Photo mode guide for Forza Motorsport

The graphics in Forza Motorsport are stunning; the cars look amazing and for the hours I've spent customizing them, applying decals, and choosing wheel rims, I very much appreciate that it has a powerful photo mode. But what's more, Forza occasionally organizes livery and photo contests and showcases the winners on their main page. So if you would be willing to participate, or you just want to put your cars in your wallpapers, here's some advice that could improve your photography in Forza Motorsport.

Photo mode tips and tricks - Forza Motorsport

The photo mode in Forza Motorsport has many effects that aim to emulate a real-world camera. I haven't find use in all of them, but I will mention those I considered important in the list below.

To enter the effects panel, Press Y on your Xbox gamepad or R on your PC keyboard. You can toggle back to photo mode by pressing the same key.

Quick side note: I recently realized I can use the photo mode to take a good look at the car when I am working on setup changes. If I want to see how the suspension is behaving, if the front is bottoming under heavy braking, or if the body rolls too much to the side during a fast-speed corner, I can quickly open the menu and switch to photo mode. The camera will allow me to spin around the vehicle and examine its behavior in paused mode.

Shutter speed

The speed at which the camera captures an image. In Forza Motorsport, the numbers are reversed to those in a real camera, and a higher number means a longer time of exposition. If you are not into photography, all you need to understand is the higher the number, the more motion-blur you will get on the background (or on anything that is not in focus). If instead you are seeing the background still and the cars motion-blurred, it's because your focus is too far back; you need to go back to Photo Mode and press Focus while pointing at your vehicle.

Aperture

Emulates the aperture of the lenses. The higher this parameter, the more blurry the background will look. This is different from the motion blur you get when something in the photo is moving and you can combine both for a different result. Think of a portrait or a movie, when the character is perfectly in focus but the background is blurred and the lights look like color bubbles. That should be the effect a high aperture. However, Forza Motorsport doesn't have a great aperture simulation, so it starts to look strange when you increase it too much.

Lighting

If you are going to take photos of your new car, it's best to choose an event and a track that has a good light. This is typically in the afternoon or early morning when the rays of the sun are oblique and cast softer shadows, instead of the dark ones caused by the midday sun. Here is an example of a photo taken at noon, to show how the car looks dark and unfavored under the vertical light:

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Another option for lighting is to use the car's headlights to add shapes or illumination to a night scene. Here is an example:

Camera height

Changing the height of the camera can create different results or inspire new ideas. Try going really close to the ground to make the car look imposing, or even show the sky and the crowd in the background. Or lift the camera higher to catch reflections on the windshields or show more of the vehicle. Playing around with this can help you discover all kinds of striking options.

Composition

Objects don't always have to be centered. If you trace imaginary lines to divide the frame into three parts per side, you will get four points where those lines intersect. It is known that if your photo has important information on either of those four points, it will be more appealing to the human eye.

Camera tilt

The "roll" feature in Photo mode allows us to tilt the camera sideways. From a composition point of view, most of the time we want to make sure the photo is straight. Use any horizontal or vertical lines you see in the image to check if you are properly leveled or if the camera is tilted. I use vertical poles in the track or the rear wings of the cars as references.

Other times, a voluntary side roll of the camera can be surprising and add dramatism to the image. Such is the case with the previous image (the single-seater), where the car was taking a sharp turn and I tilted the image to intensify the feeling of movement.

Lens zoom

When you change the zoom, you are not only moving closer or further from the subjects, you are also changing the perspective. You have probably realized how the frontal camera of your phone makes your nose bigger when it's set to a wide angle, and that when we use a fully zoomed camera our faces look squarer or flatter. The same effect can be achieved with the Photo Mode of Forza Motorsport—if you want the car to look elongated and deformed (almost cartoony), you can place the camera close to the vehicle's nose and zoom out as much as you can (image below).

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If, on the other hand, you want to make the car look closer to the background (and remove some perspective lines), you can back the camera away as far as you can and zoom in. This will give you a completely different look (example below).

Leading Lines

Sometimes you can use the lines in the environment to direct the attention of the viewer, which will often times make the image more appealing. Lines can be straight or curved, like the example in this photo below.

Screenshot folder location in Forza Motorsport

Okay. I finished designing my livery, I took the car for a spin, and snapped some nice pictures in front of the sunset. But where are they being saved?

Forza stores the pictures on its online server (instead of your storage drive) and showcases them on its website. To see your saved photos or download them, head to forza.net/myforza. You will need to log in with the same Xbox account with which you are using the game. The images will remain on that online server for 90 days, so if you've found some you liked, don't forget to download them.

For more on Forza Motorsport, check out Which edition of Forza Motorsport should you buy? here on Pro Game Guides.