The Art of the Screen Shot - Part 1

Techniques, tricks and processes for producing great screen shot imagery

By Tony Gondola
 
From illustrating the latest and greatest sim add-on to just sharing your simulation world with your friends, screen shots are everywhere. Most of us just hit the prt-scn button and take what we get. Sometimes that's effective and all that's really needed but with a little effort you can create incredibly beautiful and realistic images that can be considered art in it's own right.

Note: All of the images in this article are lightly compressed. Please allow time for them to load.
 
Step One: take your time and examine your angles.....

Sometimes wonderful images just happen and capturing the moment in front of you is all that's needed. More often however you'll need to look at the image from many different angles and perspectives to find the best composition. Just about every sim I've flown has a pause button so step one is to setup the situation you want and then freeze the sim. Use your external view and zoom controls to move all around your aircraft until you find the best angle. If you've never gone beyond the standard views pull out your manual or keyboard chart and see what's available. Most flight sims have extensive view or eye-point control options, learn how to use them. There will be times when you'll already have a specific shot in mind so use the controls to get there. At other times just play with the controls. Great angles and perspectives are in there, you just have to find them. Here's an example:
How many times have you seen this, the typical one-off MFSF screen shot. It's alright as is but let's see what we can do with it.
 
This is better, we've gone around the compass here to find a better angle. This view is more dynamic and shows off the great detailing on this aircraft.
 
A number of small changes have been made here. By lowering the view point 25 feet we bring the aircraft totally into the sky, emphasizing it as the subject. The viewing angle has been adjusted a bit to uncover the tail and the view point has been moved closer to give the aircraft more of the frame. Again, emphasizing the subject.
 
Step Two: lighting and environment.....

Now that you have your basic shot worked out it's time to put the spurs to it. Remember, we're still paused and will be through the rest of the process. Start the next level of enhancement by adjusting time of day and season until you get a lighting angle and intensity that works best with the image. This will take some trial and error but it's worth the effort.

Once you've decided on the lighting start working with weather conditions. This brings up the worst sin you can commit when doing screen shots and that is using unlimited visibility. Doing so often results in everything looking unnaturally sharp and harsh and is a dead give away that you're looking at a computer generated image. As the next step towards a more realistic result start dropping the visibility and work with the cloud conditions until you're happy with the results. The effect here can be dramatic. There's almost unlimited scope for variation and probably some surprises here so take your time and have fun with it. If you do nothing else, play with weather and visibility as that can do the most to bring your images to the next level.
 
Here's the kind of difference lighting can make. The shape of the aircraft is beautifully defined now and that little glint of reflection highlight on the nose adds a lot to the feeling that you're starting to look at a real image rather then a simulated one.
 
I still say wow every time I see this. By reducing visibility and adding some wispy clouds we've taken a harsh computer generated image and placed it in the real world. Look at the last 3 images in sequence again to really appreciate just how much of a difference lighting and environment can make.
 
Step Three: quality and detail.....

One of the major benefits of building our image in paused mode is the freedom from worry about frame rates. Go into your video card settings and maximize FSAA, Anisotropic filtering and any other image enhancement features your card my offer. In addition, go into your sim rendering and display settings and bring everything up to 100%. You're not constrained by performance issues so let the sim give you everything it has.
 
The improvement is a little hard to appreciate in these reduced sized images. Seen full size the change is actually rather dramatic. With everything maximized all the jaggies are gone from the edges of the fuselage and the ground textures are more detailed.
 
Step Four: post processing.....

We've now reached the point where nothing more can be done from within the sim. You could certainly stop here and have a dammed fine image to show for your efforts. However, if you have access to a decent graphics program and are willing to spend a little more time on it. You can improve the image even more. I use PhotoShop but Gimp or other freeware programs would work as well.

A lot of people would play with simple brightness and contrast controls at this point but there's a better way that offers much better control. In PhotoShop it's the Adjust Levels control. A normal photograph should have a full range of values from black to white. Computer generated images often do not and that can cause them to look a bit flat and lifeless. Here's the histogram for our raw image as an example:

Notice that there are flat areas with no data in the highlight and shadow end of the histogram. This is typical of screen shot images and shows clearly that our image is lacking in dynamic range. By bringing the shadow and highlight pointers in we can stretch the brightness levels to cover the full range. The effect of doing so can be dramatic in some images and less so in others so you'll need to experiment. Also, certain types of images such as silhouettes will depart from the rules and will not necessarily display the full range of tones that one expects to see in a normal daylight image.
The net result of adjust levels in out image is to give it a little more snap and depth.
 
To complete our image spend a moment and think about the edges of the frame and how it relates to the image. A lot of people don't realize what a powerful tool cropping can be as a way of really giving an image life and movement. What we have now looks pretty good but with a little creative cropping we can come to the final image.
 
In our final image I've reduced the color saturation just a tad and have cropped the image to a more rectangular format. Setting the upper left corner in line with the sweep of the right wing provides harmony and balance while leaving a little extra space in front of the aircraft gives a feeling of movement in that direction.
 
As these shots have shown, if you're serious about screen shots then hitting prt-src is just the first step in the process. Hopefully this article will have inspired you to see just how far you can go with your own screen shots. Part 2 will cover FOV and distance effects but for now, why not have a go at making a few of your own. It's a lot of fun but be careful, it can also be very addictive!
Part 2.....