User:Rvngt/Capturing a screenshot in Guild Wars

The first step is to take clean and crisp screenshots in Guild Wars, learn how to do so here.

Avoiding JPEG compression artifacts
Right click on your Guild Wars shortcut > properties. In the target line box, which should look something like this: Add -bmp at the end of the field like so: Now, whenever you take a screenshot, it will be saved as bitmap format. In other words, your screenshots will be 1:1 in quality from what you see in-game (no loss of quality). But keep in mind that files in your screenshot folder are much larger in size now. A 1680x1050 resolution screenshot in bitmap format is 5,169kb in size.

What do they do?

 * Anti-aliasing will smooth out the pixelated edges on 3D objects by sampling your screen multiple times (2x, 4x, 8x, etc.).
 * Anisotropic filtering will sharpen textures as they gradually blur into the distance.
 * Multisampling/Supersampling AA will smooth out the pixelated edges on transparent 2D textures, such as railings, trees and foilage. Multisampling doesn't take up as much resources but supersampling will give an even smoother result.

Enabling these features
The instructions should be similar for both Nvidia and ATI brands, but for the tutorial I will work with an Nvidia graphics card. Bring up your graphics card control panel, for Nvidia users it's simply right click on your desktop > NVIDIA Control Panel. You should get to a menu as shown on the right. This part should be pretty self explanatory, just put all the settings to the max for the best image quality. For Antialiasing - Mode, make sure to have that at Enhance the application setting or Override any application setting.

Note:
I've tried enforcing anti-aliasing beyond 4x, but Guild Wars seems to dislike it and simply turns off AA altogether. You should stick to 4x max as it looks fine anyway. You can also enable AA through the game's option menu if that's prefered.

Increase your resolution
Before you do any actual screenshotting, increase your screen resolution to the absolute max supported by your display. Native resolution is fine but the more pixels, the better. Keep in mind that the larger your resolution is, the larger your screenshots will be in size, make sure you have enough room if you're going on a photoshoot frenzy.

Choosing a location
If you want interesting pictures, then you're going to need interesting scenery and landmarks--if you're taking posed shots, that is. Try to fit as much detail as you can into the screen, you don't want the screenshot to show nothing but the a flat wall. The scenery is just as important as your character!

Hiding the interface
If you're lazy, you can simply hit SHIFT+PRINTSCREEN to take a clean, interfaceless screenshot. But I personally prefer to turn off the interface beforehand and adjust my camera with a clutterless screen. You can toggle the interface by hitting SHIFT+CTRL+H.

Taking the screenshot
Printscreen. Awesome!