How to the Best Screenshots?

Hello guys,

Since the launch of Assetto Corsa I have tried and made some of them, like many of you, since I have been following this subject, there are two "screenshots maker" which for me are far ahead of us, due to the beauty, clarity and purity of their results.Tino66 and Kelnor34.
Yes like many of us, they use GBWSuite, special PPFilters etc etc.... Their results are really surprising and we find it today on Tino's side on ACC where the difference is very present.

On my side, I have tried everything and installed, my PC is not obsolete either, for the search for the desired result.
I7 4770K
1080TI
1920X1080 60HZ

Bellow are few example of my resut:
https://imageshack.com/a/img921/2175/z0CbsL.jpg
https://imageshack.com/a/img921/745/51UGNd.jpg
https://imageshack.com/a/img924/9286/wSpDpx.jpg
https://imageshack.com/a/img921/871/vLU8Oa.jpg
https://imageshack.com/a/img921/6319/5OFy6G.jpg

But there is still missing that little thing that makes the difference with our two leaders in this sector
Here are their results:

From @kelnor34:
https://flic.kr/p/2cLsWaC
https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1938/44721452465_1a84a27c0e_c.jpg
https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1885/44101932702_8b90133fa3_c.jpg
https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1836/43333708864_6b96ccc06b_c.jpg

From @Tino66 :
https://i.imgsafe.org/30/30962a161e.jpeg
https://u.cubeupload.com/Tino64/gAlBdL.jpg
https://u.cubeupload.com/Tino64/25chcN.jpg

I started looking for and looking for the perfect setting, but I am still not satisfied.

So I figured it had to come from the nature of the 60HZ screen on my side and maybe 144HZ on the other. In vain.

Today I'm just looking for an explanation for this difference in result.

Thank you in advance.

 

I can not really explain it.....

As you say Kelnor and me are using GBW (I know kelnor also uses some other PPs and I think he also have edited the GBW PP to his liking)
It is not about image quality (Maxed out settings on AC for me) With GBW and maxed out settings your quality of the shots is the same.

I guess it is more about setting up the shot with FOV,POV I sometimes use a very low FOV (be aware to low FOV mess up the shadows in AC)

I think kelnor agree with me, that we take more time setting up the shot than we want to admit.....

IMO kelnor,s shots is way better than mine, always awesomeness......

 

As Tino said, it is very difficult to explain how to do it.

Apart from saying that everything is pushed almost everywhere to the maximum on AC.
After I can only post what I had made available in the thread screenshots.

And not dear Tino, my screenshots are no better than yours.

....................................................................................................................

About screenies, as I said 1 shot posted for 10 shots taken. That's the principal rule.
The only photographic technic that I know is the The rules of Thirds... and that's all.

As example:



For the rest it's your eye the only master.

Here is absolutly all my settings:

Post processing:
All in max
Motion blur: 6
Saturation: 90%
Sunrays: on
FXAA: on
Glare quality: Max
Syst: Skybox: 250%

Quality:
MSAA: 4X
Aniso: 16X
World: Very high
Shadows: 2048x2048

Never touching to the CG config.
Doesn't use Reshadefx.

Add this:

GBW suite 2.5.1:
https://www.racedepartment.com…-bad-weather-suite.19484/

Shader patch:
https://acstuff.ru/f/d/28-shaders-patch-dynamic-lights


You can find all descriptions for the different .ini: lights config et VAO Patchs here:
https://discordapp.com/invite/FEztNRE

My own PPFilters (Day & Night).
https://www.mediafire.com/file…75/K34_PPFilters.rar/file

Enjoy!

Regards

 

Here is a no DOF



https://imageshack.com/a/img923/716/nsEWHa.png

 

Sorry for wall of text. I'm away from home on a vacation and got nothing better to do so lemme barge in here and share some nawledge even though I wasn't summoned. xD

What Kelnor said times a million. Can't stress how incredibly important it is.

Their pictures differ from us plebians not because they use some fairy magic PP filter or graphic setting but mainly because they take their time with proper shot composition, as it is the number one thing that helps to mask bad details that you do not want people to see and draw the viewers eyes to the things that you do want them to see... end result is a much better photo. The magic is all in your inner photographer's eye. And those two have got proper good creative vision, so even if we have the same AC hardware settings as they do, their human software is always gonna come out ahead.

Sometimes it could mean getting the basics like the ingame camera distances, fov, tilt, sun position etc. just right and sometimes it can also means fiddling with PP files, for example I make 3 variations of every PP file I use with varying levels of Depth of Field strength (low, med and high) with every other parameter the exact same so that I can switch between them depending on which suits the shot better. So in a sense the "perfect setting" does not exist as it varies from situation to situation. It is not needed ofcourse but it helps a bit.

Examples for shot composition -

1- This wide angle shot of the 919 would not have worked with DoF so I skip it altogether. Now for the shot composition see how the camera is set so that the blue and grey asphalt strips merge properly at the corners in order to make the picture more pleasant and flowing to the eyes, and not chaotic. I moved the sun around in the photo mode so that the lighting looked just right. Took a while to place the car in the perfect spot for the camera to align in such a way but in order to get decent shots you gotta put in decent time, it gets faster the more you get used to it though.


2 - This shot of the F138 cockpit is a close up of the steering wheel with the buttons behind it showing, this shot would look bad with no DoF, so I went with Low strength filter. The shot composition again here, see how the wheel is rotated a few degrees to the right and then I tilted the camera to make it in line with the wheel bringing the buttons in the background into the shot plus if the wheel was at 0 degrees rotation the shot would have ended up looking pretty basic. Had to sit under a tree shadow to get the lighting to look right.


3- This shot for example is a low FoV taken at a long distance of the 599XX and the FXX-K, I used the Medium strength filter here as I didn't want to blur out the FXX-K completely. As for the shot composition, the priority was to have both cars visible at the same time with the Italian flag kerbs visible properly for obvious reasons. Tried to make the same quantity of either car visible in the shot for balance, and decided to not show the bottom of 599XX rear wheels since the shadows there looked a bit lumpy and crap and they would've ultimately ruined the picture if visible.


That said, another important thing is to always link to a smaller res version of your image so that the aliasing artifacts are less visible to make things look more natural and smoother. Those above examples were taken on my old rig which had a 2560x1440 resolution monitor but the pictures linked are at 1024x576, it makes things a lot crisper. I just upload full size to my flickr account and the website gives me a option to downscales them automatically before linking them to the forums. Makes things a bit easier. There is a reason you never see full size uploads from any proper screenshot person.

That effect gets amplified the higher your base resolution is, like these new picture taken at native 4k, and downscaled to 1024x576. The image might look great at base resolution but more often than not it will look a ton better when squished down. You can squish them even more but to me 1024x576 is a good balance in size-quality ratio.







All these taken with GBW like Kelnor and Tino, no reshade, no special PP fudgery other than DoF settings. I just run higher saturation because I'm a tard that likes vibrant pictures so it is more of a preference thing. The best advice is just keep taking silly shots, let your imagination run wild with how you can inject some unique style into your shot. That is probably the best way to learn composition. I wasted more hours than I really should have by just taking pictures in AC. Again, the more refined you want your shots to be the more time it will take, but it is a fun process so who cares. xD

 

Absolutly executive summary Torcano and fantastic shots. 919 is pure porn shot... So real

 

Thank you for those explanations

 

After 2 days with @kelnor34 helps and sharing with me all his "parameters" (PPFilters, GBW Suite settings etc, etc) .I must have something missing somewhere (like most of you) because here is the result of the same track, same hour, same PPFilter, same cam angle, no DOF...But the huge difference :

This is on my side:


This is Kelnor34:


Same screen résolution : 1920X1080 60hz
And i run I7 4770K and 1080TI.................

 

@Torcano ,

how will you explam the difference between the two screenshots above ?

And here is more example done yesterday. Same settings on each side

Mine:



Kelnor:

 

Not to sure whether you want to be a purest and have that straight screenshot or go for that slightly adjusted final screenshot without major changes like colour etc, but I use 'Adobe Lightroom' to edit photos as it has a far better selection of tools for fine tuning, enhancing the image than 'Photoshop'...Adobe Lightroom is not an image editor but it does have the tools to enhance what it already there...Google it or watch You Tube video tutorials.
You Tube Tutorial below shows what can be done...

...other tips on how to use Lightroom

 

Thanks Mark.

The point on this thread is that Kelnor don´t use any sofware to retouch the screenshot and we can see a huge difference between "ours" and his result...Everything is deeper, pure etc and more detailed

 

Yes I did read this thread...but when I viewed the differences yours and his it reminded me of the subtle enhancements that 'Lightroom' can do...I can also adjust the look of the Sim / Game by using the Graphics Card color settings which changes the Monitors color sharpness etc, or just adjust the actual Monitors settings, that would not be cheating would it...lol