This is a casual variation on a reading circle. There is no real obligation to read each others' stories (although many of us do read each others' work already anyway), and no structured weekly discus...
"SnuffyBucket;c-17624943" wrote: Now my new chapter is out in the wild, and therefore I can't crop out all the images and hide in shame, let's discuss screenshots. Specifically Editing Screenshots
How do you edit screenshots - when, what and why? I'm talking everything; filters, lighting, Photoshop. Anything added between hitting the C key and posting on your blog. Do you take screenshots knowing you'll edit them? Is it a reactive decision?
Oh man… prepare for an essay. I edit my pictures all the time for all kinds of reasons. I try to make my picture editing less obvious, as if the feature were part of the game/story itself. I’m going to try and condense my reply, but I don’t think I’ll succeed because you’re asking for When, What and Why. So heads up! This is LONG. And this is just how I do things, I’m probably just an obsessive person and probably no one else pays attention to these things.
B2W Behind the Scenes! (Heavy spoilers and given the nature of my story, this explanation is uncomfortable. If your lurking, maybe give a skip.)
The softwares I use to edit screenshots. Depending on the chapter , I can use almost all of them in one setting.
1.Ms Paint 2.Window’s in-built Photo edit tool 3.Gimp (Free version of Photoshop) 4.Reshade 5.Pixlr (Yimi’s recommendation. Saved my life) 6.Inkscape
(I am still actively looking. I need a particular feature that is not available above :joy: )
Contrary to the list, I’m actually like @ThePlumbob . If I can get away without editing any picture, I’ll do that. Here are the reasons why I edit my pictures:
#1 The setting of my story... is 80% set outdoors, nighttime, and sombre. Because of that, they are almost all edited for brightness and color fixing. My happy scenes are also edited in response to the darkness to be extra dreamy or has a yellow/orange/happy color tinge to it to balance things somewhat.
#2 To emphasise the mood or character’s state of mind. Here’s three chapter examples.
The entire 16.5 has a heavy color overlay on purpose and an added ethereal glow to it to emphasise the chapter being not-entirely-there. https://oldskoolart.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/bonus-1.jpg
In 17.21, the picture/lighting effects purposely go from mild to sombre, to high contrast, painful lighting, then her last scene with Masato has borders that grow larger and larger until it dramatically disappears. Similar effects are applied in most picture sequence chapters. It empasises the mood of the piece and... heightens the drama? :lol: https://i.ibb.co/8z4RRFc/57.jpg
In Mercy and chapters after, there is a vignette effect (a black fade on the corners of the picture) to ‘illustrate’ brain fog, flashbacks, confusion and suppression. Once she remembers everything, I replaced the vignette effect with stark lighting to emphasise her emotional responses to her memories. https://oldskoolart.files.wordpress.com/2020/02/942.png?w=1024
EA’s weird eye effects, sims, clothing and objects clipping into one another, bad color contrasts, and fixing in-game and cc poses that don’t make sense. I usually save over pictures after making these types of edits so I only have half an example.
https://i.ibb.co/1MWWYj8/134-6.png We rotate our heads! Not the bones in our neck, certainly not until it looks like a corkscrew. And unfortunately I’ve saved over this picture, but the default colors made it look like Curtis's head isn’t attached too, so I recolored his neck(s) in this chapter lol.
There’s no such thing as CC binoculars. I searched everywhere. This is gimped/photoshopped. https://i.ibb.co/vDF08ML/02-06-20-3-07-35-AM.png
Gimped Aviators and wig. https://i.ibb.co/rx062YS/6.png
The scene where Curtis sneakily pass a note to Kirino? There is no note and the cigarette in his lips doesn’t exist. https://i.ibb.co/xjDc9BR/02-06-20-5-54-08-AM.png https://i.ibb.co/vJy31VC/02-06-20-6-37-50-AM.png
This picture is a dang nightmare because its 6 pictures in one. https://oldskoolart.files.wordpress.com/2020/03/1148.png?w=1024
Other added edits are AC’s food fights, Athena’s bruised face/Curtis’s body bruises, gunshot bloodstain on Curtis’s sleeve, Curtis’s dad watching him through security cameras, Athena’s magic shield cracking, TV switched on without anyone watching etc (I can’t believe idle TVs are not in sims!)
#5 Make Comic/ text-in-picture sequences. For these chapters I use every software listed above, but most notably inkscape for comic panelling, speech bubbles, and awesome text variety and manipulation.
Oof sorry for that long trip down Sadville. Please go watch a happy video after this. :astonished: :sweat_smile: :
TLDR version: If you want pretty pictures, Pixlr or Reshade will suffice. If you want to fine tune the smallest details, Gimp & Photoshop.
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