PhotoMode Technique: Compose & Expose

  • Thread starter CrackHoor
  • 67 comments
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Hey guys,

I have a question, while I'm in photodrive and I take a picture, they are many options on the bottom of the screen, there is one where its written

1/65 and can go up to 1/4000, I tried playing with it but saw no difference.

What is it for?
 
Div, that's your shutter speed, measured in fractions of a second. Go to a side view of a moving car and set it to 1/65" (slow). You'll see the background is all motion-blurred. If you crank the speed up to 1/4000" (very fast) that blur should be gone, and if you want the motion blur in between, set it in between. The pics of the RUF in my first post show the difference.
 
Personally I don't mess around with the exposure settings in GT4, too time consuming, plus they are always darker on my computer than on the TV. I just use Google's Picasa's "I'm Feeling Lucky" button to brighten along with other fixes. Works a charm.
 
s0nny80y
If you don't up the exposure in the game, if you brighten it up after uploading the pics onto your computer, the color gets washed put nonetheless. Actually, this is more true (from experience) for pictures taken at night (in-game of course) and day time pics aren't as washed out.
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You have to pull up both the brightness and contrast on your computer to avoid that 'washed out' look, Photoshop is the best program (IMO) for doing this.
You'll need to increase the contrast considerably more than the brightness usually.
 
Thanks for the great ideas people! One technique that hasn't been mentioned is shifting the focus point and adjusting the shutter speed in combination. This way you can make a dramatic blur ether on the car or background and it has a similar effect to changing the arpeture, but more dramatic.
 
Excellent work. I feel that GT4 does a pretty good job of recreating real-world photography methods. It's good to see them put to use (:
 
Excellent guide!!

I only have one more thing to add - Bracketing.

Whenever taking photos to put on the PC I always take 2 extra photos of the same scene; one with the exposure 1 stop down and one with it 1 stop up. Alternitavely, if I'm doing a high-speed shot with blur I'll change the shutter speed one down/ one up also.

I've found by the time I get the photo onto the PC the original shot is rarely the one I end up with. I learnt this technique while doing photography in RL and swear by it.

Now if only there was a flash gun available in the game...
 
somebody
Excellent guide!!

I only have one more thing to add - Bracketing.
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Thanks, and that's an excellent idea - I do it too! I'm not a photographer guy, so I didn't realize there was an actual term. Hmm, bracketing... :dopey:
 
A tip for those wishing to brighten their pics in photoshop or any other image programe, try increasing the gamma value instead of brightness or intensity - I've found this helps reduce the washed out look.

It also helps to compare a thumbnail of your shot against others, ie those listed in the poll, this is a good way to see how bright or dull yours is in comparasion. My M5 'ring shot looked great on my monitor, but agains the rest it is very dark so I now take this into consideration when taking my pics.

The bracketing idea is very much worth using for most settings, when I've settled on the angle & focus etc I will often take a full range across the whitebalance spectrum - sometimes the unexpected shots turn out great, and it's not like you'll run out of film ;)
 
webber555
Thanks for the great ideas people! One technique that hasn't been mentioned is shifting the focus point and adjusting the shutter speed in combination. This way you can make a dramatic blur ether on the car or background and it has a similar effect to changing the arpeture, but more dramatic.
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I was going to mention the same thing. The camera tracks with whatever object you focus on. By default, it focuses on the car, so with a slow shutter speed you get a clear car with blurred background and wheels. If, however, you focus on the background or road, you get a nice still shot of the scenery with a blurred car zooming through. This also works if you have two cars moving at different speeds. This is a good technique for emphasizing the sense of motion in a picture.
 
Photo Mode places some pretty severe restrictions on us, including making group pictures. One of the first ideas I had after hearing about PM was making a "family portrait". I've gotten one step closer, but it's going to be tougher going any further.

twocars1_00016.jpg


The hard part is trying to get a good pose. If you use "Normal" replay mode, you have limitations from the camera looking at your one car a lot. In Dive mode, you have a bit more happening, including the filters applied to the scenes and flying camera views. They can either help or hurt the image, depending on what you really need or want.

OK, the main question running through your heads right now is "How on earth did he get two cars to stand still on the grass?" Good question.

The only way to do this is in LAN mode when you have the chance to control more than one car. An AI car won't stand still. The problem with LAN mode is that you have no chance at all to save a replay, so you must record the replay immediately after you stop your "race".

Since the replay will "look" at mainly one car at a time, it's really tough trying to find frames that include more than one car and that are worthwhile for your purpose. In 7 minutes of replay time, I only found about 25 pictures that could be considered even reasonable ones, considering their poses and their small capture size, too.

If you can LAN, have fun with replays, too.

Cheers,

MasterGT

twocars.jpg
 
Anyone who knows anything about depth of field must be having a fit when dealing with it in GT4. Why?

When creating a scene which includes a fair amount of distance to it, you can create an unusual depth of field effect. Let's say you have the lead car, say, at least 100 feet away from the camera's position. Anyone who has used an SLR type of camera knows that, if an object is that far away (even if it is about 40' away), and if it is in focus, then EVERYTHING beyond that object will also be in focus. On an adjustable lens, the difference between 30' and infinity markings is minor.

Unfortunately, GT4 can make things in the distance out of focus, in the above scenario. This is not possible with most normal cameras - it is GT4 only that can do that! So, use depth of field wisely and you will produce better, more realistic pictures.

Cheers,

MasterGT
 
Okay... I think I got what your Saying....

So Tell me How Is these Following The "Rules" Of this..... Also Tell me what you think of the Pic....



Okay... So tell Me what I can do better....
 
Anyone got some more tutorials on how to better images with the "panning" option in photodrive? man some pics people post are sweet, i can't figure out how to get car in focus and background blurred :)

*post 48 explains what i know already lol...let me rephrase...and tutorials with an example (images etc)
 
dady5000
Okay... I think I got what your Saying....

So Tell me How Is these Following The "Rules" Of this..... Also Tell me what you think of the Pic....


Okay... So tell Me what I can do better....
Click to expand...
You didn't say what "this" is, so I will presume you meant depth of field, because your second example shows what I discussed above.

Take a guess: how far away is the car? The car is just less than 15' long, so it is obviously far enough away from the camera's position to say that, if it is in focus, everything beyond it should be in focus too, but, as you can clearly see, it is not.

Try a smaller lens opening (bigger number), to see if it makes a more natural photo.

Cheers,

MasterGT
 
Crackhoor, good tutorial.

Use Levels not brightness / Contrast
Dark pics, yes annoying.
I notice that most of you use Brightness and Contrast to make your pics come out better on your PC. This will actually give you an unnatural look. If you’re using Photoshop or Elements there is a better way of making your picture look more natural. I’m sure this technique can be used in other packages as well.

Here goes.
Open you Picture. Now make a duplicate layer by dragging the background layer on to the folded paper icon just below the background layer. Its icon 5 (out of 6).


Do your work on the copied layer. If you mess up you can throw all layers away and you’ll still have your original background layer to restart with.
Now that you have 2 layers with the exact same pic its time to brighten things up a bit.
Select the 4th icon (its a circle half black half white) and select levels.


Notice the black “mountain”. These are all the colours in you pic represented by 256 (0-255) levels of grey. Notice how they’re all bunched up on the left. That represents a ‘dark’ picture.


You’ll want to spread that out a bit. Grab the white marker and move it to the left till the ‘slope’ of the mountain. Now if that looks good to you perhaps adjusting the grey marker somewhat to the left as well will lighting the midtones of the pic.



Hit OK when done. You’ll notice a new layer, it’s an adjustment layer. Double clicking on this layer (in the green circle) will allow you to do further adjustments.
From the menu you could have selected Image, Adjustments, Layers but that is a permanent change which cannot be undone without going back to your original pic.

And the end result, well judge for yourself.



Hope this has been a help to you all .....

AMG_SLK

[edit added title]
 
@ Ryosuke_Gumna thx, appreciated!


Wheels in Motion part two.
Following up on Post #56 by Ryosuke_Gumna where he links to a tutorial created by -= Vicious =- VP there’s another way to select a wheel.

Selecting something round like a wheel can be tricky but thankfully Photoshop has guidelines.



1 2 3

1 To use these you first need to Show Rulers.
You’ve got your pic in front of you. From the Menu select View Rulers or Ctrl+R if you’re a shortcut fan.





2 Now position your cursor in the ruler section hold and drag from top ruler in to your picture. A guideline should appear. Do the same with the vertical ruler. You can use two guidelines but 4 makes it even easier.
Don’t worry too much for now if the guides are not exactly placed yet. We will fine tune that later when zooming in on the wheel. If you find the colour of your guidelines is not clear enough change it through Edit Preferences Guides, Grid & Slices.



​
3 To reposition guidelines use the move tool (as indicated in the green circle). Place it on a guideline, notice your cursor changes and drag the guide to the correct position. Hmm that black wheel and the dark wheel arch are barely distinguishable.


Okay check out the levels tut in post #57. Apply ‘brightening’ heavily, that may help. Don't forget to delete this temporary adjustment layer on.

Now to select the wheel. The tool to the left of the Move tool is the one you need. Change it to the Elliptical Selection tool. Now position your cursor* in the top left hand corner of the guideline box and drag towards .. you guessed it the bottom right corner.

Hey a perfect circle and more to the point exactly as big as your wheel, unless you messed up your guidelines.
Now apply motion blur to the wheel (refer to Vicious’ tutorial)

* I prefer the Precise cursor over the standard one (Change in Edit preferences). It’s a little crosshair

Wheel at an angle? Same principle. Try it!

AMG_SLK
 

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