HowTo: Screenshots: Part 1
Okay, now I know screenshot guides are a penny a dozen across the net so there’s probably some other place you could go for this information. This though is a basic screenshot guide for screenshots, and for doing shots for comics so here goes.
Nearly everywhere else people always inform you of the rule of three. This is the basic rule of screenshots, and photography in general. Divide the picture into three sections and there should be something along the lines or at an intersection.
Above you can see how this works. Get a basic idea of where to position your shots for a good one.
Another thing to do is to get onto the same level as your subject. Don’t be looking all up and down, it skews it a bit too much. Of course if you need a birds eye view then that is where this doesn’t really matter as you don’t notice.
Now compare the next two images…
The first has a lot of dead space. No matter what may be going on in the background it’s essentially dead. The second shows it off differently; in facing into the shot people follow the eye line of subjects and scan across the image.
Now tips for comics.
Here is a comparison of the size of two pictures of mine.
I crop my pictures to be 340×317 pixels. This allows a nice gap of 5 from the side edges and the top, and a gap of 10 from any other picture. I do change it for longer shots by combining and whatnot but that’s beside the point. The problem with doing this is that if you fill the original shot with your subjects, you invariably cut off some of them. Unless however you want to fully resize the image but you end up with them all squashed up. What I tend to do is leave dead space to one side, or centralise as much as possible.
That’s all for now folks. Use those basics as a platform to jump off and develop your own styles. Remember to also leave room for speech otherwise it ends up cramped.
Next time I’ll give up a chunk about effects in game. Enjoy and have fun snapping.
Good stuff, Catfish. Context really is everything with screenshots. It's all about keeping the primary action in the foreground and keeping the secondary action – if any – at least somewhat visible in the background while leaving just enough 'dead space' for your dialogue balloons. This is a nice primer for that, and I'm looking forward to seeing what tips you have for the next installment of the series.
Why don't you do one of these? Everyone would understand it better from you, and you know the ins and outs and all the intricacies of comic screenshots. Almost makes me wanna do a comic!
Well, I might add a section to the series. We'll see….
almost
This is a nice screenshot guide… Could you create a guide on how to make a great forge map for all types of guns like sniper, shotgun, duel wield ect. THat would be great and then also make an example on your fileshare. I feel some people just don't know how to do that… If you need any help just mail something to my gamertag Brutus1147
This tutorial was written specifically with capturing screenshots for comics in mind. In face, this whole site is built with making Halo-based webcomics in mind. As such, you probably won't find a tutorial for Forging a map designed for great gameplay here. You might eventually find a tutorial on Forging maps for creating settings for a webcomic, on the other hand. I think what you're looking for, though, will be best sought after elsewhere.