How i get my screenshots to look the way they do

[richardd]

tools needed: Adobe Photoshop 8.0+ and decent FFXI pic of at least 800x600

This is a hobby of mine, but the way i play with the SS is: i like to make it seem as if i took the pic at the right time and it wasnt touched up at all.

if you wanna get some good reults, i suggest going for the best possible resolution your PC/PS2 can handle. I STRONGLY suggest any windower user to get a plugin called Drawdistance. It really makes the difference in the resolution in the pics itself, and heres a quick example:
http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/2074/drawjh7.jpg

top is normal and bottom is drawdistance. If it reduces your framerate by a large margin, i wouldnt even fuck with it unless your taking serious pics.

here is a random pic of me
http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/1...6010304kv6.png

here it is when i load drawdistance, this would be a good pic to practice on 1st, so im going to go through with this one
http://img172.imageshack.us/img172/7...6010320bm2.png

ok now its time to mess around with it, the pic in itself is boring and gives no feel to it.

go ahead and load your pic on the photoshop
http://img81.imageshack.us/img81/7126/65556170ot3.jpg

adjust some of the brightness/contrast, but try not to make it bloomy as hell and burn other peoples retinas doing it. use your best judgement. since the pic is outdoors, these are the settings i used. not too noticable, but noticeable to enough to give the pic more flavor
http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/913/96729003fw6.jpg

what you are going to do now, is duplicate the layer your working with by right clicking the pic in the layers box and select "Duplicate Layer" Than what your going to do is go to Filter->Blur->Gaussian Blur. This is where your artistic side has to show lol. The way i do it is by guessing. Make sure your able to see whats going on within the blur and try not to do it too much, yet not too little. here were the settings i used
http://img147.imageshack.us/img147/3535/20723000nv2.jpg

here is where its gonna get good. after you blur it, go to to Edit>Fade Gaussian Blur and choose Overlay. It should look something like this
http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/2875/45628192hn1.jpg
kinda messy lol, but dont click ok yet. lower it to around where you wouldnt wanna burn peoples eyes out, and tone it down to a more relaxed setting. for this one, it was around 49-52%.

the pic should something like this now
http://img147.imageshack.us/img147/1074/53159989hz6.jpg

go ahead and crop it, and merge it one layer.
http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/3160/77031146ts8.jpg

make sure you also put in any minor details you want
http://img172.imageshack.us/img172/1364/53276808dw4.jpg

and thats how i get most of my pics to look like the way it does D: so if you still have any questions lemme know. and sorry for the typos/grammar mistakes. i blame it on watching too many Nickelodian shows as a kid

[yrpaine]

http://www.bluegartr.com/forum/viewto ... c&start=30

[richardd]

its 2 differenet styles lol. Theres alot more really, but this is just 1/1xxx

[theo]

Haven't you heard? Real is brown.

Just kidding, I like your pics!

I have my own little process that I go through when touching up FFXI pics. Rather than directly adjusting the brightness/contrast, I like to adjust the Curves, Color Balance, and Levels.

The Curves menu gives you a graph which you can manipulate to adjust exactly how much light and dark you want coming in at each point in the spectrum. It gives you a lot more creative control over the amount of contrast present in the image.

One concept that I think a lot of people don't think about when 'shopping FFXI images is shadow. They like to blur the fuck out of everything, without realizing that proper use of shadows can actually be more effective. Its like the difference between watching a TV show with good lighting vs. bad lighting. If the set doesn't have proper fill, key, and back lights, the images on screen will look very flat. Setting up the lights to properly cast the right amount of shadows creates the illusion of depth in your otherwise flat TV screen

Granted, a proper mix if both blur and shadow is going to yeild the best possible results.

[Goddess]

What's the 3D Resolution you have it set at? Mine still isn't so detailed at 2048x2048.. I dunno..

[Awoir]

Where's the lensflare?

Check your messages!

[Altanass]

i'm downloading that distance plugin as soon as i get home from work lol! i hate running away and suddenly a big towering wall pops up in my face >.<!!!

i like the way that you have made it look. To me, it looks more like a photograph of real life rather than of a game, or at least it somewhat compensates for the poor outdated graphics the game uses.

Photoshop is really confusing, and you'd think a lot of effects and filters would have better names that a layman would understand lol I've been using it religiously myself lol, but my style looks completely different o.O I will have to upload them sometime.

[Matricide]

that's a nice little tutorial, thanks.

[Rai]

Rate up! oh wai----

Anyhow, nice tutorial!

[Izzy]

yea, really nice tutorial, i'll play with it sometime!

[Thistle]

Beautiful. Thanks for the guide!

[Nystul]

ok so I actually used wafik's guide- I'm basically "unskilled" in photoshop. I was able to take your pic of the ninja and the bee and reproduce it- which was very nice. Then I tried wafik's guide on one of my own pics, and I must say I'm awfully impressed with mysef for a first time effort:

Before:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...n/bstinsky.jpg

after:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3.../prettybst.jpg

[Ryko]

Needs more lense flare

[Nystul]

Please note the lens flare is in the Original pic, and I did not add it. I am I big lens flare opponent, and would take it out if I knew how <_<

[Hitoshura]

Really impressive tutorial, thanks. Will Adobe Photoshop CS serve justice?

[Rai]

First try, does look quite nice imho. I kinda wish armor in FFXI had textures with a better resolution or whatever is needed to make it look less blurry.

http://raiko.akubi.de/misc/raiko_test.jpg

Question: How do you do the lighting in the last step?

[Korietsu]

Really impressive tutorial, thanks. Will Adobe Photoshop CS serve justice?

Adobe Photoshop CS = 8.0 iirc, i'm on CS2 though my self.

[Nystul]

Question: How do you do the lighting in the last step?

In the layers window, where you change the opacity of a layer (little slider thing), to the left of the opacity is a drop down menu that says Normal. Lighting is in there.

[BRP]

Hmm, I wonder how it would look with a little less blur, because right now, a bit too blurry for my taste. I'll test it out once I get a chance I guess. Anyway, nice tutorial.

[Altanass]

i may just be too sleepy but when u fade the gaussian blur, you say to switch it from normal to overlay, but your following pics are as if you stayed on normal?, when i followed the instructions and did overlay49%~ and tried to crop and then merge, nothing happened >.>