is not to call out people who had posted it gifs that weren’t made by them but to educate people on why is not cool to do so.

When I joined the Tumblr Cavillry months ago (I have had this Tumblr for almost a decade but I turned into a Henry blog), I saw someone sharing their frustration about how gif makers got upset about them posting their gifs and thought that people how created gifs thought too highly of ourselves and that they were just gifs and that we should get over ourselves.

Gifs aren’t “just gifs”. If you’re a person who’s never made a gif in your life, you could think that is an easy process, but let me tell you that you’re wrong: making a gif is a process that sometimes could take hours. You have to cut the video part to part to create the gif, and then edit the layers - because there’s a limit of MB on Tumblr, so it cannot pass that limit or the gif won’t work- and then fix the lighting, etc. Lots of times, you only find low-quality videos and you have to put extra work to make the gifs as high quality as you can. You have to correct the timing so they won’t move too fast or too slow -unless that’s your goal-. When you cut the image, to make gifs of a specific part (for example, the Henry gifs where I cut out the computer) you have to put extra work to make sure that they’re all the same size.

In my case, when I’m working with a long video -like movies-, I open another program to cut the part I want to make gifs of and then I go to Photoshop to create them.

Believe me, to create gifs you have to put more work than you’d think of.

I don’t search praise; I don’t want people to “kneel” before me and say how great I am and things like that. And I’m sure that’s the case with most gif makers. What I want is for people to acknowledge the hard work someone put on those gifs and don’t act like you have the right to do the f*ck you want because you can.

Now, I made a post - that probably lots of people have not seen (clearly, because I still see my gifs in Twitter/Instagram)- about the rules of the material I share so I’ll post the link to it below.

https://demivampirew.tumblr.com/post/621907702782787584/demivampirew-things-im-ok-with-regarding-the

I’d like to remark the fact that I do not mind when people use my gifs as reaction gifs, for stories and for appreciation posts (It only matters me like in the case above in which people post my gifs just to post my gifs) - and when people use my gifs for the reasons I say I allow, you don’t need to credit me - although I’d appreciated a lot if you did when you used them for stories and appreciation posts - as reaction gifs are not necessary).

Ok, thanks for listening (reading). That’d be the end of my talk.

Have an awesome day!

[hoedameron]

i’m making this post rather early because i really don’t have anything to do right now (well, i want to make a gifset pero like...i need to emotionally prepare myself hehe).

i’m gonna be honest with y’all: i only started watching this show a few weeks ago. the only episodes i’ve ever seen are from the final season + a few episodes from previous seasons but i haven’t caught up with it. i didn’t feel bad for making this gifset knowing that i don’t have any real emotional attachment to the finale but i did really enjoy it!! one of the better series finales i’ve seen and i felt like they definitely left it on that note just in case any networks wanted to pick it up because now we have a new phoenix foundation that cut ties with the government and they now have their own agency. it felt right.

another gifset with text GOSH ain’t i’m dizzy yet? this time there were NO captions in this t0rrent which SUCKED because not only was it in 720p, it had the logo AND no captions -_- it was only when i was nearly finished the gifset did the 1080p version drop and i was like smdh....but i didn’t want to just...redo everything when i actually made 720p work in my favor. anyways, i had to write the captions down as i was listening (then going back to make sure i heard correctly) like super old school. i divided the scene into three (later four) video clips so i didn’t overwhelm the system (photoshop).

i wanted to go with a coloring that was vibrant but didn’t highlight the fuzziness and pixelization of the 720p video. because i also had to crop the logo, i was working with LESS which was like -_- whatever, we adapt. i used a coloring meant for thor: ragnarok scream and each gif has it’s own tweaks of brightness, contrast, levels...stuff like that. there are only two gifs that have the same coloring and that was because i was like...slapping it on because it was literally midnight can’t believe i was up that late making a gifset. i tend not to go into photoshop super late at night or else i will lose track of time...and i did. i uploaded that gifset at like 1 am?? GIRLY i didn’t even KNOW i was up that late.

of course i ran into major problems with the text and PLEASE do NOT look too closely at it. it was late, and yes the text aren’t lined up EXACTLY but it’s like a mere half or one full pixel off so to me they look “okay”. and that is coming from somebody who demands a level of perfection. then again i was sleepy and hungry so i was like yeah it’ll do. i think i like subtitles that are that low to the gif like the one above (the one above has a coloring i didn’t vibe with but looking at it now, it’s fine). i really need to find a way to make text easier and doesn’t make me wanna tear off a limb.

i did add in the second to last gif last minute because as i was creating the last gif of mac, i realized that the scene afterwards was worthy of including. so i went back to kmplayer to grab the clip after i uploaded the gifset to see what needed tweaking (four gifs because of the text alignment). ten gifs in total...one of the most work i’ve done in awhile. i am used to making like 15 gifs at a time when i was making aesthetic gifsets for prodigal son but some of those gifs do not see the light of day so making ten gifs that were for publishing...that was a lot. sharpening DEFINITELY saved the day in this gifset. i was working with subpar quality and i am thankful i nailed my sharpening <3 in total, i’m surprised it didn’t take too long but that is in terms of cropping, sharpening, coloring, and putting the text on the FIRST time. going back to make changes definitely took time pero i am happy with the end results.

at this point, notes are just notes and not an indication of my value as a gifmaker. if i like something, i’ll make the content i want to see. it’s a mindset in progress and i will definitely slip because i’m not always so good at praising my own content. hand in hand with comparing myself to others it’s always “they did this better, oh look what they did that elevates their set” so...yeah, working on it and i am grateful to all y’all for nudging me in the right path when i do self-deprecate though i should apologize for doing so. i am not looking for sympathy when i do say things like “oh, my gifs aren’t that great” nor am i not looking for you to agree with me....i just let those things slip subconsciously without thinking. it isn’t me fishing for compliments because in my mind i do believe it’s real but at the same time, i also know what i say is ridiculous sometimes. anyways, i’ll cut it here before i go off in a tangent. thank you for supporting my creating endeavors!

[homodnp]

creator tag

rules: It’s time to love yourselves! choose your 5 favourite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc.) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you brought into the world in 2019. tag as many writers/artists/etc. as you want (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome works!

thank you to the lovely @judearaya @outphan and @alittledizzy for tagging me!!

1. life is but a dream (fic)

an underrated lil baby of a fic, at least in my biased opinion. i’ve always found most comfort in understanding and using natural imagery, so although those lads never go outside i wanted to write a fic about what might happen on such an occasion. at the time it also didn’t help that i’d asked a friend of mine (whom i’ve liked for years) to go rowing together cus it was late summer and why the fuck not. we were making arrangements, but then she just stopped texting at all for two weeks and nothing came of it. it was rough, so i vented my heartbreak by imagining a universe where at least someone else could get the rowing date they wanted.

2. the king (fic)

again, this was a result of my own personal life - you guessed it: heartbreak! i was driving into town, healing over someone who had recently rejected me, listening to this fic’s song, and then i realised “this is like how i imagine phil felt in 2009 before oct 19.” because pining for someone who is sending mixed signals, pining for someone who seems confused even though in your eye there is no clearer answer? that is some relatable shit. writing this was largely therapeutic and helped me come to terms with my own situation, through exploring fic!phil’s feelings. because this fic was more than just surface pining: it is about all the insecurities, all the anger, all the panicking which comes with it. the key to it was that anyone reading it knows that things do turn out for the better and dan does choose phil, even if neither can see it now. so for myself, it was reassurance that when life hits rock bottom there’s only one way up, that the present does not reflect the future. but at the same time, even if things are destined to improve, it is beyond your knowledge and your feelings now are still valid. you are allowed your anger and your sadness, but do not take it as the end.

3. ‘talk abt dnp love languages and the way they express them pleasee’ (meta)

back in days of old when i got anons, sometimes i did a bunch of interpretation/analysis stuff, and this was probably my favourite to write. i don’t have much to say about it here other than that it’s something i’ve seen people discuss at length and i hopped on the opportunity to give my two cents on it lol

4. ‘you are the drum!’ (gifset)

my first ever gifs, the day i got photoshop completely legally *cough*. are they good quality, rich in technique? fuck no! was i, and am i still, pleased with them? fuck yes! especially because if every phannie were to have a ‘niche’ in what phandom stuff they like to indulge in, phil being a fond guy is definitely mine. :’)

5. first impressions (gifset)

for what is probably one of my favourite gaming vids of theirs ever, my second of two gifsets i’ve done so far - i would have done more but i have legit no idea what i’m doing wrong that makes them so low-definition. each gif was also more saturated than the one before, which i did not intend. oh well, i am not a good gifmaker and i own it! (but send me all your tutorials please, i need ‘em!)

overall?

the reason i only included two fics in this list is because they are my only two so far. i want to do a lot more fic-posting - you will not believe the number of wips i have in my fic GD folder right now. my 2019 has been absolutely chaotic which is why i haven’t posted much, in many ways i’m surprised i’ve got anything done at all lol. but it’s been a good year for me, definitely a brilliant one for the overall phandom. may 2020 be kind to us all. happy new year!

i am so sorry if i miss anyone, it’s just off the top of my head that i am tagging: @karcathy @elisethephangirl @phlanetary @toxicnebulaae-deactivated201912 @imdyingriprip @autumn-in-phandom @calvinahobbes @itsaravetree @throwing-roses-into-the-abyss @owodnp @incognitovampiregoblin

[softjeon]

Cinnamon and fairy dust | Pt. 1

• Pairing: elf!Jungkook x Taehyung • Genre: Fluff (with a little bit of angst) | elf!AU ( → Gifset Trailer) • Words: 7k | Co-Writer: Cat @cassiavioletblue​  • Disclaimer: mentioning of violence / smut 

↳  There are no things such as fairy tales, magical reindeers that could fly, fairies and Christmas elves - at least Taehyung believed so. But everything was about to change, when Jungkook offered him shelter from a snowstorm and a sweet, hot cocoa, wondering about the boy who hated Christmas so much. Nothing that a bit of fairy dust couldn’t fix, right?

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Kim Taehyung hated Christmas. He hated the social deception of claiming to be glad to see people whose names he’d happily forgotten. Suddenly everyone pretended to be nice, spending way too much money on presents for people they didn’t even like in the first place. He hated eggnog and one better not ask him about Christmas music. As a child it may have been full of wonders, but now it only was a dreadful time. Sometimes Taehyung wished that Santa Claus was real and bring them all the stuff, so he could maybe enjoy the day again. But of course, these things don’t happen. There are no things such as fairy tales, magical reindeers that could fly, fairies and Christmas elves who were Santa’s little helpers.

Taehyung gripped the steering wheel tight, his knuckles whitening for a second. God, how he hated it and the memories it evoked. He saw the village’s sign from afar. He wouldn’t have needed the lights of his car to see anyway. Every lamppost and streetlight was wrapped in garland and twinkle lights, ribbons and tinsels lighting the way.

Of course, he knew people who loved Christmas, for specific reasons. His mother did. Way too much. Closing the door of his car, he looked up. A bunch of Christmas ribbons looped up the stairs to her house, with a large tartan bow at each peak. Taehyung had suggested his mother to go with a more minimalistic look for the festive season this year, but no, she’d been adamant. ‘Tradition”, she’d called it and a pain in the butt, Taehyung called it. Either way, he had been forced out of the big city to come down here to celebrate Christmas. He couldn’t come last year due to his job, so his mother had come to him, but this year Taehyung couldn’t find a way around it and his mother was only getting older. She doesn’t like the long train rides anymore and she never learned how to drive a car.

Walking up to the stairs, he wrapped his scarf a little tighter around his neck. The weather suited a polar bear more than a person. But here he was, six days away from Christmas, getting greeted with eggnog and the smell of cookies. At least one good thing.

He loved cookies.

It didn’t take long for Taehyung’s mother to involve him in decorating the house even more, for a bunch of people, or just the neighbors who probably wouldn’t appreciate it. Except for his mother, of course. She loved this time of year with a childlike passion, right down to the snow.

Taehyung hated snow, just not as much as he hated Christmas in general. When the house finally looked festive enough, he sat down with a sigh, wrapping his hands around the cup of tea she brought him. He hadn’t got time to unpack, yet, wanting to finally settle in, when his mother was already ahead giving him a new task to do. Why are people so full of energy around Christmas? He rubbed the bridge of his nose, only to flash a smile towards his mother, when she turned to him.

“Could you bring this over to Mrs. Jung,” She said, pointing to a little bag before she was wiping her hands off the apron. She got her baking gloves on to get some more cookies out of the oven. “I promised her to bring her some,” She kept on talking, almost burning herself on the hot surface. Taehyung sighed deeply as he looked out of the window. Great, now he had to go out in the cold again.

At first the snow was falling in soft, heavy clumps and Taehyung hid his hands in his pockets, keeping his head low. He really didn’t want anyone to recognize him, yet. He would get enough of the ramblings over how tall or handsome he had gotten all through the next days. Taehyung could feel the wind howling around him, making him shiver and his ears got red and cold. The wind seemed to loom around him, holding its breath and waiting for him to go back inside, but he still needed to get the cookies to his mother’s friend.

Mrs. Jung lived on the other end of the village and since he had no bike around and wasn’t crazy enough to try and ride it with the heavy snow that was falling right now, he had to walk. Though Taehyung could have used the car, he felt it was a little unnecessary - now he regretted it.

There weren’t much people around and those who were still outside, kept hiding in their jackets, trying to get inside and hide, crawling into their beds with a mug of tea and an old movie. Just like he wanted to do so desperately. He was happy though that Mrs. Jung didn’t seem to have too much time for him right now, when Taehyung stood in front of her door. She squished his cheek once, cooing over how broad shouldered he was, making Taehyung cringe a little with the old lady, feeling him up but thankfully, she took the cookies with a smile and let him go back without even stepping into her house. Oh yeah, he hated small talk with a passion as well.

The snow was falling faster and heavier on his way back now. Taehyung huddled deeper inside down his jacket, the only sound audible right now was the snow itself, falling so fast that he could hear the strange sush of it accumulating. The snow began falling even harder as Taehyung walked up the hill. The sky was so dark and grim already, his boots sinking deep into the snow with every single step. And then it was getting windier and when Taehyung looked up from his feet again, the snow was blowing around like crazy.

“Fuck,” He cursed, realizing that the weather was turning into a big heavy snowstorm, maybe even a blizzard. It was getting harder for him to see what was in front of him, so Taehyung did the next best thing, that came into his mind.

The bell rang, making him flinch a little from the loud sound. Who used old bells in shops anymore to announce a new customer? Looking up, he eyed the weird, rusty looking thing before he was shaking off the snow off his shoulders. Taehyung didn’t even turn to see in what kind of shop he stumbled into, looking outside the window with furrowed brows right away. The owners probably didn’t mind anyways if he seeked shelter until the snowstorm calmed down a little. Right now, he couldn’t see his own hand in front of him. And on top of that he wasn’t really good with directions in general. He would even buy something if it was necessary. As long as he didn’t need to walk any further. “I hate this,” He mumbled more to himself than anyone else and only now did he turn around to see where he was.

Normally when the door opened Jungkook greeted his customers with a vibrant smile. He was amazing with assessing people and finding out what they needed to get into a perfect state of calm and relaxation for them to fully enjoy the festive mood and feel the spirit of Christmas. This way while the customers were getting accustomed to the interior of the shop Jungkookie normally already headed for a sugar cookie or some cacao nibs to give them for free and after that he could basically watch their eyes starting to shine. It was such a satisfying experience to make humans happy. This time however his greeting totally failed. Because the customer that came in didn’t even spare him or the shop a glance, he just barged in, slammed the door shut and then turned around to watch the snow.

“Uhm, h…hello,” Jungkook tried a friendly greeting nonetheless. He was a bit out of his depth now. He only very rarely had grumpy people in his shop. Normally people were already entranced by his beautiful window decoration or shop windows meaning they were usually pretty excited to get inside. Not this one though apparently, “May I help you?”

Taehyung couldn’t help but furrow his brows a little, looking the other up and down for a second. He had never seen that boy before and Taehyung basically knew everyone in this village. No one came here on their own will, you rather moved away - so it was rare to see new faces. Especially, cute looking ones with curly hair and eyes that you could get lost in right away.

Taehyung took a step closer, looking into Jungkook’s eyes more closely – it was almost like…he was stargazing. How was one’s person eyes so shiny? Shaking himself out of his thoughts, Taehyung put a little smile on his face. “Oh, I’m sorry I barged in like that...,” He coughed a little, his voice sounding rougher than usual, “The snowstorm…it’s turning into some kind of a blizzard and I couldn’t see where I was going anymore. Is it okay…if I stay here for a bit? Just until it calms down again?”

Jungkook took a little step back, blinking, when the boy stared at him like that. Normally people tried to be a bit politer and not stare directly at him whenever they were smart enough to notice that there was something off about him that they couldn't figure out right away. But this one knew no shame.

“Do I... Is there something on my face?” He shyly wiped over his cheek as he sometimes got lost in baking, getting flour or chocolate all over his cheeks. Then the other seemed to regain his manners and acted like humans were supposed to. Still Jungkook couldn’t help but stay a little wary. Only until the other got a taste of his baked goods or a sip of a warm beverage - that was spiced with a little magical as well. It was pretty normal to him and didn’t have any special effects but to humans it was like warmth and comfort and safety. It brought out the nicest memories and the best qualities. As if they could step in here and leave their sorrows outside, take a breath of fresh air, come back to themselves and be reminded that there was good in the world. That’s why Jungkook wasn’t scared to work amongst them. No one had ever harmed him here at the shop and even though Yoongi still argued with him about how this was unsafe and how he should come back to the forest his complaints have gotten less and less frequent when he had noticed how much joy it brought Jungkookie to make others happy. So, he tried his best to comfort his new customer as well, giving him his most beautiful smile. “Ah, of course! Please get yourself comfortable. Do you want something to drink? Something to eat as well? I’ve made cinnamon apple crumble cookies that must be ready every minute now. There’s nothing better than eating them while they’re still warm and fresh.”

Taehyung looked around the shop in interest, only when he noticed the Christmas decoration he scrunched up his nose a little but quickly gathered himself again. The smell of sugar, vanilla and cinnamon permeated the air so thick he could almost taste it as he let his gaze wander around the bakery he had stumbled into.

“Yeah, I can smell that,” He said as he walked over to one of the barstools to sit down. Taehyung got out his phone right away to see if he got any Wi-Fi connection but of course it was as low as it could be. He couldn’t even open his facebook. He ran his fingers through his hair, sighing deeply as he looked out of the window again. The weather was only getting worse and all Taehyung wanted was to get home and preferably on his laptop. Maybe he could still get some work done later – but right now it seemed like he would be stuck here for a little while.

Defeatedly, Taehyung stood up again just to get out of his jacket and whatever was making him feel awfully hot right now. It was way too warm in his thick clothes within this bakery. He rolled his shoulders back, adjusting his sweater a little before he sat down again.

Jungkook was left standing there, watching the guy a bit awkwardly who really didn’t seem to have any interest in sweets at all. But even then, one humans always enjoyed to get themselves something hot to drink if it was as cold and snowy outside as it was right now. So Jungkook was honestly pretty confused.

The other was checking the phone screen, typing frantically and sighing in disappointment, not sparing the carefully arranged mistletoes and branches of holly that the ceiling was decorated with any second glances. Jungkook almost pouted. But he didn’t give up that easily. Maybe the human just needed a nudge into the right direction. “So… can I get you something now? Anything?”

Taehyung looked at the other with big eyes for a second, before he realized that he hadn’t answered any of the bakers questions, “Oh, sorry…I didn’t say anything. I’m just…tired. I just got here a few hours ago. Not that you care, but yes…if you like…” He reached for his back pocket, getting out his wallet to see if he got any money with him. Unfortunately, Taehyung only had a few coins. He mostly paid with card, so he found carrying around loads of money unnecessary, but looking at the old big register Taehyung figured that he wouldn’t have much luck if he asked about paying with his credit card. “I guess, I’ll just take a hot cocoa, please,” Taehyung said, this time with a smile.

Jungkook simply nodded and went to the kitchen to get what Taehyung had ordered. Talking to the guy made him more and more confused. He had told him something personal and then said ‘why would you care’ as if Jungkook was faking interest. But why wouldn’t he care? Taehyung was his customer. He always wanted his customers to feel good. So how could the boy think that Jungkook wouldn’t care about his well being?

He shook his head to get out of his own thoughts and not mess with the recipe. Too much cinnamon in a cocoa that he made was unthinkable! He took pride in his natural talent for baking and creating any kind of treats and he always did his tasks with love, no matter if he’s had one or twenty customers before. When the cocoa was finished he added a little hint of glitter on top. He only dared to do so when he had seen edible glitter in the baking section of a supermarket. Before that he had been too scared someone would notice the pixie dust on their milk foam and his secret would be out in the open - but after time he realized he didn’t need to be scared of that. Even if he slips sometimes and talks a bit too much or reveals a little more than he wanted humans always find a rational explanation for what he had told them. It’s kind of cute how much they insist on magic not being real when on the other hand they have such a fascination for it, buying fantasy books and watching movies and playing dress up at least two times a year. Jungkook loved it, how humans are such a mystery to him, how he can try to figure them out and still learns something new every day.

He takes the cookies out of the oven and then places an especially nice one on the saucer before he brings it over to Taehyung. “There you go. Please enjoy.” He gives him another smile and then hurries back behind the counter to watch the magic enfold.

“Thanks,” Taehyung looked at the cookie with a little smile before taking the cup and taking a sip without looking at it much further. The hot beverage was warming his hands perfectly and Taehyung hummed when he tasted the sweet chocolate. Noticing the boy’s stare, he turned his body sideways on the stool, leaning his back against the wall in the process. “It’s really good,” He said, thinking that the other was waiting for some kind of approval. He sighed again, watching the snow fall outside – only that right now it seemed so far away. It was almost relaxing. Taehyung closed his eyes, licking his lips slowly.

Jungkook started to relax as well when Taehyung was starting to unwind. His broad shoulders looked softer the way he cuddled into his own sweater and with the way he looked outside, no longer scanning the falling snow like it was something awful but rather observing it, acknowledging it Jungkook felt happier. Another Christmas miracle worked.

Reaching out for the cup of cocoa again, Taehyung suddenly saw that there were tinsels and some kind of brushwood (he didn’t care to look closely to see what it exactly was) stuck to his sweater. He tried to get it off him, reaching around his body but in the process, he was almost ripping the whole decoration down the wall with him. “Ahgh, why…is…there…so…much…stupid decoration in this town,” He mumbled in anger trying to forcefully get every bit of decoration and glitter and whatever decoration got stuck to him off.

Jungkook was just about to turn around to wipe down the counter when Taehyung started mumbling to himself, sharp and bitter and so frustrated that it made Jungkook gasp. He turned on his heels, staring at Taehyung in utter confusion. He had put the same amount of fairy dust and magic into Taehyung's cup as he did with anyone else. He couldn’t have forgotten it, he could still feel the prickling sensation in his fingertips. What kind of hatred must Taehyung feel if not even a pinch of fairy dust could soothe his heart?

He rushed towards Tae, coming to defend his poor decoration that was almost cleanly ripped of the holds with the way Taehyung angrily flailed his arms. “Don’t rip it please! I don’t have spare ones and those really took a while to make!” Of course, he hadn’t bought anything. Those were solely made by hand and mostly by him although some of the fairies in the forest had been more than happy to help, weaving delicate little ornaments into the decoration, weaving berries into wraths and dried flowers into beautiful little posies.

Taehyung froze instantly, letting the other help him get out of the mess he had gotten himself in again. Piece by piece Jungkook freed him from the Christmas decoration and Taehyung mumbled a quiet sorry.

“I didn’t mean to rip them,” Taehyung rubbed his neck awkwardly, “I hope I didn’t destroy too much or else just tell me what you get from me and I’ll pay you back!” When he noticed the expression on Jungkook’s face and the faint smile, he slapped himself on the forehead.

“Wait - You made it yourself? Aghh of course,” Taehyung’s cheeks blushed a little and he quickly took another sip of the cocoa to have something else to do and maybe so Jungkook thought the redness of his cheeks were caused by the hot steam. “Please don’t make me do decorations for you,” He blurted out of a sudden, “I mean…I’m really sorry but please don’t. My mother is great at it, but I suck. Really! You don’t want that! Believe me!”

Jungkook tried not to laugh at that but couldn’t really mask it as a cough as it just came out of him. “You just need practice then. I could show you,” He joked, grateful that Taehyung had apologized and not destroyed the wreaths and branches on purpose. It always hurt him to see something beautiful being uselessly destroyed on purpose. Some humans were sadly very good at it while the saddest part was that they didn’t even seem to notice. “Or you could send your mother over and we could bond over weaving decoration and baking Christmas goods.”

“Don’t you think you’re moving a little too fast there? Shouldn’t I get to know your name first before you weave Christmas decorations with my mother?” Taehyung chuckled low, loving the little flustered blush that creeped up the baker’s cheeks right away. “I haven’t seen you here before,” Taehyung said, taking a bite from the cookie, “There are rarely people moving to this village and you must be kind of new right? I mean I haven’t been here for years, but still…I think I know pretty much everyone…” He looked at the other in interest, before reaching out his hand, “I’m Taehyung by the way.”

“Oh!” Jungkook blushed prettily. He was a pretty fast learner, but he was still a bit new to human conventions and although he managed to fit in 99% of the time he was pretty embarrassed if he didn’t. He had been told that it was rather cute and endearing instead of awkward or off putting but it still made him feel a little shy. “Y..yeah, I’m new. Kind of.” He had been here for a while longer, living in the woods and watching the city before he deemed it safe enough to come out and actually work there. But all in all, he was new. He just hoped Taehyung wouldn’t ask him where he had lived before. He hated lying. And he was just as bad at it.

“Nice to meet you Taehyung.” He took the other’s hand, shaking it carefully while trying not to hold his gaze too long. Yoongi had told him that humans didn’t like it if you looked at them too long, so he tried not to do that. “I’m Jungkook.”

Taehyung nodded with a little smile, “Then I hope the old people here don’t bore you out of your mind?” Sitting back on the stool, Taehyung made sure to be much more careful now. He had finished his cocoa quick and the cookie was actually quite deliciously. Munching on the last piece, Taehyung added, “Though around Christmas it seems like they get some kind of extra energy. They go crazy here, honestly.” He looked around the shop again, getting reminded of the decorations that the other had put up himself, obviously liking the festive season himself, “Oh well…anyways, ehm…I should get going, I guess.”

“Ah, no, everyone’s been really friendly and nice to me so far.” Which was mostly true if he excluded the strange looks and behind-his-back-comments he had gotten when he had started working the bakery on his own at his young age. But Yoongi had acted like his ‘guarding’, telling them he was guaranteeing with his own wealth if Jungkook wouldn’t pay his bills. Which was pretty funny considering Yoongi didn’t own a single coin. But apparently you only needed to look old enough to pass as an adult and know how to talk to people to get what you want. He had made some extra vanilla parfait for Yoongi as thank you and even allowed him to lick out the bowl.

As soon as his neighbors and first customers had realized that he was working hard and putting his all into this they stopped talking and visited him regularly. Words soon got around about the new baker in town who was young and friendly and incredibly talented, getting you whatever you needed be it a treat for yourself or some sweet highlights for a birthday party. It came pretty handy that he didn’t need sleep the way humans did or else he wouldn’t be able to manage the bakery on his own.

His smile fell a little when Tae got up, saying goodbye already. It had been a bit lonely today as the people stayed home at such weather, so he was a bit disappointed that Tae was leaving already. Though of course it made sense. It had been just a short little visit by accident and now that the snow storm had lessened Taehyung would continue on his way.

A wave and a smile later, Taehyung made his way home again. Though he had only met the boy, he couldn’t help but wonder about him all evening and even when he laid down in his bed, staring at the ceiling he was still thinking about Jungkook. There was something about him that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Maybe it was just his naturally habit of being curious on why someone as young as him would want to live in such a small village like this one. Taehyung thought about if the boy would come to the town’s celebrations as well, or if he would see him again soon – then maybe he could ask him.

The chance to do so, did come sooner as he thought, when his mother came down the stairs the next day, waving her arms around like crazy, saying something about how her knitting club would come by today and she forgot to get some cake for everyone.

“But…you literally made thousands of cookies last night?” Taehyung pointed towards the boxes full of freshly baked ones that only waited to be eaten. “But I can’t only serve cookies, right?” She said already pushing his jacket into his hands, “It’s about balance, my dear.”

And that’s how Taehyung had walked all the way up to the bakery again, only this time there were a lot more customers around.

The same smell of cinnamon and vanilla embraced him just like yesterday and Taehyung couldn’t help but smile when he saw the boy working non-stop to please his customers, his smile not wavering one time.

The closer it got to Christmas the busier the bakery got so when there wasn’t loads of snow coming from the sky and keeping people from going outside Jungkook had a full house all the time mostly. He noticed Taehyung immediately when he came in for the simple reason that he stood out of the happily chatting crowd as he had put his hands in his jacket and was looking around like he still couldn’t believe someone would decorate their shop so festively.

Taehyung turned, looking around to see what else there was to get for his mother. When he noticed a little gingerbread house that Jungkook must have decorated, he got a little closer. Curiosity had gotten the better of him, when he saw the weird looking snow globe right next to it. Reaching out for it, Taehyung observed it more closely to see what was inside, when a sudden voice behind him made him jerk and almost drop the fragile globe of glass.

Jungkook flinched together with Tae when the other almost dropped his precious snow globe making a mental note to himself to never leave Taehyung with his sugar figurines unattended.

The older quickly put the globe away again, mumbling another ‘sorry’ before turning back to Jungkook. “I…ehm need something for my mother,” He said, noticing that almost every customer was happy and, on their way, out – so it was just the two of them… for now.

“I actually…don’t really know what she wants,” Taehyung walked over to the counter, “Something cake-y, I guess.”

“That’s... not really specific,” Jungkook chuckled, wiping his hands on his apron to not get powdered sugar on what he wanted to show Taehyung. “I made these cupcakes this morning. Do you think she would like them?” He took one of the delicately decorated cupcakes out from under the shop counter, so Tae could look at it.

There was colored frosting in fluffy little tufts on top of it and silvery sugar pearls on top that looked like iced pearls. “If you want to you can try one, just to make sure it has the perfect taste for what you are looking for.”

Everyone loved his cupcakes, no matter what kind of decoration or color they had, and he always had so many options that no matter if you preferred fruit or almonds, chocolate or cream you would always find the right thing. He also enjoyed creating all kinds of special recipes for people with intolerance to special ingredients or vegan diets. Naturally he had great sources of plant-based ingredients.

But Taehyung only raised his eyebrow at the cupcake, “It looks…weird.” He made a cringy expression, shaking his head when Jungkook offered him a piece, “Do you got something that looks less like….it has Christmas written all over it?” Looking around, Taehyung was searching for something simple, something like an apple pie, but he was only looking at more cupcakes. “How do you even got the time to do all of these?” He asked curiously, eyeing the cupcakes that were resembling Christmas trees with pursed lips.

“Weird?! I worked all morning on them!” Jungkook was practically offended. There he was putting all his heart into creating little tasty masterpieces that looked as deliciously as they were tasty - just for Taehyung to tell him they looked weird. He frowned, thinking about something simple that he could offer Tae, maybe one of the cakes that he had back in the freezer that hadn’t been decorated yet, if he took one of these and maybe made some simple cream based frosting or a flower from apple sliced... He was so busy thinking, listening to Taehyung only with half an ear that he accidentally answered honestly to the boy’s question, “I make them at night when you people are sleeping.”

Almost immediately he realized that he had said too much, stuttering and stumbling over his own tongue when he tried to correct his mistake, “I mean, surely I sleep I just...like to work long hours and get up early and...work some more you know?”

Taehyung cocked his head to the side, observing Jungkook closely who was stuttering the words, seemingly nervous. He chuckled a little, “Sounds like you’re a robot or something.” Jungkook was still fumbling around with the cupcake in his hand, his cheeks dusting in a rosy color and Taehyung couldn’t help but smile fondly.

“Just make sure to get enough sleep,” He spoke up again, “Especially around this time...maybe you should get yourself a little helper from time to time...I don’t know.” Taehyung laughed and pointed at the decoration, “I bet some of the older kids around here would love to work for a little extra money. They could be your little Christmas elves! Put a cute little hat on them, just like they do it at the Christmas market and voilà - they would fit in perfectly with your decoration.” Looking back at Jungkook, he smiled brightly, “Even I would find that cute, though I am not very fond of the festive season.”

“I’m... I’m not a robot!” He would have loved to add that he just didn’t enjoy lying around with his eyes closed half of the time as humans did but as he couldn’t just tell Tae that he didn’t have any arguments and just left it at that.

He huffed at the ‘little helper’, thinking about Yoongi, who might call himself that but was rather a little chaos-maker. Or a big one. Depending on his mood and his body size. He immediately stiffened when he caught the word “Elves”, his eyes growing wide, his stance automatically defensive before his brain caught up and he realized that Taehyung was just joking.

“Haha… yeah, that would be… great.” He awkwardly laughed and then put the cupcake aside, wiping his hands on the apron gain as a nervous habit. “Why dont u take a seat while I quickly get the naked cake I’ve stored in the back and you can have a look at it and decide on decorations? If you want?” If he was getting insecure he had the habit of phrasing things as a question and checking for agreement too often which made it kind of more awkward instead of covering up his mistakes, but he just wasn’t like Yoongi. The fairy could go with the flow and practically turn any kind of conversation around to make sure nothing could happen to them. He had rescued Jungkook from precarious situations more than once. Jungkook himself just couldn’t do that although he was living amongst humans for quite a while now. But sometimes they were acting so strange - and it wasn’t as if there was a handbook to their behavior, so he just had to watch and learn and guess and try not to be so obviously nervous about them.

Taehyung nodded, though he had noticed Jungkook's awkward behavior once again. Either the other was really nervous in general or just shy. Shrugging his shoulders, he leaned against the counter waiting for Jungkook to come back.

Jungkook quickly placed the cake on a plate and grabbed a few simple decoration items onto another to show Tae what he could choose from if he wanted to keep it simple. He almost dropped the cake because he was so busy balancing all the things that he didn’t notice that Tae had leaned over the counter to get a look at the hidden kitchen. Which meant that he had basically ran right up into Tae’s personal space, the only thing separating them the plate with the cake. Jungkook swallowed hard, hoping that his curly hair would hide his ears even at this proximity. “This... is it. That’s... the cake,” He commented intelligently while not breaking eye contact with Tae and continuing to stare right at him.

“I can see that,“ Taehyung said with a smile and took a step back. He was watching Jungkook closely, looking at all the things he brought with him. “Do something simple, like flowers maybe?“ He asked and then added quietly, “I guess I would even accept a little bit of Christmas decoration like hollies or something but nothing more!“

“Do you want me to do a poinsettia in colored buttercream? With a little bit of edible golden glitter on top and some dark green ‘leaves’ to cover the rest of the cake?” Sometimes he was sad how little plants and flowers humans knew but the poinsettia, or Christmas star as it was also called was practically everywhere right now and he loved it. It would make an awesome looking cake. And as he had an eye for details and about a lifetime of being close to plants it would also be an easy task for him.

When Tae agreed Jungkook happily nodded, telling Tae to ring the little bell in case another customer would enter the store (hopefully his lunch break time would be less busy so that he would be able to finish Tae’s cake right away) before getting to work immediately. In his mind the Christmas star was already taking form while he mixed the natural food coloring made from berries into the prepared cream, watching it turn into a saturated deep and leasing shade of red that was ready to use. With only a tiny interruption in which he sold the lady across the street some sugar cookies he finished Taehyung's cake in no time and placed it into one of the prepared boxes that his customers could use for transportation.

After securely tying a gold ribbon around it he came back to the front to give it over to Tae. “There you go. Make sure to put it in the fridge if it won’t be eaten right away,” He reminded him. As he had licked the last bit of colored buttercream from the spoon his lips were dark red and shiny and would taste like sugar and cream. He looked beyond kissable, which Taehyung noticed right away. He stared a little too long, watching the boy lick his lips slowly, before flashing Taehyung a bright smile. He nodded absently minded not really listening to what Jungkook was saying.

Jungkook cocked his head a little, repeating the price for the cake, wondering why Taehyung looked so stunned. He wasn’t charging too much, he was actually quite humble with his demand considering the effort he put into the baking and the quality of his creations. “Is it too much? Maybe... maybe I could give you a discount if you can’t pay because it was... some kind of last minute thing. But... only this once okay? I need the money for new ingredients you see?” Jungkook had absolutely no clue that he was completely misreading Taehyung’s stare right now and that the other was avoiding his eyes because he was too busy staring on his lips and not because it was more money than he had on him right now.

“Huh?“ Taehyung looked up at Jungkook again, tearing his gaze from his lips. He was probably just going crazy over the lack of sleep he had and maybe because Taehyung had not kissed anyone in a while and the fact that Jungkook was the only one around his age here…yeah, that made perfect sense, why he was suddenly thinking about kissing someone who was still a stranger to him.

„No, please, no don’t worry!” Taehyung said, quickly getting out enough money and tipping the boy as well, “I just…wondered…sorry if I seem direct but…how old are you, Jungkook?“ He had blurted out the words faster than he could take them back again, so he added quickly, „I just thought…you must be around my age…and you know…actually, I don’t know. I just wondered about it, I guess.“ That boy’s nervousness was rubbing off on him, that was the only explanation why Taehyung suddenly felt so awkward around him.

Jungkook blinked at the Taehyung’s question, the sudden change of behavior startling him a bit. Busy with accepting the money, thanking Taehyung for the tip and putting everything away he was doing too much at once and answered without thinking, telling Tae the first thing that was on his mind

“Five.”

In the silence that followed he tried to find out what had gone wrong when realization hit him. Jungkook didn’t really have a concept of human time and he didn’t knew hold old he was exactly either. So Yoongi made it a joke to tell him he was five, as they knew each other for five years now and Yoongi insisted that Jungkook was a total baby when he had found him. He had accidentally just repeated Yoongi’s words without realizing that it must sound completely mental to Taehyung to talk like that.

“No...no! Of course, not... I’m not... I’m twenty-five, I meant...” He groaned in shame, hiding his face in his hands. Could it get any more awkward with one single person? It had been quite a long time since he’s made a fool out of himself like that.

Taehyung snorted with laughter, “What?“ Shaking his head in disbelief, he looked at Jungkook with a raised eyebrow, “You’re five? So…you’re telling me that you’re working like a robot, don’t really sleep at night and you are only five years old? Don’t tell me you are a vampire or something?“ He couldn’t help but laugh at Jungkook, when the other corrected himself.  “No, Vampires are...” Jungkook was about to correct him when he pouted a little at running right into his trap “You’re joking, right?” 

Why did Taehyung confuse him so much?

“You’re really too cute for your own good, Jungkook!“ Taehyung said with a wink and took the cake, before flashing Jungkook a bright smile.  “Thank you again…for the non-Christmas-Christmas cake,“ With one hand Taehyung opened the door of the bakery again, the bell ringing once more. He looked at the cute boy one more time, before he added, in a soft tone and with a smile that he tried to hide while biting his lip, “Tonight they light up the big tree in front of the town hall…maybe I’ll see you around.“

Speechless he watched the other flirt with him, winking and smiling and then saying something about maybe meeting him at the Christmas tree lighting festival. “This... this is a date, right?” Jungkook shyly spoke to himself, to make sure that this was real, and he wasn’t dreaming.

He knew that this was some kind of romantic thing, asking the one you liked out to be with you on Christmas markets and evening events. He had watched enough soap operas to see the hints - although Yoongi had told him that half of what they showed wasn’t even realistic and that Jungkook shouldn’t believe them at all. But the elf had definitely seen humans acting just like he had seen on Tv, so he wasn’t really sure if Yoongi wasn’t just trying to mess with him - or keep him from experiencing something that he hadn’t had the opportunity yet.

He was a teeny tiny bit jealous of all the lovely couples holding hands and kissing and just generally being sweet with each other. There was no way he could have that too and although he was okay with it most of the time he couldn’t help but wonder how it would feel to be like them just once, to be held and cared for and... and maybe even kissed? He hid his blush behind his hands although he was the only one in the room but better safe than sorry. You never knew when a curious fairy would pop up somewhere.

A/N: There it is, the first chapter to our first fluff christmas story. Funny enough, both Cat and I aren’t very fond of the christmas season but still we wrote this in october so you guys have something to enjoy. We really hope you will like this, as it is something completely different from what we usually write. But don’t worry...if you’re a fan of our angst stories, there will be more coming soon. We are currently working on three different stories at the moment. 

Anyways, we hope you enjoyed the first chapter! Don’t miss a new update every saturday and tuesday for this story and don’t forget to leave a comment or message us on how you liked the first chapter! We love you guys!

[princesswan]

Gif Tutorial #3

HERE WE GO AGAIN!  A century ago I was asked to make a tutorial on how I color my palette gifsets, and I’m very conscious I never provided that content, but life got in the way, I haven’t been around much and I even forgot that I actually started working on that tutorial back (it’s sitting in my drafts) when a lovely anon requested it (I’m sorry that I’m a bad person don’t hate me). But I promise I will make up for it as soon as I’m done with a bunch of exams I have to take care of in the next two weeks. If I don’t, just call me out because I forget everything.  Anyway, in this tutorial I’ll show you two different paths you can follow to color your gifs like I did in my last tatbilb gifset. 

▶︎ PATH A

We’ll go from this:

to this:

▶︎ PATH B

We’ll go from this:

to this: 

More under the cut.

>>PATH A

Following PATH A, we’ll use the Colorize option that you can find inside the Hue/Saturation section. This way of coloring is really simple and can provide you clear gifs, but it can be used only on gifs that are not too long and/or don’t involve the subject/s making particularly wide movements. If you want to use it for this kind of gifs I just mentioned, you are in for a lot of work (and patience), since you’ll have to color frame by frame to make sure the colors don’t interfere with the subject/s. 

Here’s our gif sharpened and without coloring.

First of all you need to apply a base psd. I chose the base I always use on all my gifs, and then played around with a few little adjustments (a Color Balance layer, a Curve layer, some Vibrance, etc..). If you want to check it out, you can easily find it here!  And this is how our gif looks like right now:

As you can see we have two colors in the background, cyan and blue. What we need to do is turn it into one homogenous and clear color. Let’s add our first Hue/Saturation layer. 

This is the result of our first layer:

The color we want to obtain is purple, so let’s add another Hue/Saturation layer.

Our gif changed only a little bit, but it’s really important that you get the right shade. It’ll come in handy very soon.

And this is where I introduce the Colorize option.

As soon as you enter the Hue/Saturation section you can notice a little unticked box at the center. Ticking it, and adjusting the Hue and Saturation parameters to obtain a very vivid purple (as I did above), your gif looks like this:

To make sure Lara Jean’s and Peter’s bodies don’t stay purple we need to apply a Mask on the Hue/Saturation layer and erase the parts we don’t want the layer to have an effect on using a black brush:

This is what our gif should look like right now:

What I mentioned above about the background being purple and homogenous is important because when we use the black brush on their bodies, we end up erasing a little bit of the background too. If those little parts of background were colored even before the Colorize option, no one will ever notice it and the final result will be completely homogeneous. Notice that this is not always possible. Sometimes if you want to obtain a perfect work you’ll have to color the gif frame by frame (a lot of work on long gifs, but totally worth it). 

To complete our work and obtain that kind of warm shade of purple, we need to add a bunch of Selective Color layers:

A Color Balance layer (this is totally optional): 

This one should affect only their faces, so remember to add a Mask on the Color Balance layer:

And finally two more Selective Color layers:

I also added two empty layers and brushed with some purple on both sides, however, this is totally up to your preferences. You can also decide to add one more Curves layer or one more Brightness/Contrast layer to light up the gif a little bit.

This is our final result: 

>> PATH B

Following PATH B, we’ll use the “traditional” way to color gifs, the one that involves the use of both Selective Color layers and Hue/Saturation layers but not that of the Colorize option. If allowed, I find myself more keen to follow PATH A because of colors quality. However, if that is not an option, be aware that: 

- if the background is in any way red/orange, even yellow in some cases, editing it with the traditional path without compromising the subjects skin colors is gonna be very hard. If you are able to erase those parts adding a Mask, then that’s not a problem. 

- if the background isn’t really homogenous or is composed by a lot of different colors, simply using Hue/Saturation and Selective Color layers is either gonna take you a very long time and give you a mediocre result or just gonna ruin the overall quality of the gif. 

Let’s get started.

Here’s our gif sharpened and without coloring.

As previously, I chose to add my usual base psd. 

What we need to do is obtain a homogenous and clear background, so that it’s much easier to give the gif the tonality we desire. To do that, we have to turn all the different colors into a single one. 

First off, let’s add a Hue/Saturation layer to change the blue tonality that characterize Peter’s uniform and some objects behind him. 

And this is what we have now:

But why blue into cyan and not blue into green? If you immediately try to turn that blue into a pristine green, you’ll soon notice that the tonality you obtain is very turbid and totally not homogenous, and that probably is the main reason why your will gif won’t look that good. Instead, if you go for an intermediate color before you try to achieve the final color, you’ll get a fully homogenous and much clearer tonality.

Add another Hue/Saturation layer. From now on, always add a Mask and brush a little bit on their faces so that the layers don’t have an effect on them, or else their skin will be colored too (and we don’t want that). 

That will turn the cyan into a vivid green: 

Now that our background color is pretty homogenous, we can easily turn it into a very warm green, using one more Hue/Saturation layer: 

We’re finally able to go from from a greenish tonality to a more yellow one thanks to a new Selective Color layer.

Add one more Selective Color layer to improve the quality of the yellow. You can change the parameters as much as you want until you achieve the tonality you desire.

Selective Color layers allow you to change the shade of a color, to give it a warmer tone, a colder one, a paler one or a darker one. These layers can be very useful but be careful you don’t mess up when you want a pale tonality (setting the black parameter too low can ruin the quality of the gif). And as I said for Hue/Sat layers, it’s better to stick to intermediate tones before you go for the final color. 

This is our final result:

As I did before, I added two empty layers and brushed with some pale yellow on both sides to make it look a little bit more “full” on the grass. 

This is it, I spilled all of my coloring secrets. Both paths have their qualities and their flaws, and both paths take some time, a lot of patience and a bit of practice and knowledge. A very important element is the base psd, because it can totally change the overall look of a gif. You always need to evaluate what path is the best one, and that totally changes from one gif to another. 

I really hope this is helpful and that everything is clear, but if it’s not, my askbox is always open, so don’t be afraid to ask!  

[theseulgis]

hi alex 💛 i'm sorry to bother you and i'm not sure if you use topaz clean but if so, would you mind sharing some little tips for it? or do you know anyone who has a post abt it or something? i'm asking this here because i don't really know any post with topaz help or anything like that 😣 i don't wanna go too strong with topaz because it gets kinda weird and it has those weird lines around objects but i don't know how to "control" the plugin and idk where to learn... thank you so much 💌

Hello, anonie! ♥ You’re not bothering at all! :) I do use Topaz Clean, and have been for a few years now. I’ll try to tell you about the things I’ve understood about it but don’t take my words for certain because I actually never read anything about it and only messed with it since I started using it. So maybe my words won’t be the right ones and I will explain shit but that’s how I see things- Anyway! I’ll try to be organized fiehzgih

I hope this is going to help ;; ♥

First I’d recommand to focus exclusively on the Edges category (Accent, Radius & Sharpness). After trying multiple times to make sense of the Clean and Texture categories, I came to the conclusion that it really was of no use when you make gifs. (I might be wrong, I’m no professional, but I literally never use these.) I’d say the Accent settings are to your liking, I personally never go higher than 3. Radius will change a lot of things and I think that’s what creates the weird lines you talk about. I never go higher than 2.50. But depending on the original quality you might want to keep it a bit low so you get to lose some of this crappy quality Clean is so useful against! Sharpness, well… The sharpness of Clean is SO GROSS to me, I think it never looks good fdeuzfgehg I never go higher than 0.30 with this but again that depends a lot on the original quality. When it’s shit quality I keep it to 0 or just add like 0.05 for good measure.

So the first point actually makes sense because I always applied Clean BEFORE resizing, which makes a very big difference to me. Keeps things more natural looking (when I don’t fuck it up fizhirg LMAO) I’m still trying to understand how you can use it after resizing without it looking like plastic fiehzgihr. I did it a few times recently to counter the very bad quality like here but as you can see it’s weird af and blurry and dfizehigh so yeah. Still need to figure this out. My advice is to apply it before you resize. So for example, I want to make a 268px gif : I crop to my liking, I resize to 500px, I apply Clean to it, I resize to 268px, and I do the rest of the gif.

Now about the weird lines you talk about. They appear almost everytime after I sharpen my gifs and I think it’s almost inevitable… I think it happens to most people who use Clean. To reduce it, it’s just about knowing how to sharpen according to it. I’d advise trying to play with the blurr option and its opacity. (like don’t keep it to 100% opacity. sometimes just 20% of opacity for that layer of blurr is enough to change things).

And finally, I just want to say that I change my settings for every gifset because Clean is about making the quality better and so it’s inevitably going to depend on the original quality of the file, as I said before. I just think it’s something you need to get used to. Keep using it, keep trying different things, take your time on a gif to see what does what on it. The possibilities are endless with Clean. You’ll know how to use this pluggin the more you mess with it, like I said a few times about coloring anyway. That’s also why I don’t really know how to help you because someone’s settings are pretty personal as it contributes to the gif style of that person and also it’s about what they like. You can think someone’s Clean settings are good and another person will think it’s bad. So yeah… It’s all about how you want your gifs to be and what you like! I tried to tell you what I think is essential, but that’s just ME, you know. ;o; I’m sure the amazing gifmakers out there would probably tell you differently fizheghieg

[toboldlyblahblahblah]

Your gifs are beautiful and so clear! Have you ever done a tutorial on how you get them so flawless and well lit? Like esp DS9 and TNG gifsets! I love your work so much!

 @maylovelies

Wow! Okay, for starters: Thank you so much! I really, REALLY appreciate the kind words and the time you took to send this! I really enjoy making gif sets and I’m always so glad to hear that people like how I edit mine. 

To answer your question, yes, I have made a tutorial post in the past, but the method I used back then I’ve strayed from a bit, recently. Some of it I still use, but in reference to lighting and getting them to look a little more high quality, there are some other techniques I’ve been working with lately and really enjoying the results…

I can walk you through with a new example. 

Here’s a quick gif from a scene of DS9:

and I’ll do a rundown on how I got it to look like this:

Going to put the rest of this below the cut, though, because it’s significantly longer than my last tutorial-based answer…

So! One trick is to not be afraid to stack up a few adjustment layers of the same variety, sometimes even duplicates of the exact same layer, on top of each other. The reason I do this is because wild adjustments on a single adjustment layer are a lot less controlled and will often effect the wrong parts of the scene’s lighting (by that I mostly mean shadows v highlights).

I edit for light first, personally. Here’s where I am after doing those corrections

Already looking a lot better and clearer. This was done using three adjustment layers.

The curves layer is just a basic “lighter” preset that you can find from the drop down menu once you open a new curves layer

The levels layer I start by using the preset “lighten shadows”

at that point the image looks very washed out and grainy

(still image)

so from there i just messed with the layer a bit until I liked it a little more, added some contrast and adjusted the distribution of light, etc.

which got the image looking like this

(still image)

But I still thought that looked kind of washed out and flat, so, lastly, I added a completely custom exposure adjustment layer where I pushed up the gamma correction and exposure settings (you can also push the offset into the negative to get a secondary effect similar to gamma correction, but it’s very harsh and temperamental, at times. I wouldn’t recommend it for first-time use) 

that gets us back to this lightness corrected gifset, which I’ll post again now

You can actually get a similar look by using just curves adjustments and their presets. Here’s what happens if you take three (3) layers with the same curves “lighter” preset (see above) and then one (1) curves layer with the “medium contrast” preset.

and the results are pretty similar

Each technique lends itself better to different scenes. And obviously with either method (or a combination of both as tends to be the case on super dark scenes - cough, mirror-universe episodes, cough) you can customize a lot from these presets to get the desired effect. They just give you a good jumping-off point…

Now the first thing I always notice about adding brightness to these scenes is that the tones get very warm and muddy, so from there I usually like to color correct next. 

I like to bump my vibrance and saturation sliders up before color correcting, but I know a lot of people do it after. That’s really just a matter of personal preference. 

There are a handful of ways to color correct, and, just like with the lighting methods above, I tend to mix and match the various adjustment layers. I’ll use Color Balance (as illustrated in my previous tutorial) and I’ll also now use Hue/Saturation layers and Selective Colors layers. 

Honestly, color correcting / color grading alone could be its own tutorial so I won’t go very in-depth on that here. But just play around with the settings and find a method that works for you. (If you feel like you’d want a specific run through on that, just shoot me an ask and I can cover it some other time in more detail.) 

My one recommendation to help you avoid the big rookie mistake I made when I first started doing this is that with the hue/saturation layers, never use the Master slider option; instead, click the drop down menu and work on each color individually. 

So here’s where we’re at once I bumped up the saturation and then did my color corrected. 

You may notice how sometimes color correction darkens an image and undoes some of the work you did earlier (in my experience, this usually happens when you have to add a lot of blue in the color balance layer) You’ve got two options here. Either go back in to the previous brightness adjustment layers and lighten up some of the contrasts, or put a new layer over top of latest color edits to add brightness back in over top. Again, this comes down to personal preference. Experiment with either version and do whichever works best for you. 

Here’s after I brightened it back up a little again. 

Subtle difference, but it’s how I prefer it for this scene. Plenty of times scenes don’t end up needing it at all.

So the gif is looking pretty solid from there. In some cases, I’d actually stop right here and just add the quote text to the bottom and call it a day. But if you really want to make it look HQ, there’s a few additional steps…

Firstly, it helps to keep the images smaller (a retread of something I said in that other tutorial too, I believe) but after that, there’s a way to sharpen all the layers and frames at once while also reducing “noise,” both of which improve the quality of a gif. 

To do that, take your frames timeline at the bottom of photoshop and click the little icon that looks sort of like a funnel going through a bar graph… 

If you have history window open, it’ll say “Convert to Timeline” after you’ve done this, and instead of frames you’ll see a bunch of short purple lines instead of the gif’s individual frames. Don’t panic! That’s supposed to happen. 

From this point, go to your layers window and select all of the layers that are frames of your gifs, which you can do by clicking the first layer - holding shift - then scrolling up to click the final layer - then releasing shift. They should all have the little eyeball icon on next to them, indicating that they’re all active. Then, right click the top layer and from the pop-up menu click “convert to smart object”

When you do this, all of the layers compress into one Smart Object with the name of the top layer. 

Again, don’t panic!, you didn’t lose the other layers they’re just now all going to be affected by the sharpen filter instead of having to be edited one at a time.

Now, go to the top ribbon in Photoshop and in the drop down menus, go “Filter” > “Sharpen” > “Smart Sharpen…” and click that. 

A little window will pop up that gives you a preview of how this filter will impact your image. 

**notice that the smart sharpen preview does not show color and lighting corrections; that’s fine & because we are not applying this smart filter to any of our adjustment layers.

And what you do from here is again a matter of personal preference. Raise the sharpening amount too much and the image starts to look crinkly, have the noise reduction too high and all the detail gets smudged away. 

Here’s an example of what happens if youwere to crank both the sharpness and the noise reduction all the way up:

(still image)

And I guess there’s maybe a place and time where something with this aesthetic would work for a particular scene or edit, but generally, I like to keep the settings pretty low. Sometimes, less really is more…

For a 268x200px gif of an 80′s or 90′s Trek show, I keep Reduce Noise at 10% and have the sharpening anywhere from like 85-150, depending on how much I’ve cropped in on the original camera crop. But for this gif, where I didn’t zoom in very much at all and pretty much kept it how the original videography framed her, keeping it around 95-115 works nicely. 

When you’re done, click OK. 

Now that Smart Object looks like this

And that’s pretty much it! Now, when you export your gif from Photoshop, it’ll look something like this:

The one thing you have to remember about this technique (and this is something that still trips me up from time to time, myself) is that when you export, it doesn’t automatically set the gif to loop forever. Instead, it’s set to “Once.” To fix that, when you click through “Export” > “Save to Web (Legacy)” and the Web window pops up, go to the bottom right corner and above the “Save” button there’s a drop down menu in the “Animation” section. Click there and switch from Once to Forever. 

And there you have it! Start to finish, that’s how I make my HQ gif sets!

I know it seems like a ton of work for one lousy gif and super overwhelming at first and hard to remember, but once you get into the swing of things it all becomes very second nature.

So thanks for asking and thanks for reading. Hopefully this was helpful, please let me know if you got anything out of it. 

And, of course, feel free to reach out with any other questions or requests. I’ll always try to do the best I can and answer. ♥

[bretthowden]

hi il your gifs! can you give a tutorial??

Wow thanks so much! 💖💖Under the read more, I managed to put together a gif tutorial that I (hope) makes sense. Let me know if you have any questions. I rambled a lot in this and wrote most of it at like 1:30 in the morning, so apologies in advance if it gets weird lmao.

Keep in mind, I have been using photoshop for years, but I really have only been making gifs for like, 8 months and I still think I can improve in soooo many ways. But, that being said we all gotta start somewhere!

Let’s make a gif!

Alright, y’all. Let’s make a fucking gif. You will need:

Photoshop. Kind of a given lol. I use Photoshop CC 2018 and I pay 9.99 a month for the photoshop/lightroom package that you can get online from Adobe. I used to use a downloaded version that I found on tumblr for the longest time as well. So if you don’t want to pay monthly, there are free versions out there that work. Just download at your own risk!

A basic knowledge of photoshop. In this tutorial, I’m just gonna assume you have used photoshop before and know how to use its basic features. If not, I’d recommend finding some beginner photoshop tutorials to help you out! Also you can totally feel free to shoot me any questions if you need me to clarify anything, and I’ll do my best to answer them!

Patience and practice. Making gifs can be frustrating and tedious sometimes. If you don’t love what you’re making or aren’t having fun with it, it can be really difficult. I literally love making gifs for some weird reason, which is really the number one reason why I make them. Also, remember that every gif isn’t gonna come out perfect. I make so many gifs and then look back and think ugh that coloring was awful wtf was I thinking?? But it’s important to keep practicing and keep at it because that’s how you’re gonna get better!

Alrightyyyyy let’s get started!

STEP ONE: Download your video. You’re gonna need the video of whatever you’re trying to gif saved to your computer. If you’re giffing a video from youtube/social media or something, there are a bunch of different websites out there that will download videos for you. However, I’m a fucking weirdo and usually just screen record whatever I want to gif because I just think it’s easier. I use Quicktime to screen record which is included on Macs!

We’re gonna be making a gif of my angel rookie Brett Howden for this tutorial. I just screen recorded his postgame video that I wanted to use and saved it in 1080p.

[PRO TIP: Keep in mind, if you want your gifs to look nice and HQ, it starts with a high quality video, and that means, using videos that are 1080p. I very rarely will gif anything in 720p, unless it’s something I really really want to gif, and I def won’t use anything below 720p because it just looks really low quality no matter how much you try to edit it, imo.]

STEP TWO: Open photoshop and go to file -> import -> video frames to layer and this window will pop up

These are the settings I use. I choose selected range only so that it will only select what I want it to, and not the whole video. I also limit to every 2 frames because for the most part, using every frame is unnecessary. See those little toggle icons at the bottom of the screen that I’ve circled in red? Drag those around to select what part of the video you want to gif. Then click ok.

Here’s what you’ll get once you hit ok.

As you can see, your timeline with all your frames are on the bottom. On the right are all the layers!

STEP THREE: Select all the frames, and set your frame delay. The frame delay basically just controls how fast or slow your gif is gonna move.

Select all the frames and click on the bottom of one of the frames (where i’ve awkwardly circled in red) and you should get the dropdown menu shown above. Click other. I almost always choose 0.07 for my delay because it’s not too fast and not too slow and that’s how we want our gifs to look, right? 0.07 is a good starting point and you can always adjust slightly if need be. I wouldn’t recommend going below 0.05 because it’ll look way too fast.  

STEP FOUR: Convert that shit. We’re gonna convert to a video timeline by clicking the button in the lefthand corner of your timeline window. I’ve circled it in red. Make sure all your frames are still selected!

Then we’re gonna convert the layers for smart filters. This makes it easy to edit and color the gif because it’ll basically condense all the layers into one. Select all your layers and go to filter -> convert for smart filters. Bam, converted.

STEP FIVE: Crop and resize your gif!

Tumblr has specific dimension sizes that are pretty important when cropping your gifs, so you’ll have to decide what kind of gifset you’re making. If you’re making a gifset with just one gif across (example), the width needs to be 540px. If you’re making a gifset with two gifs across (example), the width needs to be 268px. The height doesn’t matter and can be whatever ya want!

For this gif of Brett I’m going to be cropping it to 540x270 (my personal standard gif size that I use for gifsets with one gif across). After that, go to image -> image size and adjust the width and height to 540x270.  

After all that crap, we’ve now got a very basic, unedited gif!

This gif looks okaaay, but looks kinda flat and plain and dull. Which brings us to……

STEP FIVE: The most important step, sharpening and coloring.

To sharpen your gif, go to filter -> sharpen -> smart sharpen

I use the same settings as everyone on this website which is this:

This is what the gif looks like now. Brett is looking SHARP. 

Sharpening is so important and it’s literally the best like look at how much better this gif looks already!! But we still gotta color it.

Coloring is a different ballgame than sharpening. Everyone has their own preferences on how to color and what they want their gifs to look like. There’s no right or wrong way to do it imo, as long as you like the way they look! Some people like really bright, vibrant gifs with whites so bright they’ll blind ya, and some like gifs with more muted colors. My personal preference depends on what I’m giffing and the lighting. If you look through my gifs you’ll see that my coloring changes depending on if it’s an on-ice video, a locker room interview or something else.

When I first started making gifs, I downloaded different psds from tumblr, which are basically just colorings you can download and use on your gifs. They’re a really great starting point if you have no idea what you’re doing and also just super convenient. A quick google search “tumblr psds” “tumblr photoshop resources” or even just searching “psds” on tumblr, will give you tons of stuff to choose from.

Anyway, if you’re not gonna use a premade psd, the two biggest settings that I use to color (and as a beginner they’re really the only settings you need to use) are brightness/contrast and selective coloring.

First, we’ll add some contrast. Go to layer -> new adjustment layer -> brightness/contrast. For the most part, my brightness/contrast settings stay the same and look like this:

My contrast almost always is set to 60. I’m all about high contrast in my gifs. My brightness setting is set to 0 in this gif because it’s already bright enough (just look at the light reflecting off Brett’s forehead lmao) Oftentimes I’ll set the brightness to 10 or 11 if the gif seems too dull or dark, but I usually won’t go higher than that. Just play with the setting until it seems right to you!

This is what it looks like now:

Looks good! But it still looks pretty yellow and Brett’s face is still too bright. This is where selective coloring comes in. Selective coloring basically helps you enhance or change specific colors in your gifs. It comes in handy a lot with videos that have shitty or weird lighting (looking at you, Rangers video department). 

Go to layer -> new adjustment layer -> selective coloring. Like I said before, every gif is different so there’s no one specific way to set your selective coloring settings. My biggest thing with selective coloring is making sure the subject doesn’t look too yellow/red and enhancing the darker colors to create more depth/contrast. Play around with the colors until you like what you see!

And this gif is done! Brett looks beautiful and so does this gif. But we have one final step

STEP SIX: Save your gif.

To save your gif go to file -> export -> save for web (legacy) and this window will show up.

For your gif to work on tumblr the file needs to be under 3M otherwise when you post it, your gif will be frozen and won’t move and uh, that’s not ideal. The lower left hand corner will show you how large your gif is. Mine is 2.817M so we’re good.

Finally, please, please PLEASE make sure your looping options (found in the lower righthand corner) are set to forever.

If you don’t have your gif set to loop forever it literally will stop moving, so it’s real important you remember to check that it’s set to loop forever. One time I forgot to do that and now there’s a dumb gifset of Nolan Patrick that only loops once and then freezes and I didn’t notice it until it already got a bunch of notes and it’s just out there on fucking tumblr dot com and it drives me crazy and makes me so mad that I forgot to loop it. So don’t be like me and remember to loop your gifs! lol.

Anyway that’s the tutorial! I hope this helped! Again, sorry it’s so long and full of rambles. Remember you can ask me ANY questions you may have and I’ll do my best to help! 

[visionmcu]

All of them rosie. All of the questions

Jk 5, 6 & 12

kkskjsjk well i appreciate your enthusiasm lucy lmaoo

5. What is your favorite movie/TV show to gif

show: caos (even though my gifs flop lmao)

movie: infinity war bc of wanda and vision (♡°ω°♡)

6. What is your least favorite movie/TV show to gif

i don’t think i have a least fav but tell you what i hate working with trailer footage or interviews or anything that’s really low quality but sometimes i need to and it makes me want to pull my hair out when it’s not hq

12. What is the most embarrassing thing you’ve ever giffed

hmmm. i don’t think there’s anything that embarrassing? maybe my first gifset where i made a sex joke lmao but that’s just a part of who i am as a person lbr

Send me a question about my giffing process!

[merrilark]

See but I don't use Adobe for art, I mainly use it for making gifsets or graphics in photoshop and making fanvids and edits in premiere pro and after effects :( I don't pay for it I use another person's account but yeah

Ahh, I sometimes forget people make gifs in PS. I'm not sure if there are any other programs that can make gifs as nicely as PS (I use a combination of VLC, Handbrake, and Instagiffer to make gifs, but they are pretty low quality and do not have as many editing options as PS), but there are some nice graphics and video editing programs that you might like if you ever decide or need to change from Photoshop!

For graphics, Clip Studio Paint is actually very nice. It's designed for drawing and painting but is compatible with PS files so you can use templates, and CSP has a huge amount of free assets you can download that make editing easier. I usually do the bulk of my editing there and then do small color correction tweaks on Pixlr.com or with PhotoScape X, both of which are free.

Clip Studio is a bit expensive but it regularly goes on sale!

For video editing, I really enjoy HitFilm Express. The base version is free and currently any exclusive versions are available through subscription. I'm on mobile so it would be hard to check, but I would be surprised if that's not still the case. It works similarly to Premiere.

Since I only have the base version of HitFilm, it doesn't have all the bells and whistles, but it appears that some of the more expensive packs may do some if not all of the same things that After Effects can do.

I've also heard from some friends more experienced in video editing than I am that Resolve is the best free option, but I haven't personally tried it. It is, however, free, so it couldn't hurt to check out!

Sorry I’m just now responding to this. I was on mobile when I saw it and couldn’t remember the last program’s name. I hope some of these might be helpful! c:

[bensonstablers]

Hello, I'm sorry to bother you but I no longer know who to turn to, you who are a creator of gifs; Could you recommend color settings, filters, or whatever, so that my gifs don't look HORRIBLE, get pixelated, colors blur, or get dots? I use Photoshop CS5 and the videos are 480p (they are episodes from a 90s series). I hope you can help me because I am on the verge of a mental breakdown😭. Sorry again for bothering you. Thank you.

Hi! You’re not bothering me at all. I’m sorry it took so long to get back to you, I’ve only just managed to get on my laptop (and it’s much easier for me to reply like this) :)

Unfortunately, I’m not 100% sure I will be able to help you. There is a chance that there’s always going to be issues because it’s 480p which is really hard to work with. That being said, I do know how difficult it can be to find good quality video of certain shows so I’ve put a couple of things below that you might be able to try, hopefully, it’s not too repetitive of things you’ve tried before.

I’ve put it under a read more mostly to save those on the mobile app lol.

Now, when I make gifs I always make sure to do certain things and I do everything in a pretty specific order. (Like I mentioned, higher video quality is always the best way to start so we’re going to skip past that lol).

Basically it’s: import frames/footage → sort frames → resize → sharpen → colour → text → export gif.

Right now I use photoshop cc but I used to use photoshop cs5 extended, so I’m going to point you in the direction of this tutorial for how to make a basic gif that I put together about 3 years ago when I was still using cs5. Now, I’m assuming you know how to make a gif but towards the end of the tutorial, I included what sharpening settings I use as well as my export settings for saving the gif. You can, of course, play with sharpening settings and try and make it stronger (or apply it more than once) but even with higher quality footage, it doesn’t alway help (sometimes it just makes it look worse).

In addition to that, I also made this tutorial to show how I colour my gifs. (My export settings are also in that tutorial too). I basically do the exact same thing now when it comes to colouring my gifs. The screenshots throughout the tutorial are just a rough guide to show how I made the example gifs so it does require some playing around but I always use those specific edit/adjustment layers to colour. Sometimes I’ll remove layers if they seem unnecessary or use certain ones multiple times if I think it needs a little something extra.

I do want to quickly mention that with low-quality footage, I find it best not to make the gifs too bright/vibrant/colourful. It highlights the flaws (pixelation, blurriness, etc) and makes them a lot more obvious.

And while this doesn’t tend to make that much of a difference to the colour/sharpness, gif size is super important. When I made the previous two tutorials, I also made this one where I talk about how to resize gifs correctly. In this particular case, something that might help is to use smaller gif sizes where possible. For example, I’d recommend going for something more like this gifset which uses the 177/178px sizes mentioned in the gif sizing tutorial. While not always the case, I tend to find the bigger I try to make the gifs the more likely it is for the flaws to be seen in them.

There is the slim possibility that the dots and pixelation and whatnot is down to photoshop or something being wrong with the footage you’re using (like a corrupt file) but honestly, it’s most likely the fact it’s 480p.

[dominicvail]

Dunno if you've ever talked about/answered this, but may I ask what you use to make your beautiful gifs?! I'm about to pull my hair out trying to prep my sets for "Densi-mber" so that they all actually move like they're supposed to without looking like completely awful quality. (I obviously do not want to take away from the amazing work you do, but yearn to make them as pretty-ful as you do!) BTW --- all your comments on every episode totally crack me up ! Love em!

I use photoshop CS5 portable, an old crappy version that honestly doesn’t have all the working features, but it does the job just fine (i got a copy of it off my friend who was doing gameart design in uni, lol). 

As for the gifs themselves, i’m not sure what you mean by looking awful quality, but here’s a few things i normally consider (i apologize if this gets super wordy, i’m not great at explaining things and some of this involves a lot of nonsensical numbers);

1) If you mean how your gifs look uploaded onto tumblr, the sizes of the gifs in pixels make a massive difference on how a set looks once uploaded. Tumblr’s image layout is 540px across, and gifs will only look their optimum quality if they are exactly 540px across the entire picture window. If your gif is 450 across, tumblr will stretch it to be 540 and the quality will visibly diminish. Likewise, if your gif is 600px, tumblr will shrink it and it will also diminish it’s quality on your dash. If you have more than one gif in a line, your set still needs to come to 540px together, each gif needs to be 268px wide to display at the optimum quality. Three gifs in a row needs two sized at 177px and the third 178px to come up to 540px across, any pixel number that doesn’t add up to 540 total will make tumblr adjust the gif size and it will corrupt the gif quality. 

One single gif (a 540px one designed to sit on it’s own) can be up to 3mb large, anything bigger and it won’t play). If you have two 268px gifs next to each other, they also cannot exceed the 3mb limit, each gif can be whatever mb size you want, but together they cannot exceed the 3mb. 

(if that made zero sense to anybody, i suggest google image searching ‘tumblr image dimensions’ b/c people have made visual guides). 

2) Colouring on your gifs makes a massive difference, and this show is /awful/ to colour. I have 4 different types of colouring for opps alone because the lighting is different from every filming angle in the room. I can’t really go into specifics literally just because i don’t have specific examples, but in general, having it too bright pixelates darkened areas horribly, sometimes it’s better to just make a gif look super shadowy by keeping dark parts dark than it is to brighten it so much it looks like a pixel storm. The higher quality screencaps you have to make gifs from, the more you can brighten them/edit them in general before they become pixelated, over-colouring low quality content next to never ends well. (but i do all this on photoshop, idk how to colour using anything else). If you’re using PS, i recommend finding a ps resources blog, downloading a couple of psd’s that people have made for free use that you like and learning how they work from those. I started off using free ones and once i’d figured out what did what I made up my own ones. 

3) what do you use to get screencaps for your gifs?? I personally use UMplayer because it’s the only program i found that will automatically take gif quality screencaps from DVD’s (supposedly vlc and kmplayer will also do this for people, but it never worked on my laptop when i tried, so umplayer it is). I just play the scene in the window while i set the program to cap it enough times a second as it plays, so that when i gif from the caps, the movement isn’t choppy, even if you craft the perfect colouring and sharpening and timing when making the gif, if you don’t have enough screencaps per second of footage, it’s still going to be choppy. 

4) But also, some scenes just aren’t very giffable? Like, i really want to gif that scene where Eric calls Nell ‘Nellverine’ but when the camera is on his face as he says it, he’s in motion the entire time, if what you want to gif doesn't have a single screencap that’s not blurry, your gif is just gonna be a blur. Can’t really fix that, i mean, maybe people super amazing at giffing can, but i’ve never managed it. 

5) sharpening. I personally like definition on my gifs, so i tend to sharpen a lot, but some people prefer smooth gifs, it’s each to their own. But, also, very low quality screencaps will not sharpen, they will only make the gif grainy. The higher pixel size your individual caps are, the more you can afford to sharpen, but it is literally on a case by case basis, i will sharpen 2 different scenes from one episode differently depending on how it looks, it’s entirely personal judgement/taste tbh, but attempting to sharpen something that is tiny in quality will only make it look worse. 

6) frame speed. I am a lazy ass who will only set my frames at 0.1 or 0.2 depending on a scene because they’re presets and i don’t have to take the time to type in speeds like 0.18 or something equally fiddly, but you have to judge what works best for the gif you’re making. Conversation scenes i normally set at 0.2 but like, action scenes i normally set at 0.1. But that’s not a solid rule, it’s just my personal norm. 

7) there are specific dimensions for gifsets that look more attractive on this site, if i’m doing say, an 8 gif set 2x2, i will make my gifs 268x180px, which is about what i think looks best on this format. Personally anything shorter than 170px high in that situation looks a little weird (unless you’re deliberately trying to do a panorama type gif). 

anyway that’s all i could think of from the top of my head (and also probably too detailed of an explanation, i do that a lot i’m sorry), but i think those are probably what things that will most of the time disrupt gifs. And thank you!!!! but feel free to ask anything, i’m not a graphc making how-to hoarder, i don’t understand people refusing to help other people making them under the guise of creator secrets? It just seems weird and like a weird form of gatekeeping to me, the more the merrier right? So i’m open to trying to help anytime :D 

[anghraine]

So, my sister wanted to watch ANH, and I’m a noble and selfless big sister (:P) and agreed. It’s been ... at least a year? 

Impressions this time:

- ANH is really a magnificent film, just in terms of how everything comes together and how completely balanced the different elements are. It is what it is—a fancy Western-meets-Kurosawa fairy-tale space opera—and instead of trying to ~transcend~ its origins, it embraces them and goes for executing them at peak quality. Overwhelmingly it succeeds. I think that’s really its strength among the SW movies: it’s not the most ambitious, it’s not the most creative, it’s not the most inspiring, but it is the most cleanly, evenly executed, the one that succeeds most completely and unambiguously at the kind of thing it is.

- I definitely think the TFA=ANH thing is overblown. They’re very different movies with very different characters. The only exceptions are 1) the cantina and 2) the trench run. Speaking of which, the cantina scene remains spectacular. (And the trench run! My God.)

- Rogue One fits in REALLY WELL, while also feeling like an even more profoundly dissimilar film. But it really felt like it picked up right where RO left off. Like a lot of people, I was cackling at Leia’s sheer gall in her “???? HOW DARE” at Vader. Unfortunately, the near-seamlessness had me completely convinced that RO just happened and so I was like “wow, okay, Vader just took off after Leia and Jyn and Cassian just died WAIT WAIT ABORT MISSION DIDN’T HAPPEN BYYYYE”

- I thought the criticisms of RO!Tarkin were overblown (tbh I tended to think that a lot of them tended to forget how uncanny valley Tarkin is to begin with), and that’s also only more cemented. He seemed absolutely like the same person. I also don’t think I noticed before how ... bored? he seems with a lot of it. Like, Vader thinks the Death Star is shit but is gung-ho about Doing Empire Things and Victory!!! while Tarkin tends to be more “eh.” Gets a kick out of puppy-kicking Tuesday, though.

- I know it’s been litigated to hell and back, but the SE additions are in nearly all cases very jarring. (OTOH, going back and updating the terrible 70s computer graphics would have been a very feasible choice!) Similarly, I know it’s stale and everything, but the suggested backstory does seem very different from what we get in the prequels; I kept finding myself mentally working to make it fit. 

- If it’s possible, I feel even more strongly than before about how wrongwrongwrong the soft, fluffy, sunshiny!Luke* thing is. Despite his streak of fatalism, he’s also almost invariably confident—sometimes to the point of braggadocio, but in most cases in fact correct. His goals are largely heroic, but he is far and away the most purely pragmatic of the main trio. He’s incredibly naive, but also resourceful; almost all the actual ideas for what to do come from him, and in most cases in a single moment. When Han snaps that “he’s the brains,” I don’t think he’s actually being sarcastic (though obviously he’s being annoyed). Luke is the idea guy, Han is the shooting things guy (which both find frustrating on occasion). Luke combines a streak of earnest gentleness with very frequent abrasiveness. He’s very much Leia’s brother.

(...on that level.)

- Han is incredibly brash and reckless! Sometimes hilariously so. I continue to love the scene where he runs from stormtroopers only to run into WAY MORE stormtroopers and just runs away screaming. He’s interesting because he’s not at all a comic relief character, but he does actually have a lot of it. I think it contributes to his lovability.

- Threepio and Artoo’s relationship remains the cutest, omg. And how did I forget Artoo’s built-in fire extinguisher??

- HELLO WALL-E

- LEIA LEIA LEIA LEIA

- There’s a gifset about how Leia is the only person unafraid of Vader, and I actually disagree. She quite plainly is afraid of him, IMO, quite naturally in the torture scene and then when she backs into him to get away from Tarkin. She just doesn’t let it govern her will or conduct even a little bit. <3

- I remain convinced that all probability is that Vader argued against the destruction of Alderaan, though not for any heroic reasons. I also remain creeped-out by Tarkin’s behaviour towards Leia accompanied by his genuine shock that she would lie to him. Vader is just “duh????” 

- I’ve also noticed it before, but it never ceases to amuse me: when Luke and Leia scream at Han about shooting in the compactor, they sound exactly the same. 

- Luke is the one who thinks to shoot out the cameras in the detention center.

- Obi-Wan’s lightsaber is the proper shade of blue, but Luke’s/Anakin’s has been left at greenish for some reason.

- ROBOT IS A CANON WORD

- I also think criticisms of the Obi-Wan/Vader duel are overblown. It’s a very different style, which seems odd, but ... looks like pretty normal fencing to me? A bit slower than Vader vs Luke in ESB, but that’s what you’d expect. I definitely got the feeling that Vader was drawing it out for maximum enjoyment, lol, but could have ended it at any moment.

- I love Threepio, but I find Chewie super irritating, sorry.

- Leia and Luke are so pretty!!!!

- Han’s snark about “female advice” remains as “well, fuck you, Han” as ever. I’m also not a huge fan of him going on about how he doesn’t care about the revolution or about her, considering that he knows perfectly well that she just saw her planet wiped out. How Jyn trying to survive is worse than this is just ?????

- Nevertheless, ANH Han is by and large my favourite Han. He’s genuinely charming, while his pseudo-devil-may-care is just ... aww, here’s your YOU TRIED star. Setting the implied incest aside, the back-and-forth with Luke about Leia is super cute. I also love the “no reward is worth this,” haha, along with “either I’m going to kill her or I’m starting to like her.”

- If I didn’t know better, I would definitely have thought Harrison and Carrie’s affair was during ESB, not ANH. The UST seems much less intense here (definitely present, but in a more lowkey, adorkable sort of way). 

- Luke and Leia both seem to feel this irrational, near-immediate bond. They tend to pair off and Leia flips out when he’s pulled underwater as much as Luke did when he realized she was scheduled for execution. Luke tends to back her when she’s pissed at Han or ignore it altogether. I also think it’s kind of ... sweet isn’t the word, exactly, but when Luke gives Leia the blaster to cover him while he gets his swinging cord out, he doesn’t seem to have the slightest doubt about her capabilities. And she doesn’t seem to doubt that he’ll be able to carry her with one arm across the BOTTOMLESS PIT OF DOOM. 

- That’s also there in the celebration scene; with Han there’s the UST with his wink + her I’M PUTTING ON MY PRINCESS FACE NOW, while with Luke he grins at her and she grins back, like they’re kids together. (Also, I think, a reason the twin retcon—while certainly awkward at points—works more than not. It's much more about this easy natural camaraderie they have than anything else. They’re bros before they were bros!)

- Leia actually isn’t certain if the plans will show a weakness or not, which suggests 1) she wasn’t told Jyn’s full testimony, or 2) she’s not at all sure about it either. 

- People generally seem to treat the Imperial Senate as a legit concern—not just Leia, but many of the Imperial officers, and Vader himself takes care to create a smokescreen to keep them from realizing what happened to Leia. The OT is not much for politics, but I suspect the abrupt dissolution of the Senate might have contributed to the expanded Rebellion of ESB and ROTJ.

- Even here, though, the Rebellion does seem very well-funded, and Han’s reward appears to be no problem at all. Also, everyone rides around on little carts.

- Luke totally knew Obi-Wan already and I am personally very doubtful that it took just a few hours or a day to get to Alderaan. Think: Leia supposedly caves about the Dantooine base right before Alderaan’s destruction (i.e., after Han&Co go into hyperspace). The Empire sends a contingent to Dantooine from Alderaan, who find and search the abandoned base, and send a report back. I definitely don’t think that’s something that in its entirety would be handled in a day. 

(I always get a sense with the OT—and RO—that we’re seeing snapshots of a wider story, with plenty going on in the empty spaces that’s just not critical, or which can be inferred from what we do see. Luke’s bit with the remote is clearly not his only interaction with Obi-Wan on the trip, say; it’s just a representative bit we see that coincides with the destruction of Alderaan. I think it’s part of the reason it’s compelling in a very fannish way, even though I have very very few issues with the series as-is; normally I get really fannish about things that are super compelling but have a lot of issues I feel the need to address. SW, though, manages to provide those spaces where I want to fill in the blanks, but as a form of storytelling rather than faultlines.)

- Aww, it’s for little children! also have you noticed that one of the charred skeletons at the homestead is contorted weirdly

- I love Carrie’s low voice

- the development of Artoo and Threepio’s relationship is not something I’ve really noticed before, but I was genuinely touched this time? They’re friends, clearly, but they start out at this snappish, intolerant place and Threepio gets increasingly more and more concerned and less selfish. He manages to look devastated when Luke shouts that Artoo is down and then when he offers his own gears and circuits for Artoo, it’s just... awwwww. (Also when they ask Luke if he wants a less beat-up droid and he’s NO WE’VE BONDED. Luke <3 <3)

- Alec Guinness, whatever his private feelings, does a really great job with Obi-Wan as this shrewd, tricky mentor with a deep sense of ambivalence. I think it’s part of the reason the retcon works so well; his behaviour seems entirely credible as someone who’s lying. I also think his :| at Han is pretty hilarious? He’s just seriously?? so much of the time.

- The whole deal with the parsecs was obviously meant to be stupid bragging from Han. There’s no need for an explanation; Obi-Wan and Luke’s faces are both like “...sure, bro.” 

- Even the damn summary of the title crawl on the back was like T_T

The Jedi Knights have been exterminated and the Empire rules the galaxy with an iron fist. A small group of Rebels have dared to fight back by stealing the secret plans to the Empire’s mightiest weapon, the Death Star battle station. The Emperor’s most trusted servant, Darth Vader, must find the plans and locate the hidden Rebel base. [etc]

*sob*

But, just incidentally, there is never the slightest indication given that the team of spies didn’t actually make it out of their mission or that there’s any particular tragedy around the first!!!! victory!!!!!!! They’re never explicitly pointed out, but there also isn’t any occasion for doing so; we don’t see anyone outside the purely military arm. No senators beyond Leia (who’s only there to bring the plans, and had originally intended to go to Alderaan anyway), no Mon Mothma, no operatives of any kind beyond soldiers, pilots, and commanders. It looks like they evacuated everyone else, so even if the Scarif mission had gone precisely according to plan and like 75% of them made it out, there’s no reason for them to show up in ANH anyway. But yeah, basically all we know is that the team that recovered the plans was a small and brave one affiliated with the Rebellion.

*feel free not to remind me that the sun is powerful and dangerous. this is a metaphor