How Do I Editing Pictures

Lee, I agree with you 100%. Sadly making pictures is one of the things I am NOT very good at. I don't seem to have an eye for it.

My tallents and skills are more geared to working on the guts

Guess that's why I am good programmer.

Oh Lee - I always thought that 'money shot' was when you flashed your private bits...

no no - they use it in legitimate films as well. Pr0n films used it later

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_shot

Double POST: at rebalynn - I made a tutorial thing on pictures for MTS - but that was more "what to put in the upload" than how to take a picture.

What I do know (after lots of trial and error) is that pictures in sims are best taken in cameraman mode, with lights on, with the walls up. For a long time I used to turn my in lot graphics UP for upload shots and turn down all other settings to get the best pictures.

Cameraman mode can be fun to just "wander about" with - you can get some great shots like that. Fraps is good, but I keep forgetting where I have it and so it is never turned on.

I don't like taking pictures, only do it for uploading purposes. Always find something gets in the way, a wall or a tree, or a fence! And getting the angle right is so difficult. Although I think I'm better at it than I used to be. Lee's no redline mod is brilliant too (thanks Lee for pointing me to that)

I find taking pictures of houses difficult. It's hard to get angles that make the whole thing look as nice as it does in game. Objects are easier though, and sims are my favourite.

Somewhat recently I started editing my pics in Photoshop, fiddling with "brightness/contrast", "selective colour" and "vibrance" adjustment layers... and that makes a big difference. Here are a couple of pics - one unaltered, then the same pic heavily adjusted and a faint border added - so you can see the difference.

       

Of course you can't edit pics THAT much when uploading since that's not an accurate representation of what the content will look like in game. But a teeny bit of fiddling is okay I think, to make upload pics look a bit nicer but still accurately show off the content.

For thumbnails, though, I'd say fiddling with them is okay. A little brightness/contrast/saturation adjustment can really make 'em pop. Also, I usually make my thumbnails the size they will be displayed at (eg. 150 pixels x 150 pixels on MTS) because if you let them be automatically resized they go blurry. So I resize them in photoshop and sharpen them so the image is clear. Add a little border if you want, and you're good to go!

I use Gimp for most of my image needs, but for capturing and editing screenshots it's Ashampoo Snap. They do have a free version available. You simply press the printscreen button on your PC and the image opens up automatically ready for cropping and resizing - easy!

http://www.getpaint.net/ and Picasa are pretty good for basic editing. I use Photoshop CS5 myself and I love, love collecting fonts with my current fave being "BPreplay"

FONTS!!! My new fave is Andada - so Cuban