Sssangnakamaskara's Stash [My Screenshot Art and how I did it]

[sangnakamaskara]

Yes I am ssssangnakamaskara, dropping loot crates of my works with an aura kingdom skin patterned around it. I am a big boy toying around Photoshop for six good years. I do not consider myself a professional, which doesn’t make me a bigger boy. I don’t know how to draw people, which makes me even borderline pitiful boy and small boy.

I can make things beautiful though. It rejuvenates my big boy energy.



Tonight folks, this thread will showcase my Aura Kingdom edits. But its not just a show and go scenario, I will also do an “in-a-nutshell” of how the image came to be. You know how in the masked magician show, the magician shows you the trick, and how he did the trick afterwards? Think of it that way but it’s me but meddling with the mystic arts of photo manipulation.



I will be mainly using Photoshop. In all honesty, it’s the only thing I’m good at. And maybe Google Images if I need some stock overlays. I tend to be lazy overtime. The processes on how I do the thing is more of an explanation than an in-depth instruction where I point out where is this or that or so on.

Another disclaimer: I do not speak of the scriptures all conforms to. My methods is not guaranteed the golden rule of making a good screenshot. I may have made inefficient methods, or you have personal preferences on how you want your pictures to be. Everything I make boils down to my personal taste.

Although if you have ideas or methods of something, please please please share! I would love to see you here and your creativity!!

Now that’s out of the way, I thought that sharing might give you ideas on how to become a big boy like me!!

[sangnakamaskara]

Otohime Random
12/02/2019
My first AK edit. As the file name suggests, it’s everyones favorite Otohime. Heres the final result.



I was just playing around AK when I saw Otohime’s idle animation. It prompted me to make an edit. Looking back at it, I really wish I could have done more like turn the whole background to an underwater or something like that. Although, I think it already stands on its own... It can even sing along nursery rhymes now.

This post will be the long for sure because I will be laying down the general procedures I use in all of my works.

The pic started with this



Big difference, huh? First impression, the blue tint of the picture was kind of yucky to my picky eyes. The blue filter was the result of the game overlaying said filter when it’s night time. I mean it’s alright in game, but in terms of editing the picture... It’s going to be rough when left ignored.

The reason why I say its going to be rough is because I might be encountering difficulties painting over the picture. See it this way: I want to paint green. In a white, plain and digital canvas, if you paint green on it, it’s going to be green for sure. But if you paint green on a canvas with a blue filter on it, its not going to be the green you’d expect. Worse case scenario, the colors clash too much and creates problems like oversaturation and whatever stuff. The canvas example is not the best example, but it’s what it felt like making in my experience.



So how do you fix such issue? Color Balancing. Color balancing is the one that repairs the Camel’s back with Iron Man’s spare parts. It’s a tool (in Photoshop, but I’m sure it’s present in other programs) that allows you to control the colors of the shadows, midtones, and highlights. It can make a huge difference when treated correctly.



As you can see, it removed the whole blue filter of the image. If you also notice, the redness of Otohime has retained! Some people may think “the first image is better” and I do respect that. The reason why I did this is it gives me a breather to edit it further later on. More freedom on what I want the picture to be.

And then I made the image darker with adjustment layers like Levels and Brightness and Contrast. Add a lil bit of vibrance ontop. All of these to decrease the “whiteness” of the shot and add more saturation to the colors.



Here comes the fun part. I wanted to be extra. I thought, this is not enough. This is never enough. I decided to add SHADOWS.

They somehow make screenshots more beautiful. Best case, it can be used to emphasize the main objects of a picture.



First thing that comes in mind: Light source. Where do I place it? What kind of light is this light? Why is the light. How is the light. I’m not going to gloss over technical details, but keep in mind you cast shadows when you cover the light path! (ofc)

Disclaimer, I do not master this shadow shading process. But I try my best!!!!



For this work, I decided that my light source will be there, pointing at Otohime. As you determine where the light source is, distinguish the light path. Next is to look at any objects that may obstruct the light path like the clownfish there and Otohime herself. After that, calculate the risk and reward for doing such a procedure.

The first thing I did was to separate the main object, Otohime, and the background around her. I used the Pen tool because I am a big boy. The reason why I have to separate it is to ease the problem of painting only on the main object and not the background.

You’re going to see this procedure so many times in this thread. It’s a sssssangnakamaskara trademark.



Added a new layer above the Otohime layer, made the new layer a clipping mask. And I used a dark-colored brush with soft edge. I colored places where shadows are supposed to be casted. Notice the clownfish casting its shadow? Be that picky with life.



I added shadows beneath her because that makes sense. I also made a new layer and painted a glow effect on the orb with the same brush but light blue.



I added a distant gaussian blur on the background to emphasize the main object in the picture.



And then I blessed it with a godray overlay. Two layers actually. The first with color dodge, and the second with screen.



And that’s literally it. I guess I told myself that it ends there. It’s good enough. I wish I could of done more, but that’s all.




I made more effort on this post than the picture edit itself. Yes amazing ty goodbye

[Jewel]

Woah yeah I've seen it in the discord as well. <3 Looks awesome! And thank you for the tutorial. <3

[sangnakamaskara]

Thank you very much!!

Am trying my best to get some I sent in Discord to here for some deep extraction extravaganza. Am also trying to battle my social anxiety by getting out of the comfort zone and make this

I'm also making more fun and creative shots in the near future as I found new tricks up in my carpet rag

[sangnakamaskara]

_redmura
12/04/2019
A picture of New Year Muramasa on a night-time Crescent Hill. This is the final result.



The genesis of the picture is this one.



One of the pictures with lots of changes, but...



The screenshot on itself already looks good on its own. The skybox absolutely made the shot better here. The flora around the grass sprinkles the colors of the fall. The hanging lanterns, wooden fence, and the walls around it signify that tint of human influence. Feels lovely.

But then I had an ambitious thought. “It looks really good, but what would it look like at nighttime?” Sure, the game actually does have day and night cycles, but it’s not Minecraft Shaders level of day and night. Intrigued by the thought, it prompts me to do the edit.

So first things first I had to separate the objects to another layers.



Four things: background, Muramasa herself, the flora, and the miscs like the fences and lanterns. Looking back at the psd file, I conclude that I was very INEFFICIENT! Those weird looking layers was a result of laziness. I could have erased unnecessary residues to improve quality, but it’s already finalized. I’ll try my best to remember why I made those things in the first place.

The cutting was done in three different ways. One is the pen tool for the main and significant objects, one is a manual lasso + mask paint, and one that I resort to when I become lazy: Color Range.




Color range is a tool in photoshop where it selects a color you chose and whatever’s close to that said color. It’s like a Magic Wand Tool but you have the option to adjust the “Fuzziness” of the selection, thus giving you an easier option of range. How this works is that, if I select a white, it will try to find white and anything close to that color. If red, red will be selected alongside whatever’s close to red.



It works fast and perfect on pictures with 1 color backgrounds you want to remove. But something like that picture? If I select the white parts on Muramasa, it can potentially even select even the faintest whites around the whole picture. So basically, if you do not know what you’re doing, you’re going to end up a selection with a lot of mess.

I brought this up because it would make sense why I became lazy. At one point I saw the flora, I hesitated.



I’m supposed to pen tool or lasso, lots of them??? That’s going to take hours for such a task! I went down the path of using Color Range just to separate the flora. Unfortunately, I forgot that there are actual tools for that job such as the Quick Selection Tool, but the damage has been done. A fool like the llama I am.



I got the flora out, but at what cost? The residue of my sins. Until I realize that these bad omen residues have a purpose. It’s like a yin-yang situation, no good if no evil. I’ll tackle that later on.

So now I got the separating out of the way, I’m going to make it night time. But, how do you exactly make it night time?



Color Lookup is a gem, a saving grace bestowed from heavens. It is an adjustment layer in photoshop where it utilizes a set of data in order to change colors in a creative way. The preset I showed here is a pre-installed file called NightFromDay.CUBE. What that does is it turns your whole picture darker as it mimics the feel of nighttime.



We cranked that time machine from day to night in two layers. There are so many cool ways like these and it’s the reason why photo editing struck me. You can do whatever you wanna do.

So yes, its dark. But everything’s too dark. We need a light source. Here, I assumed the possible light sources.




I took notice the two lanterns hanging on the trees. I thought its a cool idea if it’s lit up. I also imagined a good source of ambient light would be the moon and the light it will cast. The moonlight complements well with the dark-blue tint of the picture.

I added a moon I got from Google. Cut it and pasted it there. I proceeded to illuminate the surroundings and the moon itself.



I started painting the scenery on a new layer. New layer utilizes blending modes such as color dodge and linear dodge (add). Painted white with the good-ol’ soft edged brushes. Looking back at it, I wished I didn’t make the whiteness of the moon way too harsh. I could have toned it down a bit.



I proceeded to the lanterns. One thing I noticed is that there are these black stuff around it. I wanted to make sure that only the orange parts of the lantern is the “illuminated”, so I did some quick selection tool to select the blacks and isolate it from the illuminating layer.



After that, I started painting around the flora. I’m no expert though, so it’s easier said than done. Due to the irregularities of the flora, it presented me with both advantages and disadvantages. It’s an advantage because of how varied the irregularities are, therefore giving me a breath of trial and error to paint shadows. It’s also a disadvantage because there are so many factors to take in, one like the height of this particular flower. I just kept drawing black stroke of lines on the ground until it looked personally alright.



Painted the fence next. Same principle but not as harsh as the flora. I hoped I could have done better with the painting here. If you look close enough, you could see some excess. I have no idea why I never removed it, but eh.



I now started to work on the spotlight character, Muramasa. I used the cut layer, put it on top, and started painting where shadows should be casted.



Aside from very, very small adjustments, I wanted to make sure that only her back is illuminated. So I decided to put another Color lookup to darken it, and I mask painted until it looks nice enough.



Added a glow on Kabuto’s eyes for the extra sprinkle. I also decided to darken the night time because personally it’s too bright to cast shadows that dark.

Now here’s the genius. Remember those layers with bad residues? I was about to delete those, until I made them visible.




It added this greyness around the blackness of the picture. To be honest, I can’t even remember why I made that in the first place. I assume I did another color range on the trees in the background.

I did a final touch by adding a very slight orange photo filter, which isn’t really that worth displaying since the change is so minor.

So that’s how I got to the final result.




I added a badly placed watermark that’s so easy to remove but I dunno ty goodbye

[sangnakamaskara]

ullr
12/21/19
Screenshot was done by a good friend. I edited it because I had ideas in mind to “mystify” it. Here’s the final result of the picture.



The majestic Ullr in his natural habitat(?) The rushing mist surrounds the desolate land. Anyways, the picture came from here.



I like the screenshot here. We have this running joke with my friend where all screenshots should follow the Golden Ratio. Not in a sense it has to exactly follow the curve, but more on the emphasis of space in the composition. Notice how in the big half, there’s a lot of space? And then the further smaller boxes you go, the space is being more occupied by the main object thus having more detail. It sounds stupid, but it really does help visualize what makes a good screenshot good. There are many guides besides the Golden Ratio, and it helps to familiarize those if you want the best of the best shots! (Of course, following those guides doesn’t always make a picture automatically better. There's a lot of factors to take in in order to achieve a good shot.)



Anyways, aside from being *cool* composition-wise, I have a pet peeve in this game. It’s this obnoxious screen color filter that you cannot turn off. I’ll explain further so we’re on the same note.
These screen filters are color adjustments where it tints photos to achieve desired effect. Think of it as photo filters in smartphone cameras. I think at this time and age, everyone is familiar with its capabilities and how widespread it is used.



It is also used in games to intensify the atmosphere of a surrounding. Sample, an icy field emits a blue tint because it’s cold. A desert environment reeks of orange tint because it’s hot. A dark graveyard creates a dark purple tint to signify death and desolation. Possibilities are limitless. It’s a weapon to make photos prettier. But like all weapons, they have a potential of misuse.

The reason of my disgust in the game’s screen color filter is how sometimes there is too much of it. I’ll stress the word “sometimes”, as some maps definitely look better with the filter.

A prime example of its overuse is Candetonn Hill. I once thought my SweetFX was to blame. Turns out, it’s really the game itself! The loading screen is even misleading.





??? Also, I took the picture at the wrong time. But even on daytime, it has this purple filter that washes out the vibrant forest.

With that out of the way, the photo filter in the screenshot I edited is not as bad. But I was kind of hoping it was more washed out to emphasize the bleakness and the engulfment of snow and mist. That became my aim in the edit afterwards.

So, first things first, I needed to find a way to remove all blues that overwhelms the shot. The filter and the particles. I’m going to do the particles first.



The aim of isolating the blue particles and residue is to duplicate the layer without them. First, I had to use Color Range in order to pick the particles and create a selection of it. Afterwards, I inverted the selection so that I have the whole picture without the blue stuff selected. Lastly, I made a new layer and copy-pasted the selection to the new layer.



That way, the first layer fills in the blanks of the second layer. Afterwards, I added a Black & White adjustment layer to make the first layer grayscale. This finally eliminates the crazy blue particles and residues to give me a breather in editing. However, we still have that blue filter on.

I created three adjustments layer to eliminate the blue filter and make the picture darker to fit the dark desolate vibes.



First is the Color Balance layer to wash out the blues. Next is the Vibrance layer to desaturate the image without losing the high saturated colors. I finally added Curves layer to increase contrast of the dark colors. The resulting image is quite gritty, but we’ll get into the rendering later on.

Next, I separated the main object, Ullr, and the background. Used the pen tool as always.



I assumed where the light source will be. I decided it will be a sun-kind of lighting. I created a new layer and used a white soft brush to paint a sun and the light around the area. At this point I could now feel the environment from here. I wished the game looked like this anyhow.



With the light source set up, I can now work on the shadows and highlights.
I started painting a shadow on appropriate places. Then I added highlights on appropriate places. Then I added a slight rim light on appropriate places. I finally put appropriate places in their appropriate places.



Afterwards, I darkened the whole environment since has steep elevations. It will remain dark on land as it will be covered by a thick mist. Honestly, the whole picture reminds me of Skyrim. Skyrim is not for the Nords, but for me. Hehehe



I then added a thick mist fog. One for the background, and one Infront of Ullr.



With many very small tweaks and adjustments to color, I wanted to make sure that nothing is blown out of the scenery. Now that I got all effects coming through, I added the blue filter back to emphasize the temperature of the scenery. I made sure it’s not as aggressive as the screenshot.



After around 2 to 3 hours of work, I finally got this result




Easily removeable watermark to mark ownership of owner of the picture goodbye

[Jewel]

Necro-ing this thread but I love this series of posts so much! I'm learning as well!

Your Minecraft Llama plushie is adorable. <3