I thought it would be to everyone's benefit if we had a thread that discussed the techniques we use to edit our screenshots, because some of us have things that we can share with others.
Basically, the reason I wanted to do this was spurred by reading about someone asking about applying a frame to a screenshot and thinking that if that technique, along with a few others were in a message, then people could easily find the information they were looking for.
M
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Territorial change maps:
To do a territorial change map, you of course need to have two screenshots of the same area.
Now, I did mine in Photoshop, but it should be possible to do at least part of this in Paint shop
Photoshop-
step 1: Select->All of one of the images. Drag and drop this image onto the second.
step 2: to line up the first over the second, change the layer properties to Difference. You'll know when you have the layers aligned right when the borders disappear and all you are left with are the territories that changed hands in different colors.
step 3: since the oceans did not change, use the magic eraser with a low tolerance to get rid of the black that is now covering the oceans. You should be careful that you don't set the tolerance to high, or countries like Scotland, France and Sweden will show up on the map in color instead of in shadow. You also have to be careful that you don't miss any major bodies of water.
step 4: At this point, I usually crop the image to the dimensions I want to present before continuing with step 5.
step 5: add a third layer to remove some residual ghost castles(since they changed a little bit since the first picture), by painting with a small to medium paintbrush in black.
step 6(optional): use the dodge tool to lighten the territories changing hands so they are easier to see, as some land comes out too dark.
The results should look something like this:
M
+ + Member of the Agnostic Paradox Games Players' Club + +
Enter a world of dynastic intrigue, holy war, and internectine murder in Cyprus- The Last Crusade. IT SHALL END SOON! ONE LAST CHAPTER!
The Hearts of Iron Directory is open(and the link is finally updated): http://www.hoidirectory.tk
"One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say." -Will Durant
This is a great idea.
I spent some time looking for the thread you mentioned where there was a question about how those frames were added but I couldn't find it...and I'm at home with my pathetically slow phone line connection so I couldn't bare to do a thread by thread search. It think a link to that should be added here too.
Can anyone else find it?
Oh, and if LD could either sticky this or add a link in the "How to...screenies" sticky, that would be a good idea too.
I'll delete this post later when it's no longer relevant.
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Done. I knew some good came out of our beer induced haze from earlier in the week, MrT.I'll direct your attention to the newly minted, and stickied AARtiFAQs section of AARland.
Bismark, excellent idea!
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For the old-looking maps in the War and Peace AAR I used a simple filter that comes with Painst Shop Pro 7: aged newspaper. Although Sepia works well, too.
As for the frame I added: I made an extra border around the map, and filled it with a wood texture. Then I made a selection about in the middle of that border and used the filters "button in" and "button out". C'est tout.
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You guys are too advanced for me. I am wondering how you make a screen shot in the first place. Do you take a picture or is there some way to copy the map? Thanks.
f11 makes a screenshot.....
M
+ + Member of the Agnostic Paradox Games Players' Club + +
Enter a world of dynastic intrigue, holy war, and internectine murder in Cyprus- The Last Crusade. IT SHALL END SOON! ONE LAST CHAPTER!
The Hearts of Iron Directory is open(and the link is finally updated): http://www.hoidirectory.tk
"One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say." -Will Durant
I have take a screan shot but how do I get the screan shot in to my ARR?
Originally posted by niise
I have take a screan shot but how do I get the screan shot in to my ARR?
Read Lord Durham's sticky near the top of this forum. It's called
AARland, AARtiFAQs, OscAARs and the LibrAARy - Revised, Newcomers Please Read!
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Transplanted from EU2 AAR forum.
Any new suggestions or techniques?
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Please take a moment to register your copy of EU3. "The [EU3] registration key is not a copy protection measure, tragically people will always crack your copy protection. Rather it is a paying customer support measure. Rather than have the support forum swamped by people who pirate our games, we can make sure that our paying customers get their support quicker. Similarly with bug reports, we want to improve the things our paying customers want not the pirates. Finally we put that little icon below your avatar so that we see your feedback (both good and bad) we know that these are the things that our paying customers like (or dislike) and can use this information for future projects." - King
Winner of the TOEE POTY 2003
Reading this, I come with a technique I use to make some screenshots for my AARs (which are all, let's say, screenshot-heavy ones).
You can press F11 to take a screenshot, but I noticed that (in EU2 at least) when you play with a mod like the EEP the screenshots aren't stored correctly on the game folder (or the mod folder). Also, again in EU2 at least, when you have an event in which you need to make a choice between options, F11 doesn't work for taking the screenshot (in fact, only the event-window works!).
So, how to do on those situations? Leave an image editor opened... Use the PrintScreen key to copy the screen to the clipboard, alt+tab to the image editor, paste the screenshot there, save under a temporary name, then go back playing. Yes, gotta have some patience, but that's the way it works and you get used with this with time.
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Anibal, exactly my style
Only I use TWO open editorsthe Paintbrush to do the initial .jpg save and selecting the needed portion of the pic; and then ACD for the final 'product' which is frequently a compilation of several images.
Looong process but good fun.
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