Break
08-12-2011, 01:23 PM
How to enhance your screenshots
Some simple steps on making screenshots out of ENB-less games prettier
Since a lot of people asked me how I did it, that my screenshots looked like having ENB and were overall nicer to look at than screenshots directly from GTA IV, I'm gonna explain that in the tutorial here. First I will show you what you will achieve by doing this:
http://www.abload.de/thumb/tutlq7z.jpg (http://www.abload.de/image.php?img=tutlq7z.jpg)
(You can maximize any image you find in this topic by clicking it.)
Getting started (in GTA IV)
A good screenshots starts in Grand Theft Auto IV itself, there are some things that you cannot do in after editing as good as GTA's engine will, so it's important that you apply this tutorial on screenshots you take following these steps:
1. Finding a good location in GTA IV. This is essential for your screenshots to look nice, you should always have a good view distance and something in the background that looks nice, though doesn't distract from the cars. Liberty City's skyline is one of the most used things and will provide you good results. For this tutorial I chose Triangle (Times Square) in central Algonquin. Also take into account the time of the day and the weather (you should play around with these in SNT a bit before deciding a location. Use SNT's freeze features to freeze them once you're done)
2. Taking a good camera angle. You will get best effects when taking a camera angle that focuses on what you want to screen, if it's a car, have it clearly visible and centred, though you should never zoom in too much and always have the scenery visible.
3. Turning off the HUD and all overlays you have. Explains itself. A good program to do so is the Simple Native Trainer.
4. Crank up GTA IV's settings to maximum. Not necessarily Water though, only if the environment of the screenshot has a lot of visible water. Don't worry if your game will run with 10-5 FPS, you are going to take a still picture anyways.
5. Make the last adjustments. Start your screenshot software (preferrably Fraps, since it saves in png), if you haven't already. Choose an animation your player will make (you can do that with SNT > Model Spawning > Animations) if you choose to have him on the picture; if you plan not to, set your player either to 100% transparent in SNT or use a First Person view mod. If you want to screenshot a vehicles ELS lights, you can do so by enabling them one by one in SNT (Car Options > Add Car Components)
6. Take your screenshot. Explains itself. Make sure to take 2-3 screens and maybe varying the angle by a bit, this will help you if the first pic you produced is not perfect.
7. Put your GTA IV back to your normal settings and quit it.
Now you should have something like this:
http://www.abload.de/thumb/gtaiv2011-08-1217-14-39flt.png (http://www.abload.de/image.php?img=gtaiv2011-08-1217-14-39flt.png)
This picture is not something you want to look at for long, the sky looks unreal and boring, the colors are slightly pale and there is a yellow/greenish tint in the picture; we have LCPD:FR's branding in the lower right corner and the shapes don't look smooth due to GTA IV's AA lack. We will now resolve these issues step by step.
Processing the screenshot (in an photo editing program of your choice)
1. Take a look at the pics you shot and select the best one. Not much to explain. Delete the ones you're not gonna take.
2. Start up the photo editing software of your choice. I am going to be using Photoshop CS5 Extended, as it is the best tool in my opinion.
3. Getting rid of the ugly pale colors and the dirty tint of the picture. Do so by accessing the options Auto Tone, Auto Color and Auto Contrast from the "Image" section in Photoshop. These will most of the time fix the tint in the pictures and adjust the most important things to make the image look pretty. In rare cases you will need to do some adjusting in the Saturation/Hue Menu (CTRL+U) to make the image look properly.
http://www.abload.de/thumb/screen1zdk3.jpg (http://www.abload.de/image.php?img=screen1zdk3.jpg)
4. Giving the picture a bit of a nicer feel. Using darker blacks and brighter whites and a bit more saturation on the colors. This will be achieved by using the Curves-Tool (CTRL+M) and reproducing a shape that looks a bit like this:
http://www.abload.de/thumb/screen2xewr.jpg (http://www.abload.de/image.php?img=screen2xewr.jpg)
Depending on the light conditions in the picture, you will need to regulate the points until it looks good. You will end up with something like this:
http://www.abload.de/thumb/gtaiv2011-08-1217-14-3oc1p.jpg (http://www.abload.de/image.php?img=gtaiv2011-08-1217-14-3oc1p.jpg)
5. Giving the screenshot a beautiful sky. Now this is probably the most interesting part for most people and it's not hard to achieve. First you will want to go to Google Images and look for high resolution pictures of skies, grey-cloudy skies if you are taking a picture in dark weather, light-dark blue little clouded skies if your picture is in sunshine. If your picture is at night, search for pictures of stars, or alternatively make some white dots on the sky using brushes of different sizes. Back to the picture of a sky, download it and import it into the screenshot you are currently working on. Now move the screenshot and stretch it in a way so it covers all visible parts of the sky, don't cut anything, just move it over those areas, so the sky is fully covered. Now duplicate the layer wich your screenshot is on, and move the copy over the picture of the sky:
http://www.abload.de/thumb/unbenannt2uyj.jpg (http://www.abload.de/image.php?img=unbenannt2uyj.jpg)
Right-click the eraser tool and select Magic Eraser, now click the sky. Click all the spots where sky is visible and you should start seeing the picture of the sky that in the layer below it. Sometimes this technique fails, which will require you to cut out the sky manually with the Polygonal Lasso Tool. This is how the screenshot will look after you're done with the sky:
http://www.abload.de/thumb/gtaiv2011-08-1217-14-3su7m.jpg (http://www.abload.de/image.php?img=gtaiv2011-08-1217-14-3su7m.jpg)
6. Adjust the sky to the picture. Tweak the sky by applying the measures of Step 4 to it and using the Hue/Saturation Tool to make it blend in with the picture. Your goal is to achieve a sky that fits the lighting of the picture. Sometimes the screenshot will not need this kind of proceedure, in which case you can just skip this step.
7. Final Step: Removing the Branding and applying some Anti-Aliasing First we will take care of the branding in the bottom right. Either remove that with some tedius Clone Stamp tool, or merge all the layers you did, and cut the image so you can't see the branding. I will take the second option, since I've left that part of the screen empty on purpose. Now the branding is gone. Now for the Anti-Aliasing. You achieve this by making the image smaller, I usually cut the size in half. I usually go from a picture with width 1680 to a picture with with 840, by using the Image Size Tool (ALT+CTRL+I).
And you're done, export the picture either as a high-quality JPEG or in png. Proceed to upload. Done.
Final result:
http://www.abload.de/thumb/untitled-1suw4.png (http://www.abload.de/image.php?img=untitled-1suw4.png)
Please do not repost this tutorial on any site other than GTAPolicemods.com without my permission.
Some simple steps on making screenshots out of ENB-less games prettier
Since a lot of people asked me how I did it, that my screenshots looked like having ENB and were overall nicer to look at than screenshots directly from GTA IV, I'm gonna explain that in the tutorial here. First I will show you what you will achieve by doing this:
http://www.abload.de/thumb/tutlq7z.jpg (http://www.abload.de/image.php?img=tutlq7z.jpg)
(You can maximize any image you find in this topic by clicking it.)
Getting started (in GTA IV)
A good screenshots starts in Grand Theft Auto IV itself, there are some things that you cannot do in after editing as good as GTA's engine will, so it's important that you apply this tutorial on screenshots you take following these steps:
1. Finding a good location in GTA IV. This is essential for your screenshots to look nice, you should always have a good view distance and something in the background that looks nice, though doesn't distract from the cars. Liberty City's skyline is one of the most used things and will provide you good results. For this tutorial I chose Triangle (Times Square) in central Algonquin. Also take into account the time of the day and the weather (you should play around with these in SNT a bit before deciding a location. Use SNT's freeze features to freeze them once you're done)
2. Taking a good camera angle. You will get best effects when taking a camera angle that focuses on what you want to screen, if it's a car, have it clearly visible and centred, though you should never zoom in too much and always have the scenery visible.
3. Turning off the HUD and all overlays you have. Explains itself. A good program to do so is the Simple Native Trainer.
4. Crank up GTA IV's settings to maximum. Not necessarily Water though, only if the environment of the screenshot has a lot of visible water. Don't worry if your game will run with 10-5 FPS, you are going to take a still picture anyways.
5. Make the last adjustments. Start your screenshot software (preferrably Fraps, since it saves in png), if you haven't already. Choose an animation your player will make (you can do that with SNT > Model Spawning > Animations) if you choose to have him on the picture; if you plan not to, set your player either to 100% transparent in SNT or use a First Person view mod. If you want to screenshot a vehicles ELS lights, you can do so by enabling them one by one in SNT (Car Options > Add Car Components)
6. Take your screenshot. Explains itself. Make sure to take 2-3 screens and maybe varying the angle by a bit, this will help you if the first pic you produced is not perfect.
7. Put your GTA IV back to your normal settings and quit it.
Now you should have something like this:
http://www.abload.de/thumb/gtaiv2011-08-1217-14-39flt.png (http://www.abload.de/image.php?img=gtaiv2011-08-1217-14-39flt.png)
This picture is not something you want to look at for long, the sky looks unreal and boring, the colors are slightly pale and there is a yellow/greenish tint in the picture; we have LCPD:FR's branding in the lower right corner and the shapes don't look smooth due to GTA IV's AA lack. We will now resolve these issues step by step.
Processing the screenshot (in an photo editing program of your choice)
1. Take a look at the pics you shot and select the best one. Not much to explain. Delete the ones you're not gonna take.
2. Start up the photo editing software of your choice. I am going to be using Photoshop CS5 Extended, as it is the best tool in my opinion.
3. Getting rid of the ugly pale colors and the dirty tint of the picture. Do so by accessing the options Auto Tone, Auto Color and Auto Contrast from the "Image" section in Photoshop. These will most of the time fix the tint in the pictures and adjust the most important things to make the image look pretty. In rare cases you will need to do some adjusting in the Saturation/Hue Menu (CTRL+U) to make the image look properly.
http://www.abload.de/thumb/screen1zdk3.jpg (http://www.abload.de/image.php?img=screen1zdk3.jpg)
4. Giving the picture a bit of a nicer feel. Using darker blacks and brighter whites and a bit more saturation on the colors. This will be achieved by using the Curves-Tool (CTRL+M) and reproducing a shape that looks a bit like this:
http://www.abload.de/thumb/screen2xewr.jpg (http://www.abload.de/image.php?img=screen2xewr.jpg)
Depending on the light conditions in the picture, you will need to regulate the points until it looks good. You will end up with something like this:
http://www.abload.de/thumb/gtaiv2011-08-1217-14-3oc1p.jpg (http://www.abload.de/image.php?img=gtaiv2011-08-1217-14-3oc1p.jpg)
5. Giving the screenshot a beautiful sky. Now this is probably the most interesting part for most people and it's not hard to achieve. First you will want to go to Google Images and look for high resolution pictures of skies, grey-cloudy skies if you are taking a picture in dark weather, light-dark blue little clouded skies if your picture is in sunshine. If your picture is at night, search for pictures of stars, or alternatively make some white dots on the sky using brushes of different sizes. Back to the picture of a sky, download it and import it into the screenshot you are currently working on. Now move the screenshot and stretch it in a way so it covers all visible parts of the sky, don't cut anything, just move it over those areas, so the sky is fully covered. Now duplicate the layer wich your screenshot is on, and move the copy over the picture of the sky:
http://www.abload.de/thumb/unbenannt2uyj.jpg (http://www.abload.de/image.php?img=unbenannt2uyj.jpg)
Right-click the eraser tool and select Magic Eraser, now click the sky. Click all the spots where sky is visible and you should start seeing the picture of the sky that in the layer below it. Sometimes this technique fails, which will require you to cut out the sky manually with the Polygonal Lasso Tool. This is how the screenshot will look after you're done with the sky:
http://www.abload.de/thumb/gtaiv2011-08-1217-14-3su7m.jpg (http://www.abload.de/image.php?img=gtaiv2011-08-1217-14-3su7m.jpg)
6. Adjust the sky to the picture. Tweak the sky by applying the measures of Step 4 to it and using the Hue/Saturation Tool to make it blend in with the picture. Your goal is to achieve a sky that fits the lighting of the picture. Sometimes the screenshot will not need this kind of proceedure, in which case you can just skip this step.
7. Final Step: Removing the Branding and applying some Anti-Aliasing First we will take care of the branding in the bottom right. Either remove that with some tedius Clone Stamp tool, or merge all the layers you did, and cut the image so you can't see the branding. I will take the second option, since I've left that part of the screen empty on purpose. Now the branding is gone. Now for the Anti-Aliasing. You achieve this by making the image smaller, I usually cut the size in half. I usually go from a picture with width 1680 to a picture with with 840, by using the Image Size Tool (ALT+CTRL+I).
And you're done, export the picture either as a high-quality JPEG or in png. Proceed to upload. Done.
Final result:
http://www.abload.de/thumb/untitled-1suw4.png (http://www.abload.de/image.php?img=untitled-1suw4.png)
Please do not repost this tutorial on any site other than GTAPolicemods.com without my permission.