#ts4 editing tutorial

[simminginstars]

Updated: How I edit my sims 4 screenshots (night-time edition)

A more detailed editing tut so you can understand my process as it may help you, i edited this relatively quickly and usually spend about 1-2hrs editing something...so let's goo.....

Before taking screenshots:

Help yourself as much as you can in-game, I always make sure there is some sort of light source in my pictures or something interesting that I can add to enhance something already there

Understand good/bad composition and add variety by using different angles

I take LOTS of photos just to end up with 1 or 2 good ones

I'll just be using photoshop for this, but i also like to use the procreate app as i'm more confident w it.

step1: I check if there are any major glitches or hard areas e.g, fingers elbows etc.. that have sharp points and pull them in liquify so they are smooth. Then use curves to change the contrast.

step2: *duplicates image* using the dodge and burn tools (keyboard shortcut: o ) i'll add emphasis to highlights and shadows (be careful with these as the dodge tool can ruin the image if used in excess) *merges image* (i duplicate and merge as i go, utilise using lots of layers so you can go back if you mess up/ want to change the opacity of an effect.)

step3: making light sources POP. *new layer* change blending mode to overlay or soft light and choose a colour you like.

step4: *new layer* draw hair strands. i just use a basic round brush in photoshop and change the hardness or i'll use a sharp caligraphy type brush depending on my sims hair type. (i try not to overdo it as i like maxis hair and don't want it to look too realistic)

step5: i would then add a new layer and set the blending mode to multiply to add more shadows, but i don't feel like i need to at this point.

step6: *duplicates image* go to filter > camera raw filter, i change the "light" and "curve" panels, i like green tints in my screenshots especially the night ones. (this is where all the magic happens really so just adjust all the channels to your liking, lightroom is also really good to use)

step7: *create new layer* blending mode: screen or linear dodge (add) / makeup and finishing touches! - for this look i'll get stars and glitter pngs off google or unsplash same for the smoke, though if i'm using procreate they have free brushes for that :')

step8: add light leaks as they add some fun dynamic lighting and textures to your screenshots. (i also flip my image horizantally [image > image rotation > flip canvas horizontally] whilst editing as it's like a "fresh pair of eyes" when you've been editing for a while so you can see what looks off)

final step: merge all the layers (though i do merge along the way once i'm happy with something) go to filter > sharpen > smart sharpen. I leave it as the default setting.

extra step if u want: for party pics i might add chromic abberation here is a 60 second tutorial on youtube it makes the pic look cool and trippy.

And you're done!! congrats on surviving. if you have any questions please send them in my ask box so others can see and get help too.

[dejasenti99]

one more medicated peaceful moment.

[intrasun]

I've tried to do one of these half-submerged water edits many, many times, and I could never figure it out. I want to share what I learned with this edit because it seems a common sentiment that this concept is a little complicated. Hopefully, this info will help if you want to do an edit like this!

I painted the water with a color mask. I filled the whole canvas with medium green, lowered the opacity to about 60%, and erased where Amelia's body would peak through the water. I made the edges irregular to mimic how water pools. I used a hard brush, you want a lined edge, not a soft one. I recommend using a layer mask but you could do it with a regular layer.

The biggest concept I had to work with for this edit was depth. The highest points of Amelia's body would be about the water, but what about the deepest? I filled my canvas again with a darker green and shaded in parts where the water would be deeper; like the bend of her elbow and between her thighs. I recommend erasing with a soft brush.

Next, I outlined the edges of her whole body with a soft brush in the background color to blend Amelia's body into the pool of water. This helped her look more submerged.

This really helps it look like water: Where the body pools on top of her skin like around her armpits and on top of her belly ... I erased along the edges of my first green layer with a brush on ~35% opacity. I didn't want to erase it all but give the impression the water was thinner and more transparent.

I outlined the water on Amelia's body with a dark brown color, about 2px, on multiply, to help make the water look like it's rolling onto her body. If you go over onto the water later, don't worry it actually helps the effect.

After these steps, I continued to tweak things until I liked them. I added more shadows and some highlights.

I placed the lily pads next and added a small drop shadow under them so they looked like they were sitting on top of the water.

This step was my favorite part; I used a 1px white hard brush on 100% and drew different-sized lines along the edges of the water to create small reflections. I did it around some of the lilypads as well. This helps the water look more like water.

That is about all, I drew hair and added petals and bugs, then color grade the picture. The colorgrading really brought this picture to life!

I hope this helps anyone trying to create this kind of edit! I am always available if you have questions or if there is something I can help you with!

[salemssimblr]

hellooooooooo i love all of your renders and posts you're so talented oml. may i ask for a tut on how you did the smoke in this post? tysm ily :D

Hey, thank you so much ahhh!!! That means so much to me!! ILY! 😘

In truth, my method for smoke is not sophisticated at all... It's actually laughable how simple/easy my process is for this, I'll admit 😅

There is a way to do it right in blender, but for this particular trick I don't use blender (mostly because I've never been able to get it to work right, user error I'm sure haha). But if that's what you're looking for, there's an (untested) tutorial here!

I personally use photoshop for my smoke, and, I admit, brushes!

This tutorial assumes you have a basic knowledge of photoshop, but if you don't or if any of this is confusing feel free to send me an ask and I'll be glad to help!

A while back I scoured the internet for free cigarette smoke brushes and amassed a small collection of them. Unfortunately none of mine are marked with a name or anything so I can't link to specific ones, but here are a few I've found for this tut:

Click with caution! I use ad blockers and these sites are fine for me but as always be careful!

Brusheezy free smoke brushes 15

Brusheezy free smoke brushes 12

Resource boy 200+ free smoke brushes

If you're using photoshop, make sure the brushes are in .abr format!

Once downloaded (& unzipped), if you double click the .abr file it should automatically install and open your photoshop if it's not open already.

I've pulled one of my renders of Ariss (pre-smoke) into photoshop, so let's make some smoke.

Step 1: Create a new Layer!

Make sure you are working on a new, empty layer! This will be important in later steps!

Step 2: Add smoke using your smoke brushes

On the new layer, select the smoke brush you want to use, and make sure your color is set to white/off white/grey.

Hover over your image and select where you want your smoke to be. I was unable to take a screenshot of this process, but I put my smoke here:

Step 3: Adjust opacity/shading

You should have a layer for your smoke now. Double click it and the layer style window should pop up.

In this step... honestly go ham. If you follow exactly what I'm doing, it won't look the same because of differences in our base image (color, brightness, saturation, etc). But I usually adjust:

Blend mode

Opacity

Color overlay

Outer glow

If your smoke isn't on a separate layer, any adjustment you make here will be on the main layer, which we don't want!

I've adjusted mine, & ended up with this:

Step 4: Move & adjust your smoke

Because your smoke is on a separate layer, now you can move and adjust it.

This is all up to your preference! I typically just move, adjust, and edit the layer style until I get something I want.

Sometimes I'll also blur the smoke, which you can do by selecting filter -> blur -> gaussian blur, just make sure you're on your smoke layer!

You'll know you did it right when you get this window showing the transparency instead of your image, & if the smoke blurs when you adjust the radius!

& that's it!

There's a way to also use the standard brush tool and "path blur", which I've used before but don't usually like the result of it.

But if you'd prefer to try that, here's a tutorial for it!

[citylighten]

Subtitling Tutorial

This one goes out to you @weirdosalike 🙌🏾

As a disclaimer, my program of choice is Photopea, but this is so simplistic it definitely works for Adobe Photoshop as well. The first thing to do, of course, is find the cap you want to place subtitles on.

My caps are huge, so the size you want your subtitles to be is ultimately dependent on what you think corresponds with your image size the best. However, readability is everything. So, you want them large, but at the same time you don't want them to be overly big especially if you plan to have other characters speaking in the caption. (Enormous text is only what I do when I'm having characters really scream or be in an emotional state, it shows emphasis.)

Generally, my setting for text look like this. The bold thickens the text and the size works well for my images. Usually, I use white and golden colors for my speakers, but if it's a scene with numerous characters I splash color to indicate who is who.

Example:

On that note, I try my hardest to choose light colors for my speakers because it can ideally show against the background well opposed to if I used darker hues. Ultimately, I don't think I'm the best at color picking so discovering what works and what doesn't work is like trial and error but for the most part? I believe that light colors are the way to go.

But let's go back to our original cap.

You can't read this at all! So what we're going to do is put an outline around it. By clicking the effects button you'll see this list of options

What you want to click is stroke, which will show you these settings.

This is how the font now looks with an outline. But it's still not quite readable, so I add a drop shadow to create a contrast.

It stands out more prominently, although you may personally want the font to be a bit bigger. And after clicking okay, this is the outcome!

Sometimes I consider new forms of editing like having a faded black box behind the text, but I'm not fully committed to the concept. But this is the fun of editing; figuring out what works and what doesn't work! Hope this is helpful.

[azuhrasims]

A Very Basic How to Edit a Screenshot Tutorial

I had a request by PeachPlumbobs on Bluesky about how I edit my moodlets and use them on my Sims 4 screenshots. I used this as an opportunity to brush up a little on my Photopea skills to offer a free solution to anyone editing their sims screenshots. This is a quick and dirty tutorial. There are SO MANY MORE THINGS you can do with Photopea. Its basically a free to use, browser based, Photoshop. If you've ever worked with Photoshop, you will be comfortable here.

To follow along with this tutorial you need:

A screenshot of a moodlet and a screenshot you want to put it on top of.

Open Photopea in your browser

** I play and edit on a PC. Any keyboard shortcuts I mention are for PC.

First, we're going to open Photopea. It really is browser based. You don't need to download a thing to your computer. For this basic edit tutorial, I dragged and dropped a screenshot with a moodlet and a screenshot I wanted it overlayed on.

Notice how Photopea will open each image as its own tab. That's good. The question I was asked was how I edit and add moodlets. Personally, I use exactly what the game gives me. I'm going to show you how to cut them out with rounded corners here.

*To make your life easier, feel free to use the magnifier glass tool on the left to make the area you are working on bigger. If you need to move the whole image around, use the hand selection tool on the left side.

On the left side with the tools, you will find a button for shapes, click the rectangle one. On the top bar, just below the "Edit" button, you will see a drop down box that lets you change this from a shape to a path. Make it a path. On that same bar you will see an option to edit the corner radius. I changed it to 5px.

Use this path drawing tool to draw a rectangle over the part of the moodlet you want to see. I cut out the time remaining on the moodlet when I do this. I also cut out the icon - that's optional of course!

Once you have your path drawn, look to the right side of the screen. Over there, you want to switch it from layer view to Paths. After that, on the bottom of the right side is a button that lets you make that path into a selection. Switch the view on the right side back form Paths to Layers. Use the Arrow tool on the left side and click the center of your selection to make sure it is active.

On PC, you can use the keyboard short cut "Ctrl C" to copy the selection. Or, you can go to the top and click "Edit - Copy"

Switch tabs to the image you want to place the moodlet on. The PC keyboard shortcut is "Ctrl V" to place your copied selection on a new layer of this file. Or, you can click, "Edit - Paste"

Again, this is how I edit my moodlets and you don't have to do the same thing if you don't want to! Once my moodlet is placed as a new layer, I use the square selection tool on the left side to create a box around the moodlet icon. I then use the arrow tool to move the icon on top of the moodlet box with the text. Once completed, go to the top and press "Select - Deselect"

How to add that nifty translucent outline around the moodlet. Make sure you are on the layer your moodlet is on! Go to the bottom right and click the button labeled, "eff." Go up the pop-up list until you get to "Stroke." Click on that and a layer style box will pop up. For this example, I set the width to 10px, the opacity to 40%, and the color to white. There you go, you've given that moodlet a little pop!

This is a quick tutorial, but I'd be remiss if I didn't follow through with the rest of the image editing process here. I know I plan to make this image a square when I save it, so I moved my moodlet over where the square would be. Using the rectangle select tool, you can press "Shift" while dragging the rectangle out and you will get a perfect square. Once you are happy with your selection, go to the top bar, and click "Image - Crop"

Now that I know the size of my image that I plan to post, I can adjust the size of the moodlet. Again, make sure you are on the layer with the moodlet when you try to do this! Go to the top bar and click, "Edit - Free Transform"

Free Transform is a lot of fun. You can make the moodlet larger, smaller, or rotate it! If you hold down the "Alt" button while resizing, the moodlet will keep it original aspect ratio as well. Once you are happy with the size and rotation of the moodlet, click the arrow tool on the left to exit Free Transform mode.

This screenshot was taken at night and is very dark. There is a very easy and quick way to make it a little brighter. Click the layer with your screenshot. By doing this first, the following edits to brightness will not affect the Moodlet layer. From the screenshot layer, go to the bottom right and click the half and half circle button. From the drop down list, click "Levels"

Levels brings up a bar graph looking screen. On the left is darks, on the right is lights, in the middle is midtones. Pull the slider button just below the bar graph around until you find a happy level of darks and lights. In this case, I played more with the midtones. This is a quick and dirty adjustment method! there are so many other ways to do this! But, if I'm in a hurry, I go straight to levels to adjust my screenshots.

Finally, save your final product! In my case, I'm going to file and exporting it as a .jpg or a .png. If you save it as a .PSD, you can open it and work on it again in the future if that's something you want to do. When I export the save as a PNG or JPG - it automatically saved it to my downloads folder.

There you go! One quick Photopea to edit your sims screenshots tutorial!

Have fun.

[prettysimcheana]

Speed edit #1

Make sure to follow my Pinterest and Instagram for more content

What app did I use?

App | Procreate

What cc did I use ?

Cc | @complex-sims @xxblacksims

Heyy y’all I’ve made this page just for reblogging only but here’s a quick edit I did in December 🥲

[satureja13]

The making of of the loading screen for the therapy game 🎮

Pics above and below edited by imagechef

Draft from photo studio

And the screenshot edited with incollage

[missatan]

So I recently found a way to lighten up my sims whenever I take a screenie or do a render and it’s SUPER simple. I had to share! All you need is either gimp, photoshop, etc.

Here’s my original pic:

now we gonna enter gimp!

add a new layer (make sure it’s an alpha layer)

make sure the new layer is set to “soft light”

now go into paint 

select a fuzzy brush and the color of your light. I chose white.

now paint over your sim’s face and/or body then go under filters -> blur -> gaussian blur (to your liking, I tend to go pretty high) and you’re done!

final pic is doing soft light on the background (color black and another layer is blue) and also gaussian blur on the background as well with erasing my sim so she’s unaffected. 

[tsundcku]

[piixxa]

sneak peak at my video releasing Friday!

( ๑‾̀◡‾́)σ"

Since I've gotten a lot of setup questions I decided to make a video to direct anyone confused about where to start and or upgrade their specs for pc gaming :) I give a tour of my recording setup, provide a complete guide to buying laptops, diy desktops, or prebuilts for the sims 4 and more!

link to channel I specs masterlist

also 1k?!! I'm so happy that people enjoy my content so far. Your support means everything and gives me the motivation to keep going.

[glittermutt]

hi! have you ever shared info about how you take and/or edit your Sim portraits, and if not, would you consider it? your edits have such a gorgeous and distinctive look. I would be really interested in learning about your process! thanks for your time!

aww oh my gosh thank you so much!! <33 i honestly don't even do all that much, i use my cinemascope reshade preset; sometimes i add a bit of bloom (mostly using prod80's bloom shader), but i don't do much apart from that. then i open the picture in photoshop and do a few things:

topaz clean; here are my settings

2. i resize the screenshot - this is solely for the purpose of not filling up my hard drive, because i take my screenshots at 4K using dsr. i don't always do this, as sometimes it's just not necessary, but for portraits it's okay, as you don't really lose all that much detail

3. smart sharpen; here are my settings

4. (optional) add noise! i do it only sometimes lol

that's really it! oh and if you're wondering about my cas lighting (which definitely helps a lot!), it's pennyroyal tea by @/rebouks

hope this helps! :3

[stinkrascal]

How do you take such great screenshots in bg3?

aaaaawwwwwwww wow thank you so much! im flattered u wanted to ask me this 😁

sometimes i use the free camera mod, but honestly it's kinda much so i don't bother often. it does greatly improve the quality of my screenshots since there's built in hotsampling and you can get better angles and stuff, but most of the time the default camera is good enough for this purpose, especially for gif making purposes. i never use free camera while making gifs :'). if you have any questions/want to know where to download free cam, hmu!!

otherwise when im making gifs or taking screenshots w the default camera, i just use the f10 key to hide the ui (this is default w the game!!) and then i take my screenshots using f12, which is the default camera for steam. if you install a program like reshade, you can use that to take screenshots n customize where you want those screenshots to show up and what toggles to use etc

oh then i lightly edit the pics/gifs in photoshop. i add brightness and saturation, then run it thru topaz clean and smart sharpen then crop it and thats it. i hope this helped sorry its so long ily!!

[alltimefail-sims]

What are other ways to save sims you create without posting them on the Gallery?

I'm assuming this is the same person, so I'm going to answer both of these questions in tandem!

It's a bit of a long-winded answer, soooo...

let’s get into it! Response below the cut ↓

Here's how to save sims to your tray/library without posting them on the gallery:

That's it! There's nothing else you have to do. You can access your library at any time by clicking the gallery button and going to "My Library." (It will be the third tab). If your sim uses CC, like mine, you'll need to make sure you have "Include Custom Content" checked in the sidebar for them to show up. I forgot to take a screenshot of that, but here's an image from SimsVIP that shows you what I'm talking about!

Now: "Why do sims get banned?" That's a complicated question that I would need more details to answer - are you talking about banned from posting on the gallery, or banned from your EA account/accessing your Sims game in general? I've never heard of anyone being banned for using a lot of CC or posting sims on the gallery that use a lot of cc - in fact, I was under the impression that bans from the gallery are pretty rare! If you are just having trouble posting on the gallery but still can play your game and access your EA account, you could be using words or phrases that are prohibited. It also could just be an outdated mod or piece of CC causing the issue. Are you getting notifications when you try to post? Feel free to reach out to me with specifics and so I can help you. (Off anon and in a private message would be best, but if you'd prefer to stay anonymous in my asks that's fine, too!) If I can't figure out the issue, I can at least point you in the direction of someone who can.

All that being said, if you don't mind me giving my personal opinion/a piece of advice, there's really no reason to post sims that use "a lot" of CC on the gallery anyway, especially if you use custom presets or sliders. When people download your sims from the gallery, if they don't have the cc you used, they'll get a basically naked sim (cc does not transfer through the gallery - you might know this, but I thought I'd specify just in case).

If you want to share non-vanilla sims, I would recommend downloading The Sims 4 Tray Importer. It's a useful and free program that, among other functions, will take all the households you've saved to your library and provide the specific tray files and an organized list of all the custom content you used in that household as well. From there, you can literally copy the tray files and the cc files directly from their source folders and put them in a Zip/RAR file to share with others. This sounds complicated, but trust me it's not! There are a lot of tutorials out there, but if you want me to write the steps on how I do this, I'd be more than happy to do that in a separate post.

Here's what that same sim from above, Ramona Spivey, looks like in TS4 Tray Importer:

Please ignore the spoiler alert graphic - there were two households and a build I have yet to share and I didn't want to spoil them lol!!

Again, please feel free to reach out with additional questions you may have or, if you want me to, I'd be happy to make a tutorial on how I personally share my sims with CC in a separate post!

I hope this was helpful! 🖤

[musthavemods]

How To Edit Uneditable Lots In Sims 4

Feeling stuck trying to revamp those special Sims 4 lots like Sylvan Glade or the Magic Realm? You're not alone! But guess what? Cheats are your new best friends for unlocking the editing magic you crave. Ready to transform your world? Tap into our guide to learn the secrets, and let's chat about it in the comments! Read More At MustHaveMods.com

[vesibaby]

Made a minor change to Matty (Eye color) But I decided to try something new in photoshop and I really like how it came out.