Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can't Lose

‘I wish you coulda seen the way these kids were yelling...

Sat, 18 May 2013 10:51:28 -0700

‘I wish you coulda seen the way these kids were yelling at each other… Calling each other names… It’s real hard to make a change around here.’

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Sun, 12 May 2013 18:21:33 -0700

Gif Tutorial requested by anonymous Requirements: Kmplayer- You can download it for free...

Sun, 12 May 2013 18:04:24 -0700

Gif Tutorial requested by anonymous

Requirements:

Kmplayer- You can download it for free here
Photoshop- I use version CS5

There’s no right or wrong way to make a gif, this is just my technique. For other, simpler methods, check the “gif tutorial” tag.

**If you’re looking to make gifs from your dvds, this tutorial is an essential read. I use kmplayer to make screen caps, and unless you follow the first couple of steps in that guide, there’s a good chance you won’t be able to even view your dvds in kmplayer because of an error message.

These are my screen cap settings:

I extract every frame, because it makes the gif look smoother. If you select every other frame, you can include more of a scene, but the final product will look a lot choppier. You can also change the format from bitmap, to jpeg, to png. It really comes down to personal preference.

Now that you have the caps that you want to use, it’s time to load them into photoshop.

File > Scripts > Load Files Into Stack

Hit the browse button and go to the folder where you extracted the caps (If you didn’t change this setting, they will be in your My Documents folder, in a folder labeled “The KMPlayer”). Select all of the caps that you want to use, and click open.

Once they are loaded, look for “window” on the top toolbar in photoshop, and make sure “animation” is checked.

If your timeline looks like this:

Click “Covert to frame animation”:

Now click the three horizontal lines in the right hand corner, then hit “Make Frames from Layers”:

With all the frames visible, it’s time to set the frame delay speed, or the speed at which your gif moves (depending on the scene, I set this from .05-.09). Click the first frame, then hold ‘shift’ and click the last frame, so that all of the frames are highlighted.

Enter the speed of your choice, then hit ok:

Unless you want your gif to play backwards (which is how photoshop loads it), it’s time to reverse the frames:

In order for your gif to loop over and over again, you have to change the loop settings from once to forever:

Now for some reason, kmplayer stretches my caps from dvds, in one direction, and if I don’t fix it, the gifs will also looked stretched. If this doesn’t happen to you, skip these steps.

Image > Image Size

Make sure “constrain proportions” is NOT checked, and change the height:

Now it’s time to crop the image. On tumblr, photosets of 2, 4, 6, 8 or 10, must be 245 px wide. The height is up to you. Since my dvds are not high quality, and I only have a limited amount of image to work with, I usually use a height of anywhere from 145-190 px.

To crop the image:

This will crop and resize the image for you.

Sharpening will either make your gif look crisp, or terrible. It all depends on how much you sharpen it. You can do it frame by frame, with an action, or this way:

Highlight all the layers (click the first one, and then hold down shift as you’re clicking the last one), then right click on the layers, and select ‘Convert to Smart Object’:

Filter > Sharpen > Smart Sharpen

My smart sharpen settings:

For the final touches, you need to find (or create) a psd/coloring to make your gif brighter, and prettier. PSD resources: X, X, X, X, X.

Note: This can easily be the hardest, and most frustrating part of making a gif. Try a variety of different psds, to see which one you like the best. And don’t be afraid to tinker with the curves, brightness, and levels.

Once you have selected a psd, it’s time to put text on the gif (or don’t, and skip this step). Click the capital T in the tool bar on the left. Click and drag your cursor across the bottom of the gif so that it forms a rectangle. Type in the text you want and adjust the font settings (size, color, etc.). Right click the text layer, and select “Blending options”:

“Drop Shadow” puts a shadow beneath your text, to make it look raised. “Stroke” adds an outline to your letters, which makes them easier to read. Change the stroke size to 1, or 2.

Now you’re ready to save your gif.

File > Save for Web and Devices

My save settings:

Feel free to change the settings labeled ‘Perceptual’ and ‘diffusion’, to whatever you think looks best on your gif. But make sure the looping option is ‘forever’.

In order for a 245 px gif to work on tumblr, it has to be under 2mb in size. You can check that in the bottom left hand corner of the save window. Hit save, and there you have it.

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Fri, 10 May 2013 19:12:00 -0700

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Tue, 07 May 2013 18:26:45 -0700

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Tue, 07 May 2013 09:22:59 -0700

‘So, uh, hear about the premiere comin’ up?’

Mon, 06 May 2013 22:15:47 -0700

‘So, uh, hear about the premiere comin’ up?’

fionas-gallagher: Infinite list of TV characters that I...

Mon, 06 May 2013 19:18:12 -0700

fionas-gallagher:

Infinite list of TV characters that I adore: Matt Saracen

I gotta get up there in front of everybody and say good stuff about this man. And all I really want to say is ‘Here lies Henry Saracen, his mother annoyed him, his wife couldn’t stand him and he didn’t want to be a dad so he took off to be in the army because that’s the only way he could come up with to get out of here and ditch all your responsibilities and no one could call you out on it and that worked out great so you just decided to enlist four more times and that ended up getting you killed and now here you are. And all you left behind is a mother with dementia, a divorced wife and a son that delivers pizza. Thank you for coming 100 people I do not know.’ You know what the worst part is? Even if I did get up and say all that I don’t even know if I’m saying it to him because I don’t know what’s in that damn box. It’s a closed casket— might be someone else, someone funnier or a bunch of rocks.

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Tue, 30 Apr 2013 07:04:00 -0700

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Fri, 26 Apr 2013 17:07:46 -0700

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Thu, 18 Apr 2013 17:48:13 -0700

‘Ladies and Gentlemen, a big round of applause for your...

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 18:39:00 -0700

‘Ladies and Gentlemen, a big round of applause for your Dillon Panthers!’

"For five seasons, fans never feared that Eric and Tami would call it quits. The Taylors were solid...."

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 17:35:13 -0700

““For five seasons, fans never feared that Eric and Tami would call it quits. The Taylors were solid. No matter what life threw at these two, they tackled it like they were Tim Riggins leading Smash Williams down the field at State. Tami and Eric — much like Texas — were forever.””

- The Greatest TV Couple of All Time? EW Staff Pick: Coach and Tami

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