Forza 4 - Photo Tutorial - Step by Step

I’ve kept on meaning to do a photo tutorial, but never got around to doing it.  In the last week though I’ve had a few people ask about the old photo mode, so I thought I’d give a tutorial a bash.   I’ll try to be as clear as I can, so apologies if anyone finds it confusing.

Here goes nothing.

Photo mode, with all it’s sliders and different controls can seem a little daunting at first, but in essence, just play around and experiment and you can get some cracking shots.
This is how I get a base shot to work with, and it tends to work for most scenarios; be it a static shot, a shot that has the emphasis of speed, or whether you’re shooting with the sun behind the “camera”, or facing the sun.

Lets go!

First, pick a car you like, and a circuit you like.  It’s easier when you’re looking at something appealing.
Enter photo mode from the pause menu… but you all knew that already.

You’ll be greeted by this.  You don’t want this.


Photographers are rarely suspended 4 foot (1.2 metres Lars) above the ground in front of a car.

Pretend, for a moment, you are a photographer.  Where would they stand?  What kind of shots do you see of your favourite race series?
Get some distance between yourself and the car.  Centre the car, and press “X”.  This becomes particularly important when using shutter speed and aperture.  Now compose your shot.  Imagine the screen is split into thirds, vertically and horizontally.

I went for this angle.  The subject is in the top third of the shot, with the bottom two thirds used to “guide the eye” using the walls, kerb and tarmac.

It looks okay, but at the moment the car simply looks parked.

Move the shutter speed slider, to create the movement.  You’ll rarely have to go above 70-75, unless you really want to give the impression of speed.  Although, higher shutter speeds work well on drifting shots.
Also, move the aperture slider.  The aperture controls how much of the image is in focus, in front of and behind the subject you have focused on.  In this case, the car is in focus. So by increasing the aperture the wall in the foreground will drop out of focus, thus emphasising the car.

Et voila!

In this shot, shutter speed = 46.  Aperture = 60.  Note also, I have tweaked the composition slightly to isolate the car a bit more.
Now the overall look and feel of the image.

Slide the brightness slider to 0.  The screen should now be black.


Now the contrast slider.  100.  You’ll now be able to see the highlights.


Now to the exposure slider.  Adjust the exposure slider, so you can see the highlights of the image.  This one isn’t a bad starting point, but I upped the exposure little, to 56.


Return to the contrast slider, and back it off until you can only just see the highlights.  In this case, there are two dots just visible on the car, as well as the Pirelli logo, top left, and the kerb at bottom right.


Back to the brightness slider.  Whack it up to 100.  Your screen should now be white.  And dial it off until you have a decent looking image.

This what I ended up with. It’s okay, but not great.  The bonnet of the car is a little washed out, and we have lost the detail from the wall on the right hand side.
We have too much contrast, and not enough exposure.  So now it’s just about, playing around, with small increments and finding the right balance.

So by backing of the exposure, and the contrast, but adding a tad of brightness, we get this. Better.



Generally, but not always, if the exposure is low, then the contrast and brightness will be higher, and vice versa.


Finally, colour, sepia, and vignette.

Colour. Normally, I’ll always give a boost of colour, just to give an image some punch.  There’s no right or wrong way, just adjust it until you’re happy.

Sepia.  In real life, sepia is usually used to make an image look a little dated, for an antique effect, or in the digital age, just to add some warmth.   It’s much the same in Forza.
I find most of the time in Forza, the image look cold.  By which I mean the image has an overriding blue look and feel.  Using sepia will add a little warmth, and make the image seem summery, if you will.  
Generally, you won’t have to go above 30.
You may find that sepia will also de-saturate the image a bit, so go back to the colour slider and give it a nudge.  Also watch out for shadows.  Adding too much sepia will result in deeper shadows.

Vignette.
Three types.


In my example I used 2. So the final image ends up as…


Uploaded with ImageShack.com

Once you’ve got your settings for that scene, you’ll probably find you can move around the car to get a different composition and not have to adjust the sliders too much.


Just keep driving round, pausing and having a look.  Remember to experiment.  Not every image has to be bright and colourful.


We live our lives in landscape format, yet most magazines and books are portrait format, which requires the photographer to do the same.  You can do portrait formats in Forza too.  Just crank it.



Once you’ve got the basics, you can keep experimenting, and even though there are rules, they can always be broken. Just experiment.

If you want a little more, then check out these link from forzamotorsport.net.  They’re great and really really helpful.

This link kind of repeats what I’ve just done, but in more technical detail.
http://forums.forzamotorsport.net/forums/thread/5548088.aspx

And this one “goes behind the image” and shows you exactly how each image was done.
http://forums.forzamotorsport.net/forums/thread/5163737.aspx

really appreciate that daniel, like said other night i feel i`ve lost my photo mojo at mo and just can`t frame a good shot. the best thing you mentioned for me is trying to get a shot from an actual photographers view, sometimes i think i`m trying too hard to make a special shot instead of the subject matter doing the work.

Brilliant have made it an announcement Dan today you are the man.

I'll try to, and hope to keep it up dated every now and then with different techniques and anything new I discover.

I really hope it helps some of you.   Look forward to seeing some shots.

the hardest thing i find in photo mode is multi car shots. to get the feeling of speed/action in the shot and still get many cars focused/crisp is a nightmare.

                     
sometimes emoticons say it all

Si_ wrote:
the hardest thing i find in photo mode is multi car shots. to get the feeling of speed/action in the shot and still get many cars focused/crisp is a nightmare.

This will have to be my next tutorial then.  

In the mean time, watch this Si: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rTQNVnhw5I

LucyLou217 wrote:                     
sometimes emoticons say it all

Sometimes it's all you need. I'm glad it's helped someone already.   Also, I got the gifted photos but can't view them properly yet, but one definitely looks better than the other.  

Spent two hours on the next tutorial and the forum decided to log me out!!! FOR FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF..... SAKE!!!
                             

sorry but...

.. 


i could do a tutorial on how to use the forum