Discussion Regarding Image Editing

This is only the second time I entered the contest. I don't care what anyone does to their shots. If a person has the skills to enhance images, why not use those skills?

Sorry for the second post on this, but I also wanted to ask a question. Is there a way to view trainz without the "windows"? I mean the bar on the bottom, the area in the upper right corner with the speed, etc., and any others. I rarely drive on my route, once in awhile to see that everything is working and make sure my track is nice and smooth. For screenshots, I go the area I want in the shot and slap a loco and some cars on the track. Then I go to "quick drive" and run the train through the area. After that I have to crop the shot to get rid of the windows.

In my shots, you only see what I see on the screen minus the windows and the area I had to crop to get rid of them.

Cheers....Rick

Try pressing F5, this removes all HUD windows at once.

To remain on-topic, I don't mind image editing so long as there are no silly lens flares. Unnecessary lens flares are my pet peeve in edited pictures and screenshots.

Kieran.

Thanks Kieran!

Originally Posted by Epoche3bis4

I give my vote for a good Picture, edited or not.

nicky9499 said:

Couldn't have been put more eloquently.

+1

Click to expand...

Ok then you should rename the contest to "Trainz Picture of the Week" to eliminate the screenshot misnomer.

We could have two different competitions, every other week for WYSIWYG and the other week for "Edit-ALL-the-things" pics. Maybe about the same topic, to compare what the PotatoSHOPgods in here can harvest, un-edited first and the 2nd week edited pics.

Isegrinns said:

We could have two different competitions, every other week for WYSIWYG and the other week for "Edit-ALL-the-things" pics. Maybe about the same topic, to compare what the Potatogods in here can harvest, un-edited first and the 2nd week edited pics.

Click to expand...

Or the candidates declare unretouched or retouched and we have two winners every week.

deneban said:

Or the candidates declare unretouched or retouched and we have two winners every week.

Click to expand...

This is an excellent idea! :Y:

A bad Picture (Screen-Shot) will not better when he would edited, and a edited bad Picture (Screen-Shot) will not better because he is changed with editing, thats my mind. Hope you understand me .

Nice Greetings

Epo

Epoche3bis4 said:

A bad Picture (Screen-Shot) will not better when he would edited, and a edited bad Picture (Screen-Shot) will not better because he is changed with editing, thats my mind. Hope you understand me .

Nice Greetings

Epo

Click to expand...

Yes, but it will give those folk who want to edit of showing off their skills and compete against each other. Same for the folk who want to compete against unedited screenshots. I can see a lot of fun happening in the option of having to vote for the two choices. Great stuff

Epoche3bis4 said:

The Discussion is unnecessary for me. I give my vote for a good Picture, edited or not. It's all the same for me.

Greetings
Epo

Click to expand...

+2

Considering most competitions don't get that many entries, 2 winners is one too many. If you can use your surveyor skills, other content creator's skills, angles, lighting, asset placement and prototypical expertise to persuade voters, why shouldn't you be able to use your photoshop skills too?

It's fine the way it is and to intentionally not vote for some screenshots just because they use photoshop is ruining the competition.

Is this your way of saying "I can't do photoshop so you shouldn't be allowed to either"?

Jamie

H222 said:

+2

Is this your way of saying "I can't do photoshop so you shouldn't be allowed to either"?

Jamie

Click to expand...

I can use photoshop but chose not.

Deneban has come up with a good idea. Two winners is not too many, one for edited and one for original screenshot.
What's the problem...not up for the challenge?

If you can use your surveyor skills, other content creator's skills, angles, lighting, asset placement and prototypical expertise to persuade voters, why shouldn't you be able to use your photoshop skills too?

Click to expand...

The point I think Deneban and the other fellow that originally brought the topic up, would be because it would seem to be outside of what would naturally be considered with-in the bounds of an unspoken agreement about what exactly the competition would be meant to include.... You don't bring a Moped to a Foot race, or a Camera to a Painting Competition kind of thing..... Hence the discussion.....

We've heard alot of two arguements so farTo summarize)
1:Its a Trainz Screenshot competition, not a Trains Photo Competition, and;
2:Why can't we do what we've always done which is whatever we want as long its "the best"

So, my next questions then, would have to include:
1: How would the community at large prefer to view, conduct, or participate in these competitions? Are most people ok with the status quo? Or should we start trying to define the differences we want to see?
2:If the latter, what would those differences be?

IE, instead of grumping about "Jeebies, CHANGE, OMG w/e is the world coming to?!", why don't we try aiming the discussion toward what we'd like to see and why.....

My own suggestion would be either the current status quo and let the community decide for itself at a later date what exact example of what it finds unacceptable should be;
Or to take a moderate line with either easy to follow rules (Something like 100% Trainz in the photo, and the photo should be of the same screenshot, but you can edit whatever is in the photo all you want), or some kind of pro-active category for Edited "Images" (This could take forms too numerous for me to list here atm).

The problem with the latter though is that it will require extra work, presumably on Nick's shoulders, and therefor it would be up to him to attempt it, and to further complicate the issue, it would also be up to the community to generate the interest (Ahrian's exemplary enthusiasm not withstanding, bravo fellow, btw, though perhaps I might recommend not being quite so confrontational? These would be people you could prospectively be competing against later and they may not be so understanding about it if you needlessly anger them now. Id rather see a competition as you described then another pointless flame war).

Anyway, hope this is at least food for thought,
Falcus

Probably best to leave things as they are, If people don't like doctored screenshots, which are mostly fairly obvious to spot, then they won't vote for them.

I'm thinking like Malc up there. I do like the idea of folks showing me their work the way I would see it if I was to download it. I also enjoy seeing their "doctoring up" skills. I'm sure it's not an easy thing to learn and then you would need some artistic talent also.

Thanks to a bud, I no longer have to crop my shots. So, I'll be sending in "virgins"! Untouched beauties! If I can find any!

Cheers....Rick

Falcus said:

though perhaps I might recommend not being quite so confrontational?
Falcus

Click to expand...

Is this what you mean "What's the problem .....not up for the challenge?" - ouch, wasn't my intention, but just a question, however I do see looking from another view point how it does look confrontational . I will proof read more carefully in the future.

clam1952 said:

Probably best to leave things as they are, If people don't like doctored screenshots, which are mostly fairly obvious to spot, then they won't vote for them.

Click to expand...

My problem is that people DO vote for them.

With the right editing, you can make any hum-drum screenshot on a boring route look better than even the best unedited shots. No filters should be allowed.

SETXR

So your problem is with people liking edited screenshots? How does them voting for unedited screenshots affect you in any way? If they're voting for an edited "hum-drum" screenshot instead of your apparently "best unedited shot", then what's stopping you from editing yours to one-up the "hum-drum" contestant? If you do not want to edit your entries for any reason, that's fine. But don't go around shouting for everyone else to do the same like a spoilt brat.

Some of the comments in here just reek of jealously and incompetence. Just because you cannot or do not want to learn a useful skill doesn't mean everyone else needs to be dragged down to your level of mediocrity.

Arguing over a banal, pedantic issue like the absolute definition of "Screenshot" is laughably childish. Do you also weigh your Quarter Pounder burgers when you go to McDonalds?

I think the best(and also most obviously flawed) idea is to have two competitions. If we had enough competitors in both categories then we could, as has been suggested, have two competitions. However, we don't have enough competitors to support two different competitions, and so this doesn't really work. Such a maneuver could potentially kill SSotW altogether.
Now comes my main idea:
A) I can say I am of German descent because I am about 12.5% German. This allows me to bear a German surname and trace my history back to rural Germany in the late 1800's when many folks were coming to the new world. Nobody really tells me that I'm not from that line, and nor do they deny a friend of mine her right to a property near here because she's only about 12.5% descended from the original co-founder of the site.
B) The average heavily edited Trainz screenshot is only about 20% edited from the original. 80% or more of the work is still done by Trainz, and at least 80% of the image is what you actually see.
C) Though the human accepted level of 12.5% is a little low, could we not say that an 80% still passes as a "screenshot"?
D) It doesn't take image editing to made a bad route look good, I've seen it done on many a route. It just takes good composition, and that's what the SSotW is all about. I've known people who make modules specially for it, and what you see in one screenshot is what you get.
E) The rules of SSotW do not disallow filters, if you don't like it, you don't have to vote for it, as has been stated. What other people want to vote for is their choice, but if you want to boycott it yourself, go ahead. But you'll be working against your own goal, as you'll be discouraging Trainzers from both sides of the argument. If you sit back, it can grow, and eventually it may actually have enough participants to split into two categories. But if you boycott it, it may slow down, and you'll be detracting from the fairness by arguing for it.
F) I don't know about you all but I can generally make a good guess about what the original screenshot looked like, and in doing so I can grade on how well it is composed and how well it is edited. This isn't unfair, it's simply adding another category of judgement, and that actually goes both ways because the only difference is that unedited has one less detail to look over, and so it's just like making every piece count for more. There is no advantage here, because the editors have to do more work, and it doesn't always(or even usually) make a screenshot look any better, at least in my opinion. All I see is that the creator is treating a screenshot as they would a photo.
G) My father applies blur, HDR, black and white, sepia, tinted, sharpening and many other filters to his photos, and nobody says they aren't photos. Is there any reason that a simulator should be more pure than the real world? After all, that goes against the simulator's main goals of realism. If editing is allowed for the more popular act of photography, why should we restrict it?
H) H222, yes, it is very silly. Especially because this cannot really be settled with facts, and for some reason, these people are being far more anal about virtual reality than real life, and strictly speaking, those levels should be even. If there's something I don't care about in real life, I don't care about it virtually. But this is rather ridiculous, and so somebody needs to come along and explain the above 7 points as to why not to discriminate.

I think I should also point out that this starts the argument of those who have the best Photoshop skills vs those who have the most high-end of machines to run Trainz, meaning all settings are turned up to 11. I don't have the best machine out there, in fact I wouldn't be surprised if my PC is on the lower end of the spectrum (its closing on 7 years now with few updates), so I like to use Photoshop to edit images just to bring them up to the standard that you can get automatically from high-end machines. It sounds to me as if those who are against the use of editing software are either a) high-end computer users or b) have no experience with image editing software, no matter how basic.

I think the use of image editing software should be allowed if that is the poster's preference. As Jamie has said previously using software like Photoshop doesn't always improve the image. It's hard to find images these days that haven't been manipulated in some form, not including cropping and such. To get the best out of an image, you start with your base (i.e. the contents of your image like trains, terrain etc) and it that's as far as it could go, but some people just like to go the extra mile and run it through some filters. I have been playing with the in-game settings more to improve lighting etc, but as we know Trainz can only go so far, and in order to get a little more realism out of it, it may mean hitting the Adobe folder to make it just more epic.

To me a screenshot is a screenshot, regardless of contents or how much editing its gone through. After all, its still Trainz, and if this competition is meant to bring the best out of Trainz users, perhaps it shows that some participants are willing to go just that much further to achieve perfection. And besides, its the voter's choice who wins, not the entrants.

Tim

Timothetoolman said:

I think I should also point out that this starts the argument of those who have the best Photoshop skills vs those who have the most high-end of machines to run Trainz, meaning all settings are turned up to 11. I don't have the best machine out there, in fact I wouldn't be surprised if my PC is on the lower end of the spectrum (its closing on 7 years now with few updates), so I like to use Photoshop to edit images just to bring them up to the standard that you can get automatically from high-end machines. It sounds to me as if those who are against the use of editing software are either a) high-end computer users or b) have no experience with image editing software, no matter how basic.
Tim

Click to expand...

That is an interesting point, but from my perspective I don't see much skill in photoshop needed to get good results. Rule No. 1 for me has always been that a good crop can do wonders for a screenshot. Fuzzy ground textures and unnecessary objects clutter a shot, crop them out and it cleans it up considerable. Before anything else, I make sure to take a good portion of the bottom of a ground level shot off, just to get rid of that glaring patch of land you seem to get framing the bottom of every pic taken in game. Add that to the knowledge of the photography's rule of thirds, and you have 80% of what you need to know to make a great screenshot.

Color touch ups for me are my big irritation. While I don't have any problem with them simply, I get a little more upset when people don't realize how much function they can get playing with the light functions in surveyor. You can spend all the time you want changing the color values in a photo editing program, but I always feel your time is better spent playing with the lighting features in game. When it comes down to it, the difference between a good route and an amazing route very much can come down to something as simple as creating a realistic day night lighting cycle in surveyor.

I really think there should be no problem with people photo editing screenshot competition work, it is hardly a high competition that would demand strict regulations like this. Personally, I simply care whether or not the work is considered tasteful. Don't just slop effects on heavily and hope something sticks, plan out what your end goal is with the picture and aim to achieve a believable and pleasant effect. And always remember, less is more.

Pretty sure that 90% of my post was just rambling.