Screencapping and image tips

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MacBeth
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Screencapping and image tips

Post by MacBeth »

We had a discussion starting on the LOL thread, on screen caps and pet techniques for handling images. I thought it would be better off in its own thread, so here goes!

One of the combined joys and frustrations of doing screencaps is that RDA's face is so mobile and expressive (not to mention easy on the eyes, ha), that in most of his scenes, you can literally take a new screencap every few seconds, and every one of them will be distinct and different. So you end up with huuuundreds of caps, and really have to weed them down because it's just ridiculous . . . it takes me forever to get all the way through an episode when I'm capping!

Then you get to the action scenes, and he moves so damned fast it's hard to get a clear cap at all!
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marthig
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Re: Screencapping and image tips

Post by marthig »

I'm so with you on how fast his expression changes from one moment to the other. I use the pause button so often that sometimes the movie goes out of synch with the speech :lol:
But he is such a joy to watch, that sometimes I forget to stop the video, while gaping at him :D ... how silly can anyone get ! LMAO !
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Jediferret
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Re: Screencapping and image tips

Post by Jediferret »

Thanks for making this thread Beth! ^_^ Here was my reply in the other thread:

I know what you mean. LOL I started taking screencaps a little over a year ago. I have nearly 600 screencaps currently, which I do plan on sharing once I get my Photobucket cleaned up. I think my greatest challenge besides getting the shot timed right, and is how clear the shot is. I don't have MacGyver on DVD, so I use Amazon Prime to watch the show. So, sometimes I'm at the mercy of my internet speed. If it's slow, I get low resolution caps, and usually spend a lot of time wrestling with it until it cooperates.

Mac/Jack was on AIM with me one night when I was trying to get a screencap from Lost Love. I was so frustrated because my internet connection was awful that night, plus the player seemed to have a pause delay. It took me 45min on ONE screencap. But, I'm also very stubborn and it eventually paid off as I got the screencap... and it was a good one. LOL

I do like it though because I love photography, and it kinda fills the need to go out and take random pictures of things. XD
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MacBeth
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Re: Screencapping and image tips

Post by MacBeth »

If you just want screencaps to play with, in addition to making your own, there are several sites where you can find them:

http://www.sgcaps.com has all the SG-1 and SGA episodes fully capped, and http://www.macsyourman.com has all the MacGyver episode capped up through most of Season 6. The caps aren't really high quality, but they're fine for icons and most graphics. The former has all the caps laid out in thumbnails; the latter has them bundled into downloadable zip files.

In addition, there are various LiveJournal comms, beginning with http://rda-daily.livejournal.com, http://sj-everyday.livejournal.com (Sam/Jack specific), [url]http://macgyver_daily.livejournal.com[/url] and [url]http://sg_one_a_days.livejournal.com[/url]. The last two are defunct, that is, daily posts are no longer being made; but you can scroll back through the archives. There are a couple of others: there's a photo gallery on Gateworld, and a site called rda-forever.

A drawback of all the MacGyver image archives (the ones I know about, anyway), is that the people doing them have always started at the beginning, and run out of steam before they finished. Because of this, when I started capping, I began at the end: I've mostly done S7 and the movies, and some bits of S6. I've also capped the first episode of Legend.

In most cases, screencaps that you can find in fan site archives are low-quality; they're usually highly compressed jpegs. Stargate caps tend to come out very dark, and so do a lot of MacGyver caps. I've learned a LOT about adjusting light levels and cleaning up graininess in the last few years, and I still have plenty to learn!
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marthig
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Re: Screencapping and image tips

Post by marthig »

Thank you so much Beth, those links are just fabulous. :)
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Anne
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Re: Screencapping and image tips

Post by Anne »

This is a GREAT topic, Beth! You know I promised Mac screencaps for rda_daily and I will get to it when I'm back from the US - but I could use some tips and tutorial posts to get it right so I'll get back to this when I'm home again and start capping! :)
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Re: Screencapping and image tips

Post by bftlovesRDA »

Hello. I am a real newbie to posting but an "oldie" at reading the posts as a guest and LOVING all the beautiful screen caps and photos of THE MAN.

I am so new I don't know how to upload photos to photobucket through I am trying to learn how to do that since I understand from reading other instructions that in order to upload a photo here, that's where my photos need to start.

My question and I know it's a stupid one - is do I need to download the photos to my computer first before I upload them to photobucket ? IF anyone can give any other tips on how to post photos here, please post such help here.

Thank you and I admire all of you who have been on the forum and posting these gorgeous photos and screen caps of RDA for all this time. Wonderful forum, by the way.
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MacBeth
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Re: Screencapping and image tips

Post by MacBeth »

Thank you, Anne and Martha! As you can imagine, this is a fave topic for me. :D

I should have mentioned: I'm now the lead mod on the RDA Daily comm on LJ http://rda-daily.livejournal.com, having inherited it from Pepper just last year. I think I'm the fourth since the comm was founded; we've kept it going even when most of the LJ image comms have gone dormant!

Anne, before you jump into MacGyver capping, do touch base with me -- there are a couple of episodes that are high on the Most Wanted list, with Strictly Business at the top!

BFT: to post an image here, it has to be hosted somewhere online. Most of us use Photobucket, because it's free. You'll want to start by setting up a Photobucket account and reading their tutorials. I have a Photobucket account, but most of my images are hosted at my own Livejournal account.

My own #1 tips for Photobucket: ORGANIZE BEFORE YOU START POSTING. Set up folders and upload your images INTO the folders. You can't change folders after you post something, because it breaks the links. The old forums here are littered with dead links from when hosted images were moved or deleted, which is sad.

Tag images when you post them (that is, add the tag "Posted"). That way you know if you've already posted a given pic.
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Anne
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Re: Screencapping and image tips

Post by Anne »

MacBeth wrote: Anne, before you jump into MacGyver capping, do touch base with me -- there are a couple of episodes that are high on the Most Wanted list, with Strictly Business at the top!
I'll do that :) I have a list from you somewhere from a while back, but will e-mail you when I'm ready to go.
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Re: Screencapping and image tips

Post by Jediferret »

I do a lot of random capping... meaning, I take a screencap here and there. I sometimes do whole episodes, but it takes me all day, or sometimes several days... so I don't do that very often. I'm actually gonna be doing some capping in Unfinished Business today.

I DO have some caps from Strictly Business, but not many (like 4). lol I've been wanting to go back and get a few more.

That photobucket tip is a good one because that was the mistake I made in the last forum. I had screencaps all over the place and it was a mess. I just recently had to organize my folders on my computer so I could find certain screencaps. lol

Having the caps well organized on your computer does help. XD

Blurriness is one of my issues when capping. I do have Photoshop, and use that when capping... however, I don't really fix them. None of my caps are "doctored". lol
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