[TUTORIAL]thepgo's sigmaking bible

[thepgo]

Mistakingly I wrote "sigmaking" in title ;x
Can I ask any moderator to change the topic title to "[TUTORIAL]thepgo's gifmaking bible"?


Since there are some people that wonder how I do those catchy and transparent gifs, I decided to finally make a tutorial for you.
I split it into a few parts to make it clear and organized. You can skip some parts, if you don't want to make it seamless, or transparent - there would be short notes where to skip from where.

It's a first photoshop tutorial I've ever made, so I'd appreciate any feedback. :D

As an example I'd use the banner you can see above, and by the end of tutorial you should have a similar one.
The video I'm using is [Coalgirls]_Bakemonogatari_01_(1280x720_Blu-Ray_FLAC)_[CA425D15].mkv, time 14:43

Ok, Let's begin.

TOOLS
The only tools needed are:
- media player classic homecinema (mpc-hc) [freeware] get it here
- Photoshop CS5 [paid/trial] get trial here, or full here, or buy here

Tutorial contains:
1.Grabbing images
2.Sorting out frames
3.Adding to Photoshop
4.Rendering
5.Editing
6.Cropping, Resizing
7.Saving
8.Additional tips [to be added in the future]

[thepgo]

1.GRABBING IMAGES
There are some automated methods to make gifs, but I opt to maintain quality and control on my gif, so I do things manually, and this is how it's described here.

1.Run mpc-hc and open your Video
2.Skip to the part where your desired animation is
3.Use left and right arrow to get to the first frame
4. [ALT-I], select your folder(better make one for pics), [SAVE]
5.Use right arrow to skip to next frame(in some videos you'll need to press 2-3 times)
6.Repeat steps 4-5 until you think you've got enough frames.
note: Take as many as you think you might need, or even a few more. It's always better to have too much than not enough.
I took 32 frames when making that gif(while 12 were used):


2.SORTING OUT IMAGES
Now take your favourite image browser(I use irfanview) to review your frames. In our example, I grabbed image everytime something moved, and it turned out I grabbed lots of images where only background moved, but not our character.
For example, our first two frames:

Because we don't want to use to much frames to avoid unnecessary rendering and make our gif as small as possible, we delete every frame like this, and in my case it was every second frame:

And I was left with 16 frames.

Now, let's search for "loop point" - image where frames start repeating. Open first image you've caught in one window, and in another window browse through the frames to find two similar frames:

In this case, it was 13th image. Note the filename and delete that file and the ones after.
We are left with 12 frames now:

With first frame:

and last frame


Now we can move on to the next part

[thepgo]

3.ADDING TO PHOTOSHOP
Now we move on to the photoshop. Do not open any document, just go to [File->Scripts->Load Files Into Stack]

From dropdown menu [Use:] select [Folder], then press [Browse], choose your folder with pics, press [OK], images will be added into list, press [OK].

Now photoshop will automaticially add your images into separate layers, that will take a couple of seconds.
You'll face a view like that:

If you don't have the animation bar on the bottom, go to [Window] Menu on the top and check [Animation].
If your animation bar happen to look like this

Click the (highlighted on the picture) button to switch to frame animation mode.
Now, click that little button highlighted here

Then from menu choose [Make Frames From Layers], to put each layer into a one frame of animation. Your animation is reversed now, so click that little button again, and chose [Reverse Frames] to apply the correct order.

Now, select all the frames by clicking the first one, holding shift and clicking the last one.

Click on the number of seconds under any frame, and choose [0.1 seconds] from menu to apply 0.1s frame time to all. Click [Once] on the bar below, and select [Forever] to make animation loop. You can now press the play button to see your animation.
note:High resolution animation may stutter on slower hardware, zoom out to see it faster.
Your animation should look like that:


If you don't care about rendering or further editing, you can move on to [6.Croping and Resizing], or [7.Saving]

4.RENDERING (the part where you waste a lot of time)
note: In our meaning, rendering means "cutting your character(or anything) from the background.
For example this is a picture, and this is a render from it.

Unfortunately, there is no automagic tool to render the whole animation in one click, and we have to do it the hard way.
If you are an experienced Photoshop user, you may have your own method of rendering, feel free to use it. I'll show here my way, using the pen tool with vector and layer mask.

Now select the first frame, and first layer.
Select pen tool, zoom into the bottom-left skirt, click the corner, at the border of the picture to start the path.

Then click, click, click, click, click around the whole character to make the shape.
Make the bottom of the path a bit under the image, then click the first point of your path to close the path and finish your shape. Don't worry about holes inside, we'll deal with them later.

Zoom out, now you should see a thin line around your character.

Right click inside, and [Create Vector Mask] to make a mask, leaving only our character visible. We have an initial render now, but as you can see, there are some parts of the background left.

Press the layer mask button(bottom-right corner on screenshot) to add a layer mask, which we'll use to get rid of the background.
Now, similarly as before, use pen tool to make a path around the hole, right click inside, and select [Fill path]
note: click another layer, then click layer mask again to get rid of the vector mask path

Use these settings(you can enter 0.1-0.2px in feather to make edges softer)

Repeat until you have filled all the holes.(right click, [Delete path] to delete existing path before starting another)

Now, repeat the whole process on all of the frames(shitload of work, I know :D)
note: be sure to always have a proper frame and layer selected. You don't want to make a mess by accidentally editing the wrong layer, or something.
note: After rendering first frame, the first layer will probably become visible in all of the frames, just select frames 2-12 and click the eye on the left of that layer to hide it.

Now you should have an animation like that:


If you don't care about further editing and polishing, move on to the [6.Croping and Resizing], or [7.Saving]

[thepgo]

5.EDITING
In this step we are gonna do some editing like moving, adding ajustment layers, text, and decoration.

First note: photoshop use the first layer as something like reference layer, so whatever you add in first layer will be added in all of the layers. So while adding text, and layers with decoration, do it on the first frame.
Though, photoshop can act pretty weird with frames(especially positioning), an you might encounter some issues(cropping, for one) and weird behaviour that even I can't explain.

Moving
In this particular case, you can see that our cute Senjougahara is moving around, so the animation is shaky and it looks bad.
You'll need to use move tool to position every frame, to make her stay still(it's nearly impossible to make it perfect, but try to be as close as possible). Just select every frame(and corresponding layer), then use Move Tool to position it corrrectly.
A matter of trial and error.
Desired effect:

Now you can see that the bottom is moving, so It would be best to cut in a certain place. You can either cut every layer separately, or use a little trick:
1.Move to the frame where the cut is higher
2.Make a selection based on it
3.Go back to the first frame
4.Select all of the layers(click first, then shift+click last)
5.Press Ctrl-G to add them into group
6.Make sure you still have the selection, and create layer mask(by clicking that little button, the same you used in filling holes)
Depending on where you cut, there may be some skirt left(marked red on the screen) in some frames, just cut it off.


Our animation looks pretty well now:


Colour adjustment
We are certainly not satisfied with the colours, so we're going to adjust them a little.
Select the first frame, from top menu [Layer->New Adjustment Layer->Color Balance], then adjust them like that(or however you like):

Then again from top menu [Layer->New Adjustment Layer->Hue/Saturation], then adjust them like that:

Make sure [Hue/Saturation] is on top of the [Color Balance] Layer.

Text and decoration
Let's add the text now. Select the first frame, choose the Text tool, and add some text here:


And put a little line under:
1.Add New Layer
2.Select line tool(select it from the group of rectangle tool)
3.Adjust the weight(on the top) as you please(5px in my case)
4.Click-hold on the left, then hold shift, and drag to the right
5.Ctrl-T and move it if you need
6.Right click and [Fill path]
7.Select Pen tool, right click, [Delete path]



6.CROPPING, RESIZING
We are almost ready to save our gif. What is left is to crop and resize our gif to get a resonable size.

Cropping
Three methods, use whichever you like:

a)Crop tool
Most common one, to make your gif in desired size.
1.Select Marquee tool
2.Make a selection
3.Top menu, [Image->Crop]

b)Trim
Can be used to make it as small as possible without accidentally croping out something
1.[Image->Trim]
2.Check [Transparent Pixels]
3.OK
note:Trimming uses current visible layer to cut, so make sure you have selected a widest/highest frame

c)Canvas Size
That one is useful in case Photoshop goes crazy(it happened to me before) and displaces our layers, or cuts improperly(happens ofen after using move tool) when using crop tool.
1.[Image->Canvas size]
2.check [Relative] and enter width with minus, e.g. "-400"
3.If needed, click one of the anchor arrows below, to cut e.g. only from top
4.Check result, Ctrl-Z if needed
5.Repeat steps 3-4 until you get a proper result.

Resizing:
1.[Image-> Image size]
2.Check all the boxes
3.Enter size
4.Play with Resample method if you like
5.OK

[thepgo]

7.SAVING
For saving gifs, you need to use [File->Save for Web & Devices] instead of usual [Save]
Now, some settings to adjust:

Colour Palette(dropdown menu with [Perceptual] and so on:
Certain palettes look better in certain situations, and have bigger/lower sizes. Experiment.

Colours:
Maximum is 256, if you need a lower size, reduce number of colours. Less than 64 looks bad.

Dither type:
Select [Diffusion]

Dither(amount):
100% for best quality and biggest size, reduce to lower the size and quality.

Matte:
If you have a rendered gif, select [Colour:], and enter the background colour(in A-P forums it's #F5F5FF)

Other options as below:
Check [Transparency]
[No Transparency Dither]
Uncheck [Interlaced]
Web Snap: 0%
Lossy:0

Make sure you've got [Forever] in [Looping Options]

Click play in right-bottom, to see the result, adjust settings as you wish.

Click [Save] to save your gif. Congratulations. you've just made an awesome gif.

[thepgo]

[placeholder for further additions]

[captaincrunch]

Awesome :)

Pro-tip: Find the biggest/cleanest size video source you can find for this stuff. Raws are your friend ;)

[Hevn]

Holy..

[thepgo]

Originally Posted by captaincrunch

Awesome :)

Pro-tip: Find the biggest/cleanest size video source you can find for this stuff. Raws are your friend ;)

Yeah, that. BD/DVD rips are the best
I worked recently on victorica sig from a TV cap. Edges like that make you wanna puke.


Coalgirls releases are awesome for rendering.

edit: crap, I just noticed the error in topic name -_-

[Zillia]

awesome! thankee!

going to do this sometime. I've got quite a few ideas :)