#ts4 editing tutorial

[octoberislands]

hi! i’m new here in tumblr. how do you make your screenshots crisp af? it’s so high quality. any tips for new simblr?

hellooo! first, welcome to simblr ✨i have slightly answered this question before, but i don't mind elaborating and helping out a new simblr! (sorry, this is gonna be a lot of info and i'm not the best when it comes to explaining things lol)

➜ i have all of my graphics settings on high or extremely high. i have a really great gaming pc so it can handle a lot thankfully. in game when i take my screenshots, most of it is all about the angles and my gshade does most of the work. i use relight + immerse relight you can easily get them on dhm so that adds a lot of lighting to the screenshots that make it looks nice. ➜ you can use swre, i don't really understand how to use that program and never took the time to learn it tbh lol. i'll put a link below on how to take hq screenies without it. ➜ i answered a question about my preset here and added some more info onto that. here are some of my favorite presets: [x] [x] [x] [x] ➜ after i take the screenshots i edit them in photoshop. i'm not sure how much photoshop experience you have, you don't need to be a PRO to use it. it just took a long time of learning + i was lucky enough to have a ps class in college. i will say this yt channel is super helpful. you can certainly use whatever program you want if you decide to edit. canva is also great. i use the topaz clean plug-in, smart sharpen and unsharpen mask, with a few of my own psds and add-ons, whatever i feel will make the scene look the best for what i'm going for. sometimes i add in lighting effects, my favorite thing to do is coloring and adding in light with the overlay or linear-dodge effect on a new layer on top of the picture. ➜ as far as being new to simblr + any tips, just be yourself! you don't have to be an editing queen or do all of this extra stuff. remember that it's your blog and you can do whatever you please with it! ~ ˚₊ · »-♡→ i hope this has been helpful!

here are some helpful resources/download links:

[x] @elderwisp helpful resources post

[x] @thebramblewood tutorial on taking screenshots in hq without SWRE

[x] editing tutorial by @cupofcarolina

[x] i reblog and share photoshop resources on my cc finds blog

[leavemetoplaythesims]

shading and lighting tutorial!

this was requested by an anon. a little before we start! i use procreate on my ipad pro with an apple pencil. unfortunately procreate is the only program i know but i imagine similar features exist in other programs as well. i feel like i need to say that i am in no way an expert on shading and i know it's not always accurate. also if you end up using this tutorial in some of your edits please feel free to tag me, i would love to see it! if i've missed something or if i explained something badly don't be afraid to ask me about it. okay long post ahead!

so i'm going to just make a little simple edit of my girl. this is a screenshot taken from cas that has the sunscreen filter on it from the built in windows photo editor on 20% intensity.

now i've added my normal little touch ups that i usually do, eyelashes, catch lights and highlights as well as touching up her scars. everything is painted with the soft airbrush except for some highlights that are painted with the 2B compressed charcoal brush. before adding highlights however you should figure out where you want the light to come from. i've drawn a little ugly sun for you to see where i've placed my light.

now i use the soft airbrush and paint with black where the shadows would be. if i would have fixed up the hair (which i didn't for this one because it's my least favorite part and i didn't have the energy) i would have made sure to make the shadow layer behind the hair ones since i think it looks better if the hair isn't shaded the way the face is. then i blend all of the black out with the smudge tool with the soft airbrush so it looks a little softer.

then change the layer to soft light and change the opacity to 60% and voilà! you have soft shadows! if some shadows still look to harsh for your liking just go back in with the smudge tool a little more.

now do a layer on top of everything and kind of circle the part you want lit up the most with black again, smudge it and set the layer to soft light at 60% opacity.

this step is not a must, i don't do it very often anymore but if you want some extra color or light you can do this. choose a color you want your light source to be. i tend to feel like intense colors look the best. paint it where you want the light to come from, then use the gaussian blur tool until your satisfied.

now you can leave it in the normal layer setting or play around a bit with different ones until you find something that you feel fits. for this one i decided on using the difference layer setting on 70% opacity.

a step i always almost forget is shading the eyes! to do that you just repeat the normal shadow process. paint it black, smudge and put the layer to soft light on 60% opacity. it adds so much, i highly recommend this step! now you're done with the first part. now save it as an image and start a new canvas with that image.

if you want to use gaussian, motion or perspective blur now would be the time. i didn't for this one but i almost always do. this next step is also totally optional. we are going to use chromatic aberration in the displace setting on 90% opacity and slightly pull it to the side. then use the normal chromatic aberration between 5-10%. it just adds a lot of fun and weird color that i just love and makes the edit look so much more alive. then use sharpen, i usually do 10-15%. and after that use bloom. my edits are almost always dark so i use a lot of it. i think i did 35% for this one to give it a little glow. then use noise. my go to is 3% on max octaves. then go into hue, saturation, brightness and change the saturation to 55% (you can do however much you want but these are my go to's) and brightness to 49%.

now go into curves and play around. i always make the gamma brighter but the colors i play around with so much.

completely optional again but i've recently started to add a gradient map, especially instant or noir. for this one i used noir on 20%. and that's it, we are done!

before/after.

hopefully this is understandable and helpful. have fun!!

[solstice-sims]

TS4 Procreate Hair Editing Walkthrough (Subtitled + Voice Over)

The long-awaited hair editing kind-of-tutorial is here! I'm genuinely sorry for how long it has taken me to make this. My hair editing process is just not organized at all, which you can probably tell after watching this. This video is also unscripted, which I probably shouldn't do ever again lol! I hope that this video helps.

This video took over a week to put together, caption, and edit. My hair editing is also something I hold dearly to myself as part of a huge essence of my Sims editing style, and I’m really proud of how far I’ve come with hair editing/painting. I hope that you appreciate me sharing this with you!

✨ PLEASE CONSIDER SUPPORTING ME ON KOFI! ✨

Find the video below! Feel free to speed it up if you need to.

[zebrafiz]

hi! i love your sims sm !! they’re gorgeous ! i was wondering if your willing to share how you edit your screenshots? if not, i totally understand ♡♡♡

omg thank u so much!!!!!!! <3 this means a lot to me djkhfjsd of course i can! i'm a novice when it comes to editing (literally only started a few days ago) so my process is still very basic but i can show u nonetheless. it'll all be under the cut :-)

okay so before i start i have to mention that i use three programs to do this: reshade (does the bulk of the editing for me via presets), SRWE (ensures that my screenshots are hq), and photoshop 2020 (for editing)

lets say i'm editing this picture

since i've already posed her, taken the pic w reshade, and cropped it to a size i want, i dont have to worry about any of that anymore. on to photoshop! (for ref: i didnt take this particular screenshot with SRWE because i didnt have it installed at the time, but for all of my current ones i do!)

the first thing i do is open up topaz clean v3 - i got mine from [cough cough here]. idk anything abt topaz so this may be outdated but... it works good enough for me

from there, i just mess around with the 'cartooned' settings until i find something i'm satisfied with. i try to keep it really subtle because i want my sim to actually look like themselves fkjhgjhf here are my personal settings for this specific photo

after this, i go to filter > sharpen > smart sharpen to bring out the details in the photo

similar to topaz settings, i just mess around with the strength until i find something that i like. i try not to go too heavy with it but since i didnt take this pic with SRWE, i gave it a little more sharpening than i usually would

lastly, i use one of @wooldawn's actions from this action dump . i personally use 'o gradient' to make the photo a bit brighter

and thats it!

before (left) vs after (right)

again it's veryyyy basic but i think it does the job for right now hehe.. the process is the same for landscape screenshots too, i might add in a light flare or two in those to bring out the Cool Sun Rays for Ambience 

[morrigan-sims]

Okay, so @simgerale​ asked how I made a pic look “painted”, without using the Oil Paint Filter.  This tutorial is gonna cover how I made the pic above, as well as some bonus stuff.  If you don’t wanna learn how to do it yourself, there’s a Photoshop Action download at the end of the post, which has (almost) all the steps I use to make a painted pic!  

Tutorial under the cut, since this is gonna get long!

Step 1:

Find your pic!  I’m gonna be using this one of Fallon’s mother, Rosalynn when she was Queen.  I used reshade for this pic, specifically @/growfruite’s all these sudered things preset. (click on the name for a link)  BUT you can do this on an unedited pic too!

Step 2 (optional):

Do your pre-editing!  I ran the Clean and Sharp action from THIS set by @/squea, and the the Beauty Queen: Smooth Filter 50% from THIS set by @/intravertt.  After that, I ran the lil dramatic tbh action from THIS set by @/wooldawn.  All fo that is my standard editing for just about every pic, so I ran these for consistency’s sake, but skip this step, or replace with your favorite actions.

NOTE: Clean and Sharp requires Topaz Clean to work.

After that additional editing, the image looks like this:

Now the real fun starts!

Step 3:

Now it’s time to actually start making the image look painted!  Go to Layer > Flatten Image if your image isn’t already flat.  Then right click on the layer (should be the only one you have!!) and select Duplicate Layer. Just hit Okay.  

Right click on the duplicated layer (should be named “Background copy”) and select Convert to Smart Object. This is VERY important, because otherwise the filters won’t work correctly!!  

Your layers tab should now look like this:

Note: I recommend keeping the Background layer locked for the whole time.  That way you don’t accidentally edit it.

Step 4:

With the top layer selected, go to Filter > Filter Gallery. A window should pop up. If there are any filters applied already, delete all but one of them.  (this should not be the case, unless you have used this window before)

Select Paint Daubs under the “Artistic” category.  Set your settings to this:

(Brush Size: 2, Sharpness 0)

Then hit Okay.  Your image should now look a little softer, kind of smoothed out.  

Here’s what mine looks like!

Step 5:

Now is where stuff gets a little more complicated.  You’re going to duplicate the current layer (Background copy) so that you have “Background copy 2″.  (You can also duplicate the Background layer, as long as you set it to Smart Object.)

Double click on the words “Filter Gallery” that should be under the name of the top layer (Background copy 2).

This will reopen the Filter Gallery.  If you duplicated the one we had already put a filter on, it should bring you right to the Paint Daubs filter.  If not, click on Paint Daubs again.

Set the Brush Size to 6 and sharpness to 0.

Your image is going to look really weird in the preview, super blurry and smooth, but that’s okay, it’s not going to stay that way!!

At the bottom right of the Filter Gallery, there’s a button with a “+” on it.

Click that button.  It will automatically duplicate the effect you already have, making things even worse, but don’t worry!! Either drag the new Paint Daubs layer to the bottom, or select the bottom one.

Now, got to Dry Brush, which is also under the Artistic category.

Set Brush Size to 1, Brush Detail to 10, and Texture to 1.  

Now press Okay.

Your image is going to look SUPER whacky, but that’s okay!! Here’s what mine looks like right now:

Step 6:

Now it’s time to make things look better! With that top layer selected (Background copy 2), go to Filter > Stylize > Find Edges. There’s no settings with this one, it just does it’s thing.

Your image is going to look even weirder now, but don’t worry, we’ll fix it!!

Step 7:

I’ve been saying this whole time that we’re gonna fix the whacky-ness, and now it’s actually time to do it!!!

While selected on the top layer (Background copy 2), change the Blending Mode to Multiply, and set the Opacity to 20%.  Now things should look better.

This is what my image looks like now:

As you can (hopefully) see on your own image, it now looks like the sim has been painted!!

Here’s a close-up of my image:

Yay, we’re almost done!!

Step 8: From here on out is OPTIONAL, but I recommend it for a nice touch of detail/realism.

Find an image of watercolor paper.  Here’s a bunch on Unsplash! (A lifesaver!! All pics on Unsplash are 100% for you to do as you wish with them, no charge.  But consider dropping some credit to the person who took the pic.)

I’m gonna use THIS one by Olga Thelavart.

Open that image in PS, hit Ctrl + A and Ctrl + C to copy the image.  (If you’re on a Mac, it’s Command + A and Command + C)

Then go back to you image and hit Ctrl + V to paste it.   (Note: the good thing about Unsplash images is that they are so HQ that you won’t even need to resize the image, if you’re using a standard size screenshot.)

The paper texture should be labled as Layer 1 in your layers tab.  If it’s not already, drag it to the top of the Layers tab.

Now, change the blending mode to Multiply.  

Your image should have some additional texture, like it was ACTUALLY painted on paper.

And that’s it!! You’ve successfully made a “painted” portrait!! You can crop and adjust it however you’d like after this, but this is the basics. I usually crop my painted portraits to 4:5 if everything fits, but you can crop however you’d like!

Like I said, I crop to 4:5, resize to 720 pixels wide, and then run my Blurry Edges action (which is based off of @/warmsol’s action, which I could never get to work for me.)

Here’s what mine looks like after those extra steps:

Photoshop Action!!

If you’re too lazy to do all of that manually every time you want a pic, I made a handy-dandy action that does the whole process for you!! (Well, steps 3-7)

You can download it HERE if that’s something that interests you! (mega, no ads)

Thanks for reading, and good luck making some cool AF pictures!

[cowplant-pizza]

Hello! Firstly I just want to say that I absolutely ADMIRE your gameplay pics and I was wondering if you're able to drop an editing tut? Thanks! :D

aw hello!! i have links to what i use in my editing in my faq, but sure i'll do a lil tutorial! ♥

1. you need the sumahama reshade by wilderbees

2. open photoshop and run the super smooth action by @avonlea-remade-blog. you need topaz for this (DM for a link)

3. i crop my picture now to the size i want it. normally i go for a square cause i think its cute

4. now i run the "warmth" action in the fairyfang sunbloom action set and edit the folder layer opacity to about 50ish. depening on the light in the screenshot, it may need to be more or less. for this screenshot i chose 66% cause it just felt right lol. after this step u need to flatten your image so there are no layers left.

5. to finish things off, i use the "o gradient" action from @wooldawn's huge action dump.

6. finally you need to resize your image so it shows nicely on tumblr! i use @smubuh's white borders action for the ease of this and sometimes white boarders look cute!!

and that's it right now! i don't have much spare time to fiddle around with editing any more and find this really quick and simple.

if you're looking to tweak a few more things, i recommend playing about with the other actions in @wooldawn's action dump, or editing the photo using the levels or curves tool that come with photoshop.

hope this helped you kind anon!! ♥

[lamatisse]

not sure how to make an introduction for this tutorial. i might have gone too extra because it’s so long...but this is highly requested and i said i would do this as detailed as possible, so here we go!

adobe photoshop 2018 (ahoy, matey!)

topaz lens effects (just for grain)

srwe (sometimes, but not for this tutorial)

reshade (i dont use a specific preset)

drawing tablet (wacom intuos art)

macbook pro mid-2015 (but bootcamp)

//part one

grab a screenshot from your own lovely screenshot folder! mine is straight from my reshade screenie folder. then crop it how you like it! my original screenshot size is 2560 x 1600, and i almost always cut the background out. this is how i do it:

click color range, then click on the background of your sim. the little screen above will look like that. the background should be white. it’s easier when it’s a fully solid color. those are my settings above. click ok! the selected area will have those teeny tiny marching ants.

click quick selection tool, then select and mask...

i drew over these circled areas using the “add brush” i showed above. use “on black” viewing mode, then make sure that the sim is completely filled black (it’s the unselected area). use shift edge so there wouldn’t be any of the original bg left over. my settings are shown above. then click ok if you’re all done. press delete and then ctrl + D to unselect. the marching ants should be gone. go ahead and crop it!

after cropping, i resize the width of the photo to 1280px! always!

i create a new layer for my background, then add in the psd that i use for my edits. (i hide my psd layer while drawing)

sometimes i also use liquify to edit things like this:

//part two

i use a soft round brush to do everything! it’s literally from adobe, but i changed a few things like the flow jitter in transfer.

red areas are usually where i put the shadows, purple areas are usually where i put the highlights

i usually do the shadows before anything else! it’s pretty simple. using the brush i showed above, i create a new layer.

use the eyedropper tool on her skin, then pick a slightly darker shade. change the blending mode of the layer to multiply, then draw the shadows.

right click on the layer, then select “create clipping mask” to make your life a little bit easier. an arrow will appear beside your layer.

//part three

this is where i draw over the features. let’s look at her face. these are basically what i think it needs:

pay close attention to the imperfections and clean it up! that’s what makes it “sharper” in my opinion. small brushes will do the job! something like this:

define the edges!!! define!! zoom in and take a look!! even though these are tiny little details, it makes a whole lot of difference! the eyedropper tool is your best friend!

i start with a big brush and then i use smaller and smaller ones as i go, which creates the sharpness. go a little darker as well! im not very skillful with my graphic tablet, so i add stuff bit by bit since it tends to become too harsh when i just go for it! im not as talented as some of u here ;-; i just wing it and pray it doesnt look too bad. half of the time im just experimenting since i literally do not know where some shading goes

i wont be showing every single thing, but basically that’s the idea! i’ll add in the stuff i pointed out above and more shadows. sometimes i might turn down the opacity of some layers if they look a bit too much. here’s what we got so far:

i also like adding some face pores using this amazing “skin texture 1″ brush from this brush pack!

//part four

for the highlight layer, i change the blending mode to either overlay or soft light. use a slightly bigger brush for the bigger areas. use the eyedropper tool on her skin, and instead, pick a lighter shade.

let’s start adding highlight to the purple areas i marked above!

try to enhance the highlight on tiny details too such as the eye corners! if you want something more dramatic, create a new layer and do an overlay layer this time! don’t be afraid to add some on the hair, eyes, lips etc.

//part five

ok lets add some not decent looking hair strands. i almost always avoid this part because i literally have 0 idea on how to draw hair. i use the “hair base” brush from the same brush pack i linked to above and also have smoothing on to about 35%! the eyedropper tool is still your best friend! just follow the flow of the hair and i guess you’ll be fine ???

i’ll also fill in the annoying gaps beside her neck

unhide your psd layer and wooowweee

//part six

select all the layers, then click create a new group!

select the new group, then hit ctrl + J or right-click the new group, then click duplicate group

right-click the duplicated group, then click merge group!

i do this so i have a backup of the collapsed layers and can make changes anytime.

i use the sharpen brush on small details i circled below. i used to do stylize > oil paint or topaz clean before, but since the personal action that i use blur things a lot, i try to keep small details visible and sharp.

next is smart sharpen, my settings are below. sometimes i go for a smaller radius, but it looks like this most of the time.

my personal action set consists of this:

duplicate the layer that you just used smart sharpen on, then click lens blur!

below are my lens blur settings

turn the opacity of the layer (that you just put the lens blur on) to 40%

select both layers, right-click then merge layers!

duplicate the layer again (yes, again) then right-click, choose blending options.

uncheck the R located on the “channels” under “advance blending” then click ok.

an icon will appear on that layer!

make sure you have that layer selected, then click the Move tool

then hit your arrow left/right key once or twice! i do it once because i only want a subtle 3d effect! go ahead and merge those layers!

last step is the grain effect. i use topaz labs > topaz lens effects. if you don’t have this, you can also use filter > noise > add noise that photoshop has.

these are my settings:

//final look!

here’s a before and after gif! (here’s the finished edit) i hope everything’s clear! i’m really bad at explaining things (っ˘̩╭╮˘̩)っ

feel free to tag me when you use this tutorial for an edit!! i would like to see it! i hope this helps! ♡＼(￣▽￣)／♡

[rosymiel]

✨how i edit hair (tutorial)✨

this is going to be very long, so i will keep everything under a “read more”!

though i had already made a general editing tutorial, which you can find here, i didn’t go really in-depth into how i draw hair in my edits. so, hopefully this tutorial will give more details on what i do!

also, i will be separating this tutorial into two halves - one being dedicated to how i’d edit clay hair, and the other half being how i edit alpha hair

________________________________________________________

clay hair

okay im regretting how big these screenshots are LMAO anyways, here is just a pic of what the screenshot will look like before editing!!!

just an FYI, in my editing style, how i edit hair doesn’t drastically change the sim’s hair in the screenshot. i do my best to add onto what’s already there!

tips before we start: i’ll be using a hard round pressure size brush with 40% smoothing. because i use a tablet, a brush with pressure size helps to create strands that are “feathered out”. don’t worry, you can still create hair strands if you’re using a mouse, which is what i did for roughly 4 years before i got a tablet. i will give some tips at the end of the tutorial on how you can still make your hair strands “feathered out”!

first, i take the eyedropper tool and pick up the lightest shade that appears in most strands of the hair, usually i go right for bangs/face framing bits.

then, with that color, i’ll go ahead and add strands of hair to parts of the hair that are hit by light the most (don’t worry if you don’t really know much about lighting, once you play around with this you’ll feel like you know what looks right!)

HUGE tip from here on out: make sure your strands go with the flow/curve of the hair! of course, you can add some funky strands to add texture/change stuff up, but for the most part, you’ll want your new strands to go with the flow of the hair!

after i added those lighter parts, i’ll do basically the same step as before, but do the exact opposite. i’ll take the eyedropper tool and pick up a darker shade in the hair

with that new color, i’ll add darker strands to parts of the hair that aren’t hit by light (or not as much as other parts of the hair)

this is what it looks like after i apply those steps to the screenshot! with gameplay pics, i’ll make it incredibly simple and only add a few strands (even less than shown in this screenshot), but you can add however many/however few strands you want!

after those steps, i’ll also go in and maybe add a couple of funky strands (such as the two random strands of hair you can see at the front there)

________________________________________________________

alpha hair

here is the before pic for the alpha section of this tutorial! the steps in this section are very similar to the steps i gave in the clay section, so the steps here won’t be too intense. also please ignore the wonky hairline in the screenshot, i forgot to change it when taking screenshots LMAO

this is almost a repeat of the first two steps of the last section!

use the eyedropper tool to pick up a light shade from the hair, it doesn’t have to necessarily be the lightest shade!

usually i use a 1pt-2pt brush and create a lot of strands of hair, again going with the flow of the section that i’m working on

tips: for editing alpha hair, i’ll use a softer hand than if i were editing clay hair. if you’re using a tablet, using less of a heavy hand helps to make the strands look softer and help to blend in with the rest of the hair. also, i find it better to be really quick when you’re drawing the strands so that they seem more natural!

here’s how the screenshot will look after that! again, you can also throw in a few wonky strands if you want to!

the next step will be taking a darker shade and applying it to strands where i’ll want more depth

here, i’ll be taking the eyedropper tool again but picking up a dark shade in the hair. instead of using the exact color i just picked up, i’ll go over to the color panel and make the color a few shades darker since i’m using a soft hand when drawing the strands.

i don’t really have a general rule for where i’ll draw these darker strands, but usually i make these strands in places where i want to help separate sections of hair more + more towards the roots of the hair (hopefully that makes sense!)

tip: if you’re using a tablet and using the hard round pressure size brush, if you’re adding these darker strands closer to the roots of the hair, i find it better to drawing the strand upwards towards the root rather than at the root and drawing the strand downwards!

i was really dumb and forgot to save the pic of what the screenshot looks like after this so... moving on lol

after adding darker strands to create depth in the hair, i’ll go in and add some more lighter strands to create some highlight

i’ll add a new layer with the overlay blend mode and only use 1pt size with white to make these highlight strands

idk... badabing badaboom? instead of focusing more on the outside of the section that i’m working on, i’ll focus these highlights in the middle of the section

here’s what that should look like! hopefully, you can see after the last two steps that there’s more depth and highlight in the hair!

thank god this is almost done.. thank god. anyways, i’ll finish up editing the hair by throwing in random white hair strands

this is a lot like the last step, but this time this will be on a new layer with the normal blend mode, but using a size 1pt white brush again.

since the hair in the screenshot is white/gray, i’ll throw in more of these white strands than i normally would. with any other color of hair, i’ll usually use these strands more for face framing and the back of the hair, but it really depends on where the light source is.

tip: as opposed to previous steps for the alpha section of this tutorial, i’ll actually use a pretty heavy hand when making these strands so that they stand out more!

badabing badaboom! that’s how the screenshot will look after all of the steps are done! i’ve been working on this for almost two days (not because i think making this tutorial was necessarily hard, i just had other things in my life to take care of, so i couldn’t sit down for a few hours straight to make this)

bonus: if there’s colorful lighting in the screenshot, i would create a new layer with the either the screen blend mode, lighter dodge (add) blend mode, or the lighter color blend mode. it really depends on what you want for the screenshot, so just play around with blend modes! i’ll take a color close to what color the lighting is and basically repeat the same step as highlighting hair, but paying very close attention to where that light source is.

anyways, i’m tired. i hope this tutorial was easy to follow, and i’m very sorry if it wasn’t!!! i’m not always the best at explaining things ♥