6. Studio V: Can you offer a few words of advice to our less experiences screenartists on how to take more effective, dramatic screenshots?


Harold: I can offer a lot of words of advice HAHA!

Before anything – please – learn about compression and how to use it. Compression can really ruin an otherwise very nice screenshot. It really hurts me to see screenshots that are murdered by compression. It is totally unnecessary! I would rather see an all default screenshot that is razor sharp, than a screenshot that is packed with the greatest add-ons and over compressed.

Having said that, I think that composition, probably is the most important factor to all graphic artists. After that there are three very important factors that I keep in mind when taking screenshots, besides graphics quality and high quality add-ons: Angles, Dynamics and Environment.

Composition is how everything that is pictured in a screenshot is arranged.

More interesting reading material are the articles on Wikipedia about Composition, the Principles of Art and about the Elements of Art.

Angles are rather obvious; try to vary your angles and see if you can find a new one that we’ve never seen before. The same angle in every shot comes across as boring. You might not get it right away but see what you can do with tools like FS Recorder or Walk & Follow. Shane, you recently surprised me with your newly found angles; especially that one from the landing gear. That was one of the most creative shots I’ve ever seen!

I usually like to have my camera very low to the ground (mostly using Walk & Follow), looking up at the aircraft, while making sure that there is something in the background, and that I have some nice clouds in the skies.

There should be something going on in the shot. It is one of the principles of photography. Movement. Action. Dynamics. This can be a take off or landing, but also something happening in the fore- or background. Like a Cub at some campsite with a fire in the foreground or a couple of ground vehicles around a A330 while it is parked at the gates.

But it can also be that the aircraft is positioned relative to the scenery in such a way that it gives a feeling of speed. Flying in rain or snow is a great and very easy way to get dynamics in your shot. Also having vapor trails coming off wing tips is a good way to give a shot of speed.





The environment is the scenery which you use as backdrop for the aircraft of which you are taking screenshots. But also the skies and clouds, weather, lighting, etc. Look at what you see in the shot besides the aircraft and how to make that stand out in the shot. Make people look twice. There really are TONS of freeware scenery add-ons that WILL make your screenshot so much better than default. If you like bush flying then you might want to try the fantastic Glacier Bay scenery by Holger Sandmann with the Premier Beaver and if you like large airports and airliners, try Boston Logan by George Grimshaw with a 747 or 777 by Project OpenSky. Try FS SkyWorld for your skies and Real Environment Pro for your ground and water textures. Those are just a few examples of amazing pieces of freeware but they really can bring your sim to life. And there are loads of them; some better than others but definitely worth a look. Looks at Sean’s list for more …

You should think about composition all the time, but sometimes you just can’t have all three other factors in a screenshot at the same time, but even one or two of those three would make a screenshot much more interesting.

And always experiment with different settings for weather and times of day. See what a different weather theme can do to a screenshot. Try out different cloud layers. You can really set a mood with clouds! Try different types of aircraft and several liveries for them. Even for the same model some liveries are better done than others. You could also try a different airport or other scenery.


But if anything … have fun in what you do and don’t be afraid to show your screenshots in these forums. Ask for feedback, listen to it and learn from that. You will see that you will improve rapidly!




7. Studio V: Do you think it's important to have a screenartist mentor ... another – more senior – SimV member to help you improve?


Harold: I would certainly be interested to pass on to others what I have learned. However, I would want complete dedication from the person. I would be dedicated and invest time it. I would expect nothing but the same in return from the person in question. I’ve done this before outside the forums and sometimes people just don’t respond or pay attention.









9. Studio V: You always post very honest criticism and comments on people's pics, do you feel that this is truly valuable, and is there anything wrong with just saying "nice shots"?


Harold: There is nothing wrong with saying ‘nice shots’, but I believe that it doesn’t add anything. I always make an effort to explain why I think that a shot is nice or not. I will try to share what I really like and be honest about what I don’t like but always make sure that I back it up with arguments. This way people might see what they didn’t see before, learn from that and improve.

Of course I feel that my feedback is truly valuable. I believe that it is straight forward without being rude or insulting. I always make sure that I provide tips on how to do it differently so that people might see the difference and can improve their skills.




10. Studio V: Where do you get your inspiration, and ideas for the shots you take, e.g.: is there a process you go through before pressing the capture key, or is it random for you?



Harold: Yes, I have a rough idea of what I want to accomplish before I start the sim. Like my Kai Tak series, the Lil' White Flower or Charlie Whiskey.
I wanted to show that you could create great screenshots using nothing but freeware. I read a lot of complaints from people that they couldn’t get great screenshots because they could not afford or did not want to spend any money on payware. I thought that was ridiculous and wanted to prove the opposite.

But I usually just take off and fly around. Like I said in the beginning: I fire up my sim to take screenshots, so I am already in that mode. Before I even start my engines I am already panning around the aircraft to see if I can get a some nice angles. I hardly ever fly from the (virtual) cockpit; I always go outside to take screenshots. I always pan around the aircraft (using a combination of Walk & Follow, FS Recorder, the F1 View module and Active Camera) until I get something I like. I have ScreenShooter running in the background and setup so that every time I press the PrtScn key, it saves a 3,75 MB Bitmap to my hard drive. One Flight Sim session can easily produce over 200 screenshots. I then scan those shots and copy the ones I like the best to a different folder. I will edit those in Photoshop, meaning that I might crop and resize them, but I might also sharpen them or adjust the color balance a little.





Initially, I got my inspiration from the people on these forums. People like Fly2e, Eno, Ashar, Mic, Stormtropper, Omag, Krigl, Mees, Lemoncat etc. Not just the creativity in their screenshots but mainly because they were so razorsharp! Their shots really stood out from the rest. I really wanted to learn how to do that too which drove me to improve my machine. But I also like a lot of screenshots of people that joined SimV after I joined like a1, SeanTK, Bob70, ManuelL, todayshorse, JSpahn, AN-225 and of course you too Shane.


Thank you Harold for your time, and all the ecouragement and advice. It was an honor to be able to have this nice chat with you. See you all next week.