#screenshot guide

Mini blog for future reference. There's bunch of guides online, this is mine:

I don't really do much more than just enhance what the game does, although there's a few tricks required.

I have an Nvidia GTX 1070 card and I'm running it on older drivers from the end of 2024. The software comes with Nvidia Experience overlay and the control panel.

Nvidia Experience is nowadays replaced by "Nvidia App" which works in similar way and has the same settings, but the launch was buggy, it's too heavy for my old computer, so I rolled back and never upgraded.

Screenshots are also made via the application in .png format. The game doesn't register there's an overlay working on it, so if you make shots via ingame screencap, these enhancements won't be visible.

These are my regular ingame settings that I play with. When I need to, I change shadows quality to "ultra" and if there's water, I set reflections to "all":

As for the overlay, I have two presets. They are identical, but the second one has depth of field in it, if I only want to focus on a character/object in front of the camera. Unfortunately menu is in Polish and can't be screenshot, sooo I can post them like this and translate the less obvious:

I throw a little vignette on top of that if I feel like it:

and finally DoF:

And last two things:

1) upscaled resolution - when I wanna go the extra mile, I have larger resolution profile set. My native is 1920x1080, but I go up to twice as that, 3840x2160, it's what my hardware can handle.

This needs to be applied from Windows settings, before you launch the game, if you want it to work.

Here's a guide to set up a custom res, if you want it:

https://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/759/~/custom-resolutions

I later crop and make these upscaled screenshots smaller, so they become smoother.

2) Camera settings - ingame sliders to help you either with character shots/portraits of environmental shots.

With all these I barely add any post-processing or touchups in photoshop.

Makes a difference?:

As always, asks and comments always open if something is unclear.

Basic tutorials & guides I had on hand... General & important screenshot lighting tips courtesy of @kukurubean​ My tutorial about taking commission reference screenshots 

*note that 5.1 gave us the character lighting slider which is at the bottom of the lighting menu. We now also have an overall brightness adjustment slider 

Some more tips... - put /gpose on a hotbar. Seriously. It sounds dumb but typing “/gpose” every time is obnoxious. You can find it under your Actions menu. - try creative compositions. Don’t always center your character/subject in the frame. Try taking several different shots with different framing and see how you like them. Move the camera around!!! - experiment with emote + expression combinations. You can do this VERY easily now that the entire emote selection menu exists under the button with the little running person in the gpose menu. - try battle skills & spells! Simply hit the ability, and go into gpose--it will save the last action you used. You can change the expression and also turn off effects to make things less flashy once you’re in gpose (you’ll find this button in the top of the menu). HINT: if the desired ability requires a target, make use of your local training dummies. Just don’t accidentally erase the action by using a mount to get to somewhere pretty first! - turn off your gpose icon for maximum plausible deniability! Go to System Configuration > Other Settings > Uncheck “switch online status to Camera Mode when active” and have fun taking sneaky screenshots of your friends or shamelessly gposing with NPCs in busy areas

Final Fanntasy XIV has an amazing function called ‘Group Pose’ that people use to take screenshots. It’s full of so many functions that it can get a little confusing. After a brief google search, I couldn’t really find much about how G-Pose actually works on tumblr so... here. A guide!

CLICK HERE FOR THE GUIDE!

I absolutely love Final Fantasy XIV, it’s such a pretty game and seeing everyone post such awesome screenshots is great!! Now you might be thinking, “Hey, my screenshots are awesome, why do I need this?” and you’re right! Your screenshots ARE awesome! But, there’s maybe some stuff on there you’ve not realised you can do before. Or, more than anything, it’s good for any new players or people who aren’t confident in their screenshot abilities.

There are some guides out there already, like the Moogle Post, but they focus more on the art of taking screenshots, rather than the functions! (Check it out though, it’s super helpful!) This one goes more into what the features are, with some little tips on how to use them effectively. At least, that’s what I think.

I was originally going to post it all on Tumblr, but, it ended up being super long so providing the link is probably a lot easier... and it looks better on there, too.

Screenshot Guide - Part 3: “Add Depth + Framing/Blocking” I’m on a roll right now so here is part 3 of my screenshot guide! A big struggle with telling a story via film or pictures is that a picture is 2D but we live in a world that is 3D. You want to draw the viewer into your fictional world but having a world that looks flat can break the illusion quickly.  So it’s important to add depth! An easy way to do that is to create different layers in your pictures and choose clever angles to create the illusion of depth. Depth of field also helps a lot with that since in real life things that are far away appear more blurred than things up close.

Blocking certain parts of your foreground also helps to direct the viewer’s attention to a certain subject. Keep an eye out for things that are placed around the world to use this technique or furnish your sets accordingly!