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For years I thought I was weird and alone. I rarely finish a videogame, yet would spend countless hours wandering around looking at the seemingly-mundane details: blades of grass, the rocks beneath water, the crate I had passed by a thousand times.

Then I realized I am not weird. Somebody put a lot of work into these things! More so, I am not the only one doing this! I discovered Twitch streamers, career videogame reviewers, and the companies that publish the games themselves often do exactly what I like to do in a game... SPAM THAT PrtScn button when the skybox lines up just right.

Hot dog! Get ready for a rant. Feel free to skip it though. The short answer to this question is some of them I mess with, but I will indicate to you which ones I did it on and generally what I did (re-shades, filters, Lightroom tweaks, et cetera). This does not hold true for the artsy stuff I do that aren't just regular screenshots... those I hold my cards close to my chest on and it is implied I had my way with them in Photoshop in some fashion.

SOMETIMES IT JUST NEEDS A LITTLE WORK...

A little digression, if you please: this is a controversial thing, mainly because of the history of some video game companies doctoring screenshots to make a game more marketable. However, with the proliferation of Photo Mode and such software as Nvidia GeForce Experience and AMD ReLive, the built-in power to make your in-game screenshots a little more awesome has moved into the hands of the player and, frankly, the Office of Digital Tourism feels that this is a cool thing that makes creating art from derivative works fun and exciting. You don't own those screenshots anyway, sorry... they still belong to the company that made the game. It doesn't matter how long you sit around in-game for everything to line up.

Some professional video game photographers (yes, they exist and no, I am not one of them) might tell you that manipulating, tweaking, or cropping (I mean, come on, cropping?) a screenshot is either a misrepresentation of the game or that it's cheating or it's not the REAL way to capture screenshots or it takes no talent or... you get the idea. Professional screenshot manipulators, a.k.a. "bullshotters" (yes, they exist and no, I am not one of them) might say that crisping up the lighting is their bread-and-butter and there is nothing wrong with it if the game engine could make it look like that. Idk about that folks, but I am not trying to sell you anything (nor can I). I just want to make cool shit.

It's all in how you do it, friend. The key here is not misrepresenting what you have.

There is something to be said for getting that perfect shot, waiting for the skybox lighting to be just right or the NPC to move at just the right angle... but sometimes a little localized contrast adjustment in Lightroom makes your screen capture POP (and saves you irl hours of standing around in Vivec City or Night City or Los Santos or wherever the hell you call your digital home) better than the game engine ever could. The key here is not misrepresenting what you have. I have no problem admitting when I work on a screenshot outside of a game engine. In fact, I try to document what I do, in what program I do it in, and record each step I take so that myself and others can duplicate the process if it turns out cool. Please rest assured that the Office of Digital Tourism won't tell you that a screenshot isn't edited if it is and doesn't care about bragging rights or about the long-standing-traditional-way-of-taking-and-showing-off-screenshots. There is none. If there was then the crap I'm making is Duchamp's "Fountain". We need a digital art revolution, people!

Thanks for reading. Didn't know I was this passionate about anything.

Update: Midjourney and similar programs really captured that "digital art revolution" I was talking about and I'm super happy about it.

I'm a librarian, maker, and all-around cool cat! I don't do this for a living.

Honestly I have no idea, beyond the fact that anything in a screenshot is copyrighted by the company that made the game so I don't own it. I believe this makes anything I do a derivative work and puts me at the mercy of these companies were I to sell anything or claim they are mine or whatnot. To be safe, I don't sell anything anyway, I do not claim any content as my own, and I don't do commissions... but I will gladly do a digital photoshoot for or with nice people at no cost, if I have time. This is a hobby of mine, and as such the hobby itself is mine but anything I make or derive or do with the hobby I write off as not being mine. Have fun with that. Seriously, the only thing I claim to own at all is this dope-ass domain and my logo. I can't stop you from using something on the Internet if you really want to use it.

Any representatives from companies that want me to take something down or warn me about infringement, please know that I am never 100% married to or even all that defensive of the stuff I make (with one or two exceptions) and will gladly remove content, no problem. Check out that Contact page. I try to play games and take screenshots of said games only if they are actively streamed by others so I at least have some idea as to a company's policy on content creation from their intellectual property.

Uhhhhhhh.... maybe? Not sure on this yet. I've met a ton of talented people, both online and off, and would love to give them an outlet to show off their talents and skills. We can always discuss, so see the Contact page for my email.

The ESO guild is pretty exclusive, but if you found this page you probably already know me or know of me or have interacted with me in some way (i.e. I may be a fan of you) so yeah you can probably join I guess. Not really sure why you would want to. Exclusive is kind of a fancy word for lonely when it comes to ODT.

Definitely don't send me your screenshots apropos of nothing. Send me an email first! I would love to help you get your own site started, time-permitting. If you have $12 (not for me, you will need to pay Google) you can get one, as that is how much per year I pay for this domain and I get a free site out of it with plenty of storage. It does take some work to get it looking just right though. There are a bunch of other options out there too! I guess the answer to the question is yes, it is possible, but only if you really, really, really want to be included here.

Don't panic! This is just the Info page, an FAQ as it were, except I don't get a lot of questions so any question would wind up on an FAQ page. Hence the Info page. Head over to the Contact page if you have a question. I do answer emails when I see them. That's a lie. I answer them when the fancy strikes me.