GIF Tutorial

Someone requested for this one (like a month ago, sorry) and sometimes, I get questions about how I make my GIFs so I decided to make one. Just one warning: I’m bad at explaining so you might have to go over sentence/s more than twice haha. Hope this helps.

1. Open your file with KMPlayer. Press Ctrl + G to open the Frame Extraction function.

• Format: JPEG makes a good quality, but if you want the best, use PNG. However, it caps a little slower and they’re bigger in file size.
• Frames to extract: I usually use 2 or 3, but sometimes, I use 4 or 5. It’s up to you.
• Size: I use 500 x 282 because Tumblr’s standard size for photos are 500px wide.
• Just click “Start” to start capturing.

2. You can check the caps at [Username]/Documents/KMPlayer/Capture.

• You can view them and choose which caps you want to include/use for the GIF first and delete the unnecessary ones. I usually use 15, but it’s up to you. As much as possible, don’t go over 20.

3. Open Photoshop CS5, select all the caps from the Capture folder, and drag them to the workspace. You’ll see like an X-mark on it.

• Keep pressing “Enter” until all the files have been placed or until the X mark disappears.
• Make sure you have the ‘animation’ window open. If not, go to Window > Animation.
• Click the button at the top-right corner of the animation window and click “Make Frames from Layers.”

• Select all frames and set the frame delay to 0.1 or 0.12. It’s up to you (again.) You can play it and see if the speed is good enough for you.

4. Colorings. I don’t color my GIFs from scratch to be honest. I use PSDs around Tumblr. You can check the psds tag and you’ll see a lot. Sometimes, I edit them, but only when I don’t feel like the coloring is right for the GIF. To apply the PSD, just drag the coloring folder/group from the “Layers” panel into your workspace.

5. Sharpen. Click the button at the top-right corner of the animation window again and click “Flatten Frames into Layers.”

• Click the first frame in the ‘animation’ window and ‘Frame 1’ in the Layers panel and Sharpen (Filter > Sharpen > Sharpen.) Next, click the second frame and Frame 2 and press Ctrl + F. Do this for the third, the fourth and so on…until you’ve sharpened the last frame.

6. Now, the GIF is (almost) ready. Press Alt + Shift + Ctrl + S and this window will appear.

• The GIF size is here:

7. Bringing it down to 1MB. (This is the most time-consuming actually.)

• For the best quality:

• Choose Adaptive, Pattern, and 256 (in Colors.)

• To make it under 1MB, use Diffusion instead of Pattern. Keep adjusting the “Lossy” option until the size is under 1MB. As much as possible, don’t go over 20 in the Lossy option. You can adjust the “Dither” percentage if you want. I suggest you just don’t go under 80% on that part. You can check/uncheck the Transparency option to see which makes the size go lower.
• If it still doesn’t do the trick, try using 160 in Colors and 80% for Dither.
• If it’s still over 1MB, try making use of the Lasso tool and make some parts of the GIF static, so only the important parts (for example, the character/s only) are moving. *This is a whole new story, so I won’t be explaining more about this in this tutorial.
• Most likely, your GIF is under 1MB by now. This is assuming you only have 15 frames or less. If it’s still over 1MB, try deleting unnecessary frames.
• Click “Save” and there you go.

If you have some questions, please don’t go anon so I can answer privately and avoid spamming too much asks. Thanks. :)