Screenshots are really dark?

[cirkut5732]

First off, Sorry if this is in the wrong area to post this,

Im using FRAPS to make a few screenshots but they are coming out extremely dark?
I even went into the game options and cranked the gamma and brightness to the max and they still came out super dark?
Anyone have any idea why this would happen?
Thanx and again sorry if this is posted in the wrong section

[macguba]

Is it night?

Sorry sorry sorry couldn't resist.  ;D   Seriously though, is it night?    Or dusk/dawn?   Such conditions do not make for good screenshots whatever you do.

This is the right board, no worries there.    If in doubt, always post in Editing General.

[cirkut5732]

It is 8:20p.m. so dusk ya but when I play the game it looks fine I can see everything plus in game the sky is blue, Out of game and in the screenshot it turns pink LOL!
Anyways Ive tried FRAPS and Print screen alt/tab
any other ways to get screenshots, The OFP Resistance official website has some really good looking ones. thats waht im aiming for. What did BIS use I wonder?

Thanks mcguba!

[THobson]

I have the same problem.  I suspect the following is the cause:

As you know under Options/Video options you will see two slider bars: Brightness and Gamma correction.  These set the brightness etc in the game, but they do not seem to change the underlying screen image generated by the game.  If you take a screen shot it seems you capture the underlying image un-modified by these slider settings.  So you are used to seeing the image modified by these settings, but once you have closed down OFP these settings no longer apply.  I predict that if you alt/tab out of the game your windows screen will seem very bright, that is because the game brightness and gamma settings are still being applied while it is running even though you are looking at something else.

My solution is to put screenshots into Photshop and play with the curves and levels - always a good thing to do anyway as it can improve the colours.  Other image editng software would also do the trick.

[klavan]

Same as Thobson. I'm not good in manipulating/editing screenshots, but the only way I found to increase to quality/brightness/etc of an image is to put it into an image editor and work with the software options.
Personally I would love to see a tutorial about how to take good screenshots.....I'm so crap with 'em!  
Klavan

[Dagon]

My advice:

Download a trial version of Paint Shop Pro, open the images in it, and use the "Brightness/Contrast" function to boost brightness by 25%. Then it should look as visible as it does IG.

[456820]

Download a trial version of Paint Shop Pro, open the images in it, and use the "Brightness/Contrast" function to boost brightness by 25%. Then it should look as visible as it does IG.

indeed or you can send me the pics and i can touch up the brightness fairly quickly but it would be best to get paint shop pro so when you need to do it you can striaght away instead of sending them someone

what i do in this situation is usually change the itme but in some cases that doesnt work so thats when i change the brightness

[cirkut5732]

Thanks everyone for the help!
I got photoshop 7.0 so ill mess with that and get paint shop to!
Thanks again
CirKuT

[Trapper]

What's complicated is that there are three things influecing the screenshot:

Your personal in game brightness/contrast/gamma settings gives you the idea how the screenshot should look like, but the screen is captured without the modifications.

When you view the screenshot in Windows, your personal Windows brightness/contrast/gamma settings are used. On some computers this could even make the editing of the picture uneccessary.

Then there is the picture editing. You use a software to permanently change the pictures brightness/contrast/gamma settings to make them look good with your Windows settings.

Summary:
Don't edit the pictures too much, as they look different on every computer. Somewhere they are still too dark, and somewhere they are already too bright.

PS: I remember in one of my graphic card packages was a demo software with a grey colored plastic card included. The idea behind it was, that every user on the world should set his windows display settings to values, that a selected grey looked exactly like the plastic card color. But this also showed that many monitors are of bad contrast quality, so if the grey was ok, you still couldn't see much on the display.
So it's just impossible that you see any photo/picture on the internet like the author sees them himself.

EDIT: Here's a link how to calibrate your Windows settings for example: http://www.albumart.com/textfiles/MonitorCalibration.htm
(Well, with the settings I like to use, the first test picture isn't working at all)

[Tyger]

Also, use the in-built "camera.sqs" to take screens.

You can execute it by just typing

Code: [Select]

this exec "camera.sqs"
into the player's init. No scripts are needed.

[MrN]

Another method is to use Kegetys DXDLL:
http://koti.mbnet.fi/kegetys/flashpoint/dxdll10.zip
This can capture screenshots with a keypress.

Info here:
http://www.flashpoint1985.com/cgi-bin/ikonboard311/ikonboard.cgi?s=202b5b4d337398cd12fdeca321ff4d82;act=ST;f=4;t=40962

This saves them to .tga files. You can then use Convertshots
http://www.curse-gaming.com/mod.php?addid=238
to change the .tga file to a .jpg and it can also adjust image brightness.

[cirkut5732]

Thanks MrN! DXDLL did the trick I no longer get dark screenshots they come out perfect! A little photoshop wouldnt hurt but the ylook good!
Thanks again
CirKuT