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 discussions. Just a simlit chit-chat thread for a group of friends to discuss topics like approaches to writing, story themes, character archetypes, and essential stuff such as undead gnome army world domination, all accompanied by a(n un)healthy side of pancakes.
Aaah thank you @SnuffyBucket , now I can sneakily *cough* bypass the romance subject. :sweat_smile:
There’s a program called ReShade that a lot of simmers are using to brighten/alter/darken/creepify their pictures. It’s a bit of a learning curve, but once you figure out what look you want, ReShade is really awesome to use! In my case, I can’t – for some reason my game hates the program, and I do a lot of finetuning with my pictures, so ReShade actually works against me.
You all already know this, but I use a LOT of editing in my pictures. Not so much the kid chapters, but the teen stage has every picture altered so far. In fact, picture editing probably takes the longest out of all chapter preparations, haha. I’ll show the process below for those who are interested.
I then go to this site (no skills with photoshop whatsoever, so this place does the editing for me). I play around with sliders until the picture is as bright/dark/colourful as I want it to be:
https://i.ibb.co/zSPP2Pb/2.jpg
Then, depending on the scene, I add a filter:
https://i.ibb.co/FhQnkQw/3.jpg
And finally I turn the image into a smaller-sized jpg file since my screenshots are gigantic (saves loading times for readers, yay) and add a border:
https://i.ibb.co/9b82k3B/4.jpg
How much editing and what type of end result you get, really depends on the person, though. I enjoy giving my screenshots a movie-like feel with dramatic lighting, so then you get that. There’s people who only brighten their screenshots a bit, or make the colours a lot more vivid than the base-game. It all depends on personal preference. :)
*Edit: I haven't read your chapter yet, but I like what you did with the news screenshots! It looks like an actual evening news program :mrgreen: Also, sorry to say it, Travis, but Broof is a better looking dude than you, even if his last name is Hogwash. :D
"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
Honestly, 90% of the time I just use the screenshots as they come out of the game - to me, they look good enough as they are. The main exceptions to this are nighttime outdoor images, because they're always way too dark, unless I remember to place copious amounts of outdoor lighting in game, and like you said using filters to designate memories/flashbacks and such. So basically what you said.
Ocassionally, I add "magic" effects into a screenshot when needed, if I need magic that doesn't quite exist in game or if I for whatever reason can't be bothered to use what is in game (most of the time this goes for screenshots where two people are teleporting and such). What I normally do for that is I find a royalty free image of sparkles or whatever the desired effect is, shove it in my image and resize/change colour/soften the layer if needed. I'm not particularly great at this though.
Like at the Von Haunt chapter, when Cordelia fell into the snow and Morgyn then lifted her up and dried her dress using magic, my first attempt at adding an effect to illustrate that just kind of looked as if she was farting fire, lol
I do always convert my pictures to jpg as Yimi mentioned for storage purposes, sometimes resize them if I can be bothered. Oh, and I suppose I do my chapter teasers, but those are just a case of resizing, slapping on a frame and the chapter title.
I use Photoshop for all of the above.
As you can gather, I basically do the bare minimum, and if I can get away with doing nothing, which is most of the time (I hope), I will. I like the way the screenshots look out of my game (often I like them more than what they look like when I add filters), and I'm lazy :D
I am in awe at the amount of work @_sims_Yimi does - I would never have the patience, but man, your pictures are always stunning Yimi, so you can definitely tell a lot of effort went in, the Camelot chapters are always a feast for the eyes ?
"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.
@SnuffyBucket I won't be too helpful, since I don't like to edit and don't have a lot of experience with editing programs. I use Reshade and use different presets off of different websites. Right now I am using clear bloom by pictureamoebae for a preset. One of the settings doesn't work for me and I have to turn a couple of them off, otherwise, it bogs down my computer (I have an older computer). But I find that just a few Reshade settings gets the look that I want. I like clear bloom because it gives the screenshots a little softer quality, and it helps with the lighting and shadows. I was using a different preset in story 1, but I found that one was a little too dark for my tastes, and I ended up lightening a lot of my pictures.
I'm not super picky about screenshots, usually because by the time I'm done writing, posing, finding CC and taking screenshots I've already got a bunch of time sunk into a chapter, so I compromise a little on screenshot editing. I use Gimp for editing (usually just lightning or darkening or adding simple effects). I use MS Paint if I am doing very basic things like chapter images with text on my thread.
Awesome, I've learned a lot! It's fascinating to see what you all do and why.
@_sims_yimi Really interesting to see the process! If I took a shot like that first one, I'd be like 'look, I'm so good at this' :D then by the time you finished editing it's just something amazing. I can't believe you do that for all of them. Resizing images you say? I don't currently do that, just bung them in. Now I'm wondering if my loading times are slow...
Well, Sandy didn't hire him for his cooking skills. And Hogwash is a noble and longstanding name in my game, I'll have you know.
@ThePlumbob you know you can't say that Cordelia was farting fire and then not show me, right? Please say you still have that image. :D Hmm... again with the smaller images. Are you trying to tell me something, here? Although none of my chapters have 98 images... yet. ;)
@mercuryfoam your attention to detail is amazing! I really like that you edit the happy images to happier. I've tried to use in-game lighting to emphasise mood, like the second part of Weird Juice where I turned off all the lights in the room to denote that the situation was going downhill, or having Melinda in the pitch dark room and her parents in an overly bright one in Foil in the Microwave; never even occurred to me to do edits after, instead. It will now!
Your filters really do emphasise the mood and the drama. Definitely something I'm going to have a play with. Ugh, the clipping! April's eyelashes are always in her forehead. :D Ahh, it's like learning how magic is done... awesome that you can so smoothly slip things in. I had no idea that those things weren't actually there. How on earth did you get those 6 TV screens to work so seamlessly? You are so darn clever.
@lone_cat telling me that you don't like to edit and don't have a lot of experience with editing is really helpful, it's reassuring. :) I think I'll check out Reshade, especially when I get to part 2 of my story, where the tone will change, somewhat. I hear you about sinking time into everything else then glossing over screenshot editing. I feel like my screenshots are the weakest part of my story, 'cause I sink so much effort into obsessing over the text the rest.
Plenty of food for thought everyone. Thanks so, so much! <3
@SnuffyBucket Nah, it's not the load times. It's just trying to postpone the inevitable moment of running out of WP storage space (which may happen sooner rather than later if I keep doing more 98 image chapters lol). I'm usually too lazy to resize (I feel like my whole comment above could have just been summarised as "I'm lazy" :D ), but it's definitely a good idea to turn to the photos to jpg, the pngs are huge.
@lone_cat Aww, I remember asking what preset you use early on in your chapters because I love your colors. I tried to follow the tutorial for Clear Bloom on Pictureamoebae’s tumblr, but I can’t seem to understand it. I’ll try again after this! :)
@ThePlumbob @SnuffyBucket Thanks! I’m glad the props I used look part of the game. Last thing I want is for them to take center focus. I’m glad you like the ‘make happier’ edits too!
@ThePlumbob
"ThePlumbob;c-17625338" wrote: @mercuryfoam Oh wow, that's a lot of tools! I'm lucky since I get the Adobe Suite through work, so I just use Photoshop for everything (really, I should be less lazy and actually do more with it haha)
I thought your pictures are already pretty. I was already gushing in the earlier chapters! :lol: Imo pictures are simply the writer’s personalisation and taste. If the default colors are pretty enough as it is so, there’s no reason to use a third party software. I’m just stubborn about the story direction so I have to learn to include objects. :)
@SnuffyBucket
I've tried to use in-game lighting to emphasise mood, like the second part of Weird Juice where I turned off all the lights in the room to denote that the situation was going downhill, or having Melinda in the pitch dark room and her parents in an overly bright one in Foil in the Microwave
Ooh I’ve never thought of that! That’s a good point actually, to use in-game lighting as filters. It’s possible too since we’re able to tweak color and brightness of the lights in the room! I don't think what I do is anything noteworthy. It's a skill anyone can pick up. I'll show you in the tut below.
How did you get those 6 TV screens to work so seamlessly?
I’ll use pictures so I don’t send you another wall of text. :blush:
I didn't keep the save so I'm using a different example but same technique. #1 I have the main photo opened in gimp. https://i.ibb.co/wd8ngQP/T1.png
It's on a layer of its own. https://i.ibb.co/6vnVFTP/t2.png
#2 I add the 'security photo' into the same project https://i.ibb.co/p4NWrkt/T3.png
Notice how this photo is not combined with the first one. It's on its own layer. https://i.ibb.co/42b2SBW/t4.png
#3 Because it's on its own layer, I can resize, and grayscale the photo without affecting the first one. https://i.ibb.co/TqYw7Xm/t5.png
#4 I use the perspective tool to modify the angle of the photo and fit it into the the tv screen. https://i.ibb.co/1MBCW3v/t6.png
#5 Cut out Thayne's silhouette on a 'Layer Mask'. https://i.ibb.co/XkW9sNM/t8.png
This is a 'Layer Mask'. It means you are not cutting the photo directly. There won't be a 'hole' in your picture. (A bit technical. It's not important.) https://i.ibb.co/P9m80kq/t7.png
#6 Tada! First 'security photo done'. Repeat for how many TV screens you have in your main photo lol. :) https://i.ibb.co/gFBwdTK/t9.png
If you're worried about storage space, you can put your pictures on a 3rd party image hosting site and have your WP blog pluck images from there via code like how we do on the forums. That way you use zero WP space and still have quality pictures on your blog.
@mercuryfoam I know you can do that in theory, but most of the image hosting sites I'm aware of won't keep the images indefinitely - all I have to do is go look at my old legacy thread, half the old imgur embeds that I used as chapter teasers are gone. So I don't really want to rely on those, because I don't trust them longterm.
I'm currently at around 24% of my WP storage, but that's keeping in mind I already have a completed legacy's worth of pictures on my site :D The Blackwell Chronicles have only taken around 4% so far I think. So still ways off running out, I hope :)
I don't think there's a visually noticeable difference between jpg and png, but the file size difference is crazy! At work we have a rule that no images that go on the website should be over 150 KB (to optimise load times), so I think I have that ingrained in me now - I try not to put anything over 200 KB on my blog (which is why mostly I just convert to jpg, because that makes the biggest difference, but if I still think the file size is too big and I can be bothered on the particular day, I will resize).
Edit: Making the picture slightly smaller doesn't really reduce quality, because your WP template already shows the picture as smaller anyway. For instance for my template, I know that the reader will never be looking at an image at a bigger resolution that around 800 pixels wide, so there's really not a need for it to be more than, say 1000 pixels wide. Sure, in theory someone could right click and go view an image in full screen in a separate tab, but I doubt anyone does that. So really, it would be a good idea to resize them all before I upload, I just can't be bothered.
(Sorry for going on and on about something as boring as image size. I can't help it - I do website updates as a part of my job every day, so file size is something I think about haha)
Ah I see. I've not been long enough to experience a purge like that. Whoops. looks like most of my pictures might disappear lolol.
I scale my 1920x1080 images to half its size but never thought of converting the format. I'll probably do that from now on. If it reduces pic size by that much then I could potentially not reduce my image sizes by so much since I lose some details in the screenshot. :) Thanks!
@mercuryfoam I hope not, I definitely wouldn't want you to lose your images! Just make sure you have them all backed up somewhere so that you can restore them if worst comes to worst.
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