A Question About Screenshots

[Hirisa]

Taking screenshots in ACNL is a lot of fun, however I don't post many of them because compression artifacts make them look like crap. However, I've seen ACNL screenshots that were not granular and yet also blurry. Is there a setting I'm missing out on adjusting? Is it postwork with an image editor? Or is it down to what site you upload images to in the first place, e.g twitter doesn't fubar images like tumblr does, or vice versa?


tl;dr: TBT, please help me improve the quality of my screenshots.

Thanks for reading!

 

[Zanessa]

There's a way to post your pictures to twitter, facebook, and tumblr.
http://www.nintendo.com/3ds/image-share

Not sure how to fix the quality, but mine look pretty good.

 

[Snow]

I am ok with the quality on tumblr, but the original image is much better. If I want a better image I import the screenshot into my computer* and use that instead. I think the nintendo posting system is what's doing the compression that I think you are seeing.

*I take the SD card out and use a SD-USB stick to import it directly. I don't allow windows to import the photos, I copy/move them by hand.

 

[Hirisa]

Thanks to you both for the replies. I had been using the Nintendo Image Share to sign into tumblr, then was downloading the image to my desktop to post images here. When I saw how artifact-y and fug that looked, I tried uploading to other sites. This was of course after looking for any settings in the Nintendo camera app dealy. The one thing I neglected to try was removing the SD card and importing them to my PC directly.

If you'll entertain another question- is there a difference between an SD-USB stick and my million crappy thumbdrives I have littering my desk drawers? Or will I need to buy one especially for this purpose? And will it work with my seven year old PC?

 

[BellGreen]

The compression quality is from JPG. PNG and GIF are widely used now, especially for pixel and digital art.

 

[Hirisa]

Yeah, I understand that jpgs are a lossy format- I prefer pngs whenever possible. I used to belong to a screenshot community for another PC game and got very familiar with format differences. Still, uncompressed jpgs can look pretty good, while still keeping filesizes to a minimum. Hopefully now that in-game screenshot functions are becoming the norm, we'll see better image quality "built in" to them.

 

[CrankyCupcake]

I looked at the last picture you posted on the official screenshots thread (the one of the geyser) and I notice it's smaller than the usual screenshot. Had it been resized somehow? I always copy my screenshots out of the SD card and they are always 400 x 240. I haven't seen crystal clear screenshots from the game. The quality is all right but, yeah, you can see artifacts if you stare hard enough. Here's one of mine, unedited from the SD card.

Does it have the blurry quality you're referring to? (Or just look at the balloon. Haha.)

 

[Hirisa]

I looked at the last picture you posted on the official screenshots thread (the one of the geyser) and I notice it's smaller than the usual screenshot. Had it been resized somehow? I always copy my screenshots out of the SD card and they are always 400 x 240. I haven't seen crystal clear screenshots from the game. The quality is all right but, yeah, you can see artifacts if you stare hard enough. Here's one of mine, unedited from the SD card.

Does it have the blurry quality you're referring to? (Or just look at the balloon. Haha.)

Heya, CC! Your screenshot looks good to me! The lack of AA in the game is not the problem- it's definitely the resizing and resultant compression artifacts! Thanks for telling me how you import your images- I definitely need to eliminate the middle man, so to speak, and start plugging my SD directly into my (ancient) PC!

 

[Snow]

Thanks to you both for the replies. I had been using the Nintendo Image Share to sign into tumblr, then was downloading the image to my desktop to post images here. When I saw how artifact-y and fug that looked, I tried uploading to other sites. This was of course after looking for any settings in the Nintendo camera app dealy. The one thing I neglected to try was removing the SD card and importing them to my PC directly.

If you'll entertain another question- is there a difference between an SD-USB stick and my million crappy thumbdrives I have littering my desk drawers? Or will I need to buy one especially for this purpose? And will it work with my seven year old PC?

yeah, if you're copying the tumblr result you are going to get an image that's not as nice.

as for getting the images off -- my old PC had an SD slot built in, my current one doesn't. I have a USB stick that is not a thumbdrive, it's an adapter for SD and micro SD cards so I can transfer anything I need. like this one. It will work with anything that has a usb slot, it is just a way of making your SD card an external drive.

 

[Hirisa]

yeah, if you're copying the tumblr result you are going to get an image that's not as nice.

as for getting the images off -- my old PC had an SD slot built in, my current one doesn't. I have a USB stick that is not a thumbdrive, it's an adapter for SD and micro SD cards so I can transfer anything I need. like this one it will work with anything that has a usb slot, it is just a way of making your SD card an external drive.

This post is golden! Thank you for the link, Snow! I'm ordering one of those dealies right now.

 

[Snow]

Also, they all work the same, I would get one that can take multiple formats so you only need one. it turns out to be pretty handy when I don't feel like dragging out cables for things.

 

[Hirisa]

Thanks for all the help, folks. I think I know what I need to do now, and am looking forward to posting better quality screenshots soon. :3

 

[CrankyCupcake]

Yay! I am looking forward to seeing more screenshots from you!

 

[Hirisa]

Yay! I am looking forward to seeing more screenshots from you!

Ahh, your words make me happy! Thank you!