Ok, I have posted about this before, but what nifty little enhancements do you guys use in photshop or paintshop pro to make the screenshots look any better?
Thanks
none. I may add text every now and then, but other than that nothing.
i was just asking around because I've read that some people at the fmtx forums do something to make their's look even better though.
Alot of people use the sharpen filter and usualy overdo it aswell lol.
a good screen shot is a good screen shot, simple.
i never use anything to enhance a shot, a good angle in a good setting helps make any picture.
framed right, and lighting, just like in the real world.
Ian.
Resample it just a tad and it will take the games sharp edges off.
ok, thanks for the help guys.
If ur really going for screenshots, set ur graphics drver so that Anti Aliasing is on, it will take away the sharp edges even better
put graphics at highest quality, find the best angle that shows everything in the terrain, and a good shot of the bike and rider, then put it into photoshop or paint shop pro, resize, then edit brightness contrast, and sharpen it a hair... simple lil tweaks like that...
(http://www.fmxaustralia.com/forum/attachment.php?s=&postid=96556)
(http://www.fmxaustralia.com/forum/attachment.php?s=&postid=96562)
(http://www.fmxaustralia.com/forum/attachment.php?s=&postid=93970)
Nice but a little bright hook ;)
Paint shop pro 7 has a nifty little section that enhances all that kinda stuff.
nice shots hooky, what track is that with the bird on?
and AheadBMX can ya shorten ya sig lol it leaves a scroll bar at the bottom :-\
Ian.
Whatever track it is it looks pretty sweet.
Here is an enhanced screen on Tweaked's backyard I think its called..
(http://server5.uploadit.org/files/DBRBURN-Burnpimpedup.jpg)
Taken at 640x480..
Quote from: DBR_Dodgy on August 31, 2004, 03:35:17 PM
nice shots hooky, what track is that with the bird on?
and AheadBMX can ya shorten ya sig lol it leaves a scroll bar at the bottom :-\
Ian.
you should perhaps use a more up to date screen resolution :) .... alltough not all can do that out of diff reasons so then perhaps it should be shorter anyway.. :P
Yea I am on 1024x768 and it scrolls. I cant get any bigger tho because my screen simply isnt big enough :P
*#*#*!!!! a more up to date screen res? ? ? damn im on 800 x 600 is that not 21st century enough ? ?
lol j/k
im running 1024 x 768
i can run higher but i end up sitting an inch from the sreen to read stuff lol j/k
Ian.
Well thamks again for the help everyone :)
Quote from: DBR_Burn on August 31, 2004, 04:16:05 PM
Yea I am on 1024x768 and it scrolls. I cant get any bigger tho because my screen simply isnt big enough :P
Quote from: DBR_Dodgy on August 31, 2004, 04:16:09 PM
*#*#*!!!! a more up to date screen res? ? ? damn im on 800 x 600 is that not 21st century enough ? ?
lol j/k
im running 1024 x 768
i can run higher but i end up sitting an inch from the sreen to read stuff lol j/k
Ian.
lol yeah thats a good screen res and the most standardized res on the web at the moment but times fly by... stepping up atleast one step in the resolution wouldn't hurt, I remember thinking just like that some years ago when I took the leap from 1024 x 768 to a bigger res but after about an hour of using it that feeling of having to sit near the screen or something like that was blown away and I once again sat at a comfortable distance reading stuff as easy (easyer actualy since I don't have to scroll as much) as before.
Perhaps td should implant some signature guidelines/rules as other forums has tough, max file size, max size and etc etc... it'd sure help people with smaller resolutions out a lot :)
according to this http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp your part of a 50% crowd on the web using that resolution while I and others using bigger are a part of 10% so perhaps I should rest this case...heh... but I have to note that the information about screen resolutions in a cuple of months old! :P
ok ive just jumped to 1280 x 1024 and i can just about see what im typing here lol
one thing i dont like is the banner at the top of the page dont fit now lol theres a big black blank bit,
im guessing that means that sites like that are set out for 1024 x 768? ? ?
Ian.
yeah that header was kind of a bad move from td imo... *nods td guys*...lol... its discrimination..hehe... But I live with it.. the benefits of having a larger res fills up for it imo.
Ofcourse if you have a really small screen or just a old one then it can be harder to move up in resolutions :-/
well ive just spent an evening browsing and chatting to my GF on msn at 1280 x 1024 and im ok with it, its that the highest res available on any PC?
and yeah i think the TD header should be S T R E A C H E D out abit to fit my new found settings lol
Ian.
My bad. I'm at 1152x864 on my flat screen. I didn't know what the average width should be for sigs. Anybody know?
hehehe i dont care now im running 1280 x 1024 it fits ;D
well id say that about 700 pix wide at 1024 x 678 res is enough and wont give a scroll bar.
yours is 800 now so chop it down 100 or maybe even just 50 and itll be fine.
Ian.
To fit 800x600 users on these forums the width should not be wider then 520-530 pixels wide. For 1024 x 768 resolutions which I think is most normal here it should probably be like 730 pixels wide which would mean a loss of 70 pixels, can't be that bad. :)... Although for me I get a scrollbar only for the signature if I scale down my window enough for it so to big signatures on to small resolutions can't be that bad on this forum since only the signature area gets a scrollbar ( really nice future if you ask me :P ) :)
edit: I should refresh more often before I post...dodgy already replyed :P
Updated it.
the track is my new one for nowaks contest... camp dookie 2
BTW, 1280x1024 is not the same ratio as 640x480, 800x600 and 1024x768 etc, 1280x960 is ;)
I run 1280x960 for desktop and most games.
Quote from: AUS_Twisted on September 01, 2004, 04:06:23 AM
BTW, 1280x1024 is not the same ratio as 640x480, 800x600 and 1024x768 etc, 1280x960 is ;)
I run 1280x960 for desktop and most games.
yup, so do I...
1280 X 1024 use a 5:4 aspect ratio... the normal aspect ratio is 4:3 ( 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768, 1152 x 864, 1280 x 960, 1400 x 1050, 1600 x 1200, 2048 x 1536... )
Basicaly if you used to use 800x600 or 1024x768 then you should normaly use 1280x960 for the resolution you want.
i have now altered to 1280 x 960 and all looks good,,,,,,,,, just that damn TD header is doing my head in still lol.
Ian.
I don't have 1280x960. How do I change to that? ???
Buy a bigger screen ;)
/* START 'I think' */
I don't think its the screen that controlls that tough :P ... The screen plays a part in whats usable or not but I think the gfx card is what decides most things like that.
/* END 'I think' */
What resolutions DO you have the alex?
800x600
1024x768
1280x720
1280x1024
well then your best bet most likley is the 5:4 aspect ratio resolution ( 1280x1024 )... asuming you have correct and well updated drivers too.... try it, if things look odd then just go back..
not much you can do to enhance these awsome shots :P
(http://www.nhgz.com/hosted/KXmotox45/images/contra.jpg)
haha, Contra, now that was a great game.
I have a remix of one of the contra songs if you want it, I didn't make it though.
It sounds great.
Just let me know
Yes please ;D
My friend and I have been learning the song on guitar all day.
that game was so sick!! hahaha i hated the jungle leve...l wait wasnt every level like a jungel level.......
Quote from: KXmotox45 on September 03, 2004, 01:11:26 AM
Yes please ;D
My friend and I have been learning the song on guitar all day.
http://www.vgmix.com/songs/goat_-_Crossfire(Contra).mp3
There you go.
Here are 2 more.
http://www.ocremix.org/songs/Contra_AMEN_reflux_OC_ReMix.mp3
and
http://www.ocremix.org/songs/Contra_BasesLoaded_OC_ReMix.mp3
Damn,I LOVED playing Contra so much!!!!!!!!! :o ;D
Noel, catch up with me, I might be able to help you out ;D
Bunny, those remixes were awsome. That made my day!
Quote from: KXmotox45 on September 03, 2004, 07:04:36 PM
Bunny, those remixes were awsome. That made my day!
Glad I could help you out man.
Ok well I see that nobody really knows the standard "photographers" tricks to enhance an image (or at least isn't sharing them) so here goes...
First off...a screen shot is a bit different (obviously) than a photograph. There are things that DO and DO NOT apply here...but you can play around with most of this and get good results. As Hook (Andy) mentioned...there is the contrast and brightness tweaks...but there is a MUCH better way to do them as well as the standard Sharpening tweaks.
First contrast... open your image in Photoshop (sorry PSP users...I don't think this translates well...if at all). It is note-worthy that taking your screen shots at as big a size as possible and scaling (resampling) down is the preferred method of enhancement with screen shots or ANY picture in the digital realm really. Upsizing is NEVER a good idea as it produces pixelated (ugly) images. Do whatever cropping your going to do and resize the image...BUT when you do so DO NOT leave the pixel resolution as it is! I usually start out with a 1024x768 image and resize to 600x450 x 1200dpi. Now for the contrast adjustments go to Layer/New Adjustment Layer/Curves and click OK which will bring up the Curves adjustment pop-up. In the middle of the window you will see a line that runs from bottom left to top right across a 4 by 4 grid. If you left click on this line it will place an adjustment node there. This takes a LOT of experimentation and patience to get down...but basically what I do is click on the line in the two center-most squares to add nodes...so you should have nodes at the ends of the line and then 1 node in the 2nd row 3rd box down and another in the 3rd row 2nd box down. The lower one affects the amount of blackness in your pic and the upper one affects the amount of whiteness in your pic. Generally you'll want to grab the lower middle one (by left clicking on it) and drag it down a bit...and the upper middle one you'll want to drag up a little bit...you can also move them left-to-right and playing with that will give varied results. You'll need to play with it to get it down...but it is a MUCH better way to adjust your image as it actually does NOTHING to the original image until you decide your done and flatten it.
You can also mess with the blend modes and opacity if you want to...so if you get a little 'happy' with the curves adjustment you can still mellow it out a bit afterwards and still be able to use it effectively. Once you're done with this flatten the layers.
Next we'll do sharpening and this one is a widely misunderstood adjustment. Most guys just use the Filter/Sharpen or Sharpen More...and some guys actually use the Filter/Unsharp Mask tool...this is the right way to go about it...but again we don't want to make adjustments to our original image right away and this definately does that. You can of course use the undo feature...but I much prefer to keep it simple. So make a duplicate of your image by right clicking on the background layer (which should also be the only layer) in the Layer Palette and choosing Duplicate (just click ok on the popup unless you want to name it). Now go to Image/Mode/LAB Color and DON'T Flatten. Then in the Layer Palette click on the Channels tab and click on the second layer called "Lightness". Note that the image turns black & white... now go to Filter/Sharpen/Unsharp Mask and on the resulting Unsharp Mask adjustment pop-up set the settings to somewhere around 100-1-0 to maybe 50-5-0...you'll have to play around with it...but normally I use 100-1-0. Make sure on your image that you don't see any jaggies or 'artifacts' (bad edges). When you're satisfied click OK and then click on the LAB layer and click the Layer tab. Now you'll be able to turn off your copy layer and see the difference between your before and after sharpening images. Assuming that you're happy...flatten the layers.
Now just go back up to Image/Mode/RGB Color and then save...YOU'RE DONE!
To help illustrate the differences these adjustments make when done right I've taken a screenshot that I eventually used on my latest (and last) MCM2 track for the track pic.
In this first image all that I've done is resize and resample the original 1024x768x72dpi image down to 600x450x1200dpi.
(http://vmx-racing.com/vmx/p1.jpg)
Now the second image reflects the Curves (contrast/brightness) adjusments.
(http://vmx-racing.com/vmx/p2.jpg)
and this final image reflects the Sharpening and Curves adjustments.
(http://vmx-racing.com/vmx/p3.jpg)
If you compare all three I think you'll agree that the final image is the sharpest and best looking of the 3 and would be the best screen shot for a track pic. Note that I did not do any cropping of this image at all as you would want to do for a track pic or if you were going to post a screenshot...presumably you would not want the vcr controls in the final image! lol
Hope that this helps somebody out!
8)
no offence, paul i dont really like the sharpened image.. looks to pixely ( if thats a word ) lol
Paul..... I think I did something wrong. lmao :P
(http://www.skymx-designs.com/images/contrast.jpg)
J/M.... But I don't think it makes a WHOLE lot of difference. It helps some, but not enough for me to take the time to do it. lol
3rd screen looks pretty sexy to me... ::) :P
Well, anyways, thanks for the long post Paul, I'll see how it works so I can tell if it's worth that much time.
EDIT: ALso take a look at some of flaps screens at freestylemtx.com How dioes he get his to look that good?
dang that was a long read lol.