Photo Mode: down low on the upload
08/08/22 — by George Smrekar
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. That’s more applicable now than ever. Virtual photography is on the rise. I mean, Xbox and PlayStation have a dedicated Share button on their controllers. If that’s not a hint I don’t know what is. Touch it! You know you want to. Suffice to say, this hobby within a hobby is going nowhere. As a bit of a digital shutterbug myself, I couldn’t be happier. You want in?
Of course you do. But how do you even get started? Well, you can start by pressing that Share button to customize your experience. Let’s use the PS4 as a base. You can save shots as jpegs or png. Up the quality if you can. Then check to see how to trigger the screenshot. Personally I have it set to a standard ‘hold button for screenshot’. If your game doesn’t have a built-in photo mode (for shame) you can still take quality pics by just holding down your Share button until a pop-up hits your screen. Photos are saved to your Capture Gallery in the XMB. Play around a bit and just practice setting up shots and hitting that share button.
Okay so now you have a reel. What do you do with it? Well, half the fun is sharing your run! Back in the day, Sony patched in a ‘Communities’ message board via the PS4 dashboard. If only for a time. It’s since been deleted. But during its heyday, one could easily find dedicated communities, posting their latest and greatest. I was part of a Daily Bugle one myself. All things Spider-man to all people. I was my very own Peter Parker, freelancer extraordinaire! Capturing and editing the web head’s greatest hits for all to see.
What am I talking about? Well, the way it all worked is you’d have one person (the owner) hosting the place with maybe a mod or two beneath him, then the rest of the fans in tow. You could usually join these rooms without an invite. It was quick, it was easy, and before you knew it your inbox was lighting up with new friends. You couldn’t really ask for more. Then…just as the pandemic hit and isolation became a thing, it was gone. But let’s save the ‘removing features at the worst possible time’ article for another day.
Fortunately, social media in general took off and never really came down. You can still directly upload your PlayStation pics to Twitter and from there, Instagram’s just a click away. If you prefer to stay on console, you can start your own pseudo message board through a little group chat trick. Invite a few friends and watch the memes start flowin’. That’s what I did and it’s still going. Try it if you haven’t yet.
But what if you’re not into slobberknocker sunsets and you’ve never heard of chromatic aberration? Well, do you like to laugh? Try a game with subtitles and start taking screenshots of captions. Especially a game like the already funny Yakuza series. Before you know it, you’ll have enough meme screens to have an entire conversation using nothing but images. I’ve done it, and the results have been hilarious. Developers have even gone so far as to include photo mode facial mods, so you can make a Chloe or Deacon goofy-smile along their highway to hell. Or whatever position you’ve put them in. Got a glitch that messed someone up in a bad way? Share that. Check out my Instagram and YouTube for some funny examples.
Okay, I’ve convinced you and you’re willing to try it. What sort of suites do you have access to? Well on PS4/PS5 there’s a free Share Factory app that lets you take your cropping and collaging to the next level. But don’t sleep on the ones that come with the games already. Many photo modes come with zooms, shutter speeds and various effects such as the aforementioned chromatic aberration (pro tip: turn it off). Then you can frame it all in a nice custom frame/theme. Nowadays many games give you the option to map photo mode directly to the d-pad for example, so you’re always ready to go at a moment’s notice. Check your controller options and see where it is, or toggle it on if need be. It’s all more intuitive than you think. Don’t be shy! You never know when the PlayStation Blog might have a contest right up your alley.
Yes, there are contests. The suits have noticed us. How could they not? Fans are now making better looking bull shots than the pros. It’s free promotion and advertising for the publishers and free exposure for us. I have a friend who’s won several times. The only one stopping you is you.
Don’t fancy the limelight? That’s okay. You can still privately customise your own profile or wallpaper depending on the system, or just throw one into your ‘what’s new’ feed on PS4 for your close friends. Take a stroll through memory lane via your capture gallery and check out some of your trophy screenshots. By default, games will take captures of all your trophies. Save some snaps for that guide you’re making, showing the next collectible or secret location. The possibilities are endless. I posted a Minecraft troubleshooting collage once when Microsoft log-ins made their way to PlayStation.
Games are better looking now than ever before with lighting, textures, shadows and a lickability that us 8-bit alumni only dreamed about. Plus you’ve got that nice 4K TV just sitting there, ready to frame it all. If you’re ever bored or looking to extend your play time, consider the above and take some snaps. You might just find something of value. I mean, you’ve already paid for it, whether you use it or not. What’s the worst that could happen? Arrow to the knee?
