screenshot enhancement

[Bunny]

Bunny, those remixes were awsome. That made my day!

Glad I could help you out man.

[ElDiablo (Paul)]

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.



Now the second image reflects the Curves (contrast/brightness) adjusments.



and this final image reflects the Sharpening and Curves adjustments.



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!

[tw0_f0ur_]

no offence, paul  i dont really like the sharpened image.. looks to pixely ( if thats a word ) lol

[VMX_SKYmx99]

Paul..... I think I did something wrong.  lmao



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

[v_hoOk~]

3rd screen looks pretty sexy to me... 

[Bunny]

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?

[thormx985]

dang that was a long read lol.