I usually don’t save psds, so I don’t remember exactly what I did for that. But I remade the edit as close as I could:

Here’s the PSD for exact settings used.

Basically it’s just brightened using curves and levels, and then using selective color to bring out the blue.

I really have to update that tutorial, I do things so differently now…

But yes, there are a few things that can be done to improve the quality of gifs. It’s always best to have HQ video, so if you can, get the best source quality, but of course that’s not always possible. Even with HQ, it can still be improved upon. Here’s what I’ve been doing lately [in CS5, don’t know about other versions, sorry]:

For high quality: 

Open and bring up the layer’s options. Select convert into smart object. If I know what size it’s going to be, I’ll edit that here. From there, I usually go to filter → sharpen → sharpen or sharpen more. Or if you want, you can select smart sharpen and mess with the settings to your liking. Basically trial and error to whatever you think works best. Over-sharpening is one of my pet peeves so I try to avoid that as much as possible. 

• So for example, this is the original and it’s nice but a little blurry:

• (I usually just use sharpen but) this is with the sharpen more filter:

• It has more noise going on in the darker areas, but it still looks better, to me anyway.

For low quality:

Do the same with the converting to smart object. Sharpen if you want, but for real low quality I sometimes go to filter → noise → reduce noise… because you can edit the sharpening there. Mess around with the setting of the noise reduction and basically see what works. But as with anything, don’t over do it or it’ll look really bad. If you’re having too much trouble with quality for a full-sized gif, it’ll probably look better smaller, so consider reducing the size, maybe use as a photoset.

After that, I find the part I want to gif, render it, and import to frames and do the rest of my editing there because it’s easier.

Another thing… I’ve found that sometimes the brighter in color a gif is, the less kb the gif will be and the more colors and frames you’ll be able to get away with using when you go to save it. So use the adjustment layers (curves, levels, vibrance, exposure, brightness/contrast) to make it lighter. 

• like, this is without any adjustments (986k)

• and this is edited (792k)

• both with the same number of frames and using 256 colors. The second does have a bit more noise to it, but it’s less dull and a smaller size file, so I could add a few more frames to it without having to reduce the number of colors. 
• BUT that doesn’t work well for everything. Sometimes it might make it worse, so yeah. It just depends on how light/dark it is normally and also what kind of coloring you add etc. 
• The thing with having a darker gif, though, is that you can reduce the number of colors used and it won’t mess up the quality that much. That’s why if I wanted to gif something with a ton of frames, I would put it in black and white or use a monochromatic effect and use like 36-64 colors or something and it won’t look terrible. Like so:

Wow, sometimes I over-explain things, sorry. Anyway. That’s basically how I do it, but everyone does it different. Let me know if you have any problems or need help with anything else. :)

Hello. I would be more than happy to help. Hm, I’m not sure if this is what you mean, but I would say to try a clipping mask:

(bring up the options on the layer and select create clipping mask or just hold alt and then click the line in between the layers)

So basically those three layers —the curves and the two color fill— will ONLY affect Layer 2 and not Layer 1. But anything above it, like the levels and vibrance, will still affect ALL the layers. If you’d want those two layers to only affect Layer 1, then you’d drag them down until they are right above Layer 1.

I don’t know if this helps or even if this is what you’re talking about (in which case I feel dumb rn), but if not feel free to message me non-anon and I can try to help better privately. :)

**I do my editing in the animation timeline, so if you do yours in frame animation then here’s a tutorial for that. Same idea, just a little different.**

First thing I do is resize the image to 250 px width.

Then change the canvas size. Width should be 500 px and make the height double of what it is now. Mine will be 282.

I find where I want to separate the gif and then split into layers.
Then I drag the layers so the time overlaps.

Then use the move tool to drag the layers into the places I want. 


And that’s about it. Hope that helps. :)

Okay. I tried to explaining this in an easy way, but I’m terrible at explanations, so let me show you what I do. 

Open file, size should be around 300px wide.

Go to Image → Canvas Size.

Change the canvas size to 500px in width and whatever you want for the height.

Then make a new layer.

Drag the new layer under your gif.

Use the paint bucket and select the color you want, then fill the bottom layer.

Ta da.

At this point, you can mess with the blending options → inner glow (of the gif layer) so the edges aren’t so sharp.

Fin.

This only applies if you have Photoshop CS5 Extended. It may apply to the other versions, but I’ve never used them so I don’t know. If you don’t have it, you can download the free trial here. If you don’t have Photoshop, then I can’t really help you. But at least I’ll have this how-to thing if anyone else asks woop woop.

Keep in mind that this is how I do it, and it’s probably not the same for everyone. I’ve only been using Photoshop for about a month, so I’m definitely no expert.

You will also need the video file to make a .gif from, either using a screen recorder, or just downloading it. This is what I use for downloading YouTube videos. 

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