Musings of an ugly Swan

I’ve been dabbling in making gifs for a while now and thought it might help some of you if I shared the things I’ve learned. I have no background in graphic design or anything similar, so for me it has basically been just a lot of trial and error. If you know better ways than what I am going to describe, please let me know, or just immediately add it as a reblog, so everyone can see. 

Step 1 – Finding source material

I recommend using the internet.

Step 2a – Cutting it up (with a chainsaw)

The easiest way, which is also how I started in the beginning, is to use the build-in gif-feature on Pornhub. Just click on the three dots under the video and you’re there. Unfortunately, it’s rather tedious to use and doesn’t produce the best results in terms of the file-size-to-image-quality-ratio. More on that topic later.

Step 2b – Cutting it up (with a scalpel)

Download the “source material” on to your computer and edit it with suitable software. And before you run away screaming, editing in our case simply means, cutting it at the right moments, so you end up with delightful scenes of 1-10 seconds length. I use the VideoPad Video-Editor (it’s free Version has everything we need and is pretty self-explanatory). 

Things you can do in this step include either making a single scene (think of someone being whipped or something being licked) or trying to tell a little story, by putting different snippets of the source material together. In the former I usually aim to match the last frame of the video as closely as possible to it’s first frame, so the moment it loops is almost invisible, creating the illusion of an endless stream of spanks or licks. In the latter that usually doesn’t work, but since you are jumping around between shots anyways, it matters little. 

Another option is to add little captions / text overlays directly into the scene. I’ve experimented with that, but only use it if there is a perfect match to be had. Otherwise, I leave the video “untainted” and add my fantasies as a text below, so if someone else sees something different in the scene, they can simply get rid off my text and add their own thoughts.

Step 3 – Converting your image and a little rant on file sizes

Now that you have your little movie scene, it still needs to be converted. Which means being turned from a gif (if you used Pornhub) or an mp4 (if you used editing software) into a webp image. Webp-images are significantly smaller than gifs, while offering mostly the same image quality. Why that matters you ask? First of all, bdsmlr doesn’t like it when you post image files larger than 10 MB. Don’t get me wrong, you can do it, it will simply appear as if the upload didn’t work, but if you then save your post in the queue or the draft, you will see the image appear. The thing is, just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. Not everyone has always access to fast internet or unlimited Wi-Fi, so if you post massive file after massive file, you will significantly slow down the websites’ loading times for those that see your posts. Which will lead to them rolling their eyes at “how shitty bdsmlr is working today”, when in fact, it’s just you, carelessly abusing their bandwidth. Now, I'm not claiming to be a paragon of the 10 MB-rule, but I’ve seen people upload single images that are 50-100 MB big! Almost no one is watching bdsmlr in their home cinemas, so there is no reason to upload stuff that looks good in that setting. It’s phones, computers and everything in between, so adjust your images accordingly! 

Now, what does adjusting mean? It’s a dance between the resolution of your final image, the length of your scene, the number of frames per second and how sexy whatever you’re posting is. Once again, if all of that technical mumbo jumbo sounded scary, please don’t run away just yet. There are programs that will do almost everything for you!

Step 3a) Convert files using free websites

You can do almost anything with ezgif.com. It has options to convert videos into gifs, into webp images, you name it. You can crop, cut, add text overlays, whatever you want. Just as a tip: For some reason it seems to produce better looking results, if you convert a video into a gif first and then transform the gif into a webp image. I have no clue why; I just experimented and found this way to work better. And the great thing is, its drop-down menus offer you easy access to adjusting all the technical parameters we talked about before. I usually use the “Original 800 px” option. In terms of frames, feel free to experiment! According to the internet, the human eye can see about 30-60 frames per second, but for our purposes, 25-20 are usually fine. On the lower end, around 12 to 14 per second it usually becomes noticeable, so I only go there if my video is a bit on the longer side.  

There are other websites offering similar things, so if ezgif isn’t your friend, google might be. As an example, if you are looking for a way to do bulk-conversions, convertio might be what you’re looking for.

Step 3b) Prism Plus or uglyswan confesses she might have a problem

So, in case you haven’t noticed, I like making gifs and adding my “thoughts” to them. As weird as that may sound, it’s my creative outlet. And since I like it so much, I have made over 700 gifs at this point, most of which have made it on to the blog. Why do I say all of this? Well, mostly to rationalize (to myself) the money I spend on prism plus, which is a converting software from the makers of the VideoPad-Editor. It offers batch conversions, with very precise options to clarify the resolution, frame rate and overall quality of the final images. Basically, a bigger and more convenient version of what ezgif offers for free. So, if you’ve never made a gif before and are just curious, there is no need to get it. You can simply use the combination of the free video editor and ezgif, without paying a dime. But, if you have a similar problem hobby than I do, feel free to take a look!

Final Thoughts

To sum things up, in order to make a gif, you need to find good source material, cut, edit and then convert it. Don’t make your scenes too long, or the resolution too big, otherwise you will needlessly bloat the file sizes. 

Last but not least, try not to get too angry at the people who will inevitably steal your stuff and upload it themselves, instead of simply reblogging. I struggle with that part from time to time too, but always remind myself that I don’t really have a leg to stand on, since the source material I use isn’t necessarily… footage of myself.