Full Photography Guide

Photo Mode Settings

These are my photo settings:

• Shutter Speed: 50
• Focus Mode: Tracking (Focus: 0)
• Exposure: 45 (Adjust for the most detail in brights and darks)
• Aperture: 11
• Bokeh Shape: Hexagon
• Sampling: Quality
• Contrast: 55 | Color: 60 | Brightness: 55
• Sepia: 10 | Vignette: 0 | Temperature: 48

The rest are completely dependent on the shot.

To use the aperture and make it not look blurry, just hit X on your controller to focus. One thing I've learned is that 0.8 zoom works really well for shots because it maintains the most detail in the car and the environment. However, I typically would not use 0.8x zoom in a front or rear angle as it makes the car look very "bloated". Also turn the camera 90 degrees to get a portrait photo, then rotate the photo in Lightroom.

Try to find unique angles by using the environment around you. Also center the original shot. For the main map, try to find weather where the sun isn't blaring on the car. Side-lighting accentuates texture and depth.

(Disclaimer: These are not my photo settings. This is just an example.)

Custom Maps

I personally loved using custom maps (until I was banned lol), as it's a completely unique environment especially for photos. If you want a list of good maps for photography, check the Map Codes page.

To use these custom maps: Pause > Creative Hub > Eventlab > Event > Blueprints > Search > Share Code. Make sure not to put spaces in between the numbers.

Cropping

I edit on mobile so some of the following things I will be saying might be different for PC. I use Lightroom Premium to do my editing. I like to use the 4x5 crop and make the car's front wheel centered with the bottom third of the photo (Rule of Thirds). I like to have the car close to the bottom to keep the top two thirds more open. 5x7 crop also works well, but I use 4x5 because it creates more focus to the subject.

Light Tab

Another thing is to experiment things, try new things. some good things to mess around with are the light curve function, and the color grading function. My light curve usually has the first tick being *slightly* up on the far left. This makes it so that the blacks in the photo are not so dark. It helps a lot for a cinematic look. (Tips about color grading in the "Color Tab" section below) I usually have my contrast below zero, thought it very much depends on the style you're looking for and the specific photo. The exposure slider depends on the original photo, but try and keep it near the middle, although you should definitely adjust it to where you can see the most detail in the dark and light portions of the photo, as you don't want to blow out either the lights or the darks.

HDR (In Light Tab)

When enabling HDR in lightroom, the photo will typically look much better. The thing about HDR is that if you don't have an HDR display, it will not show up nearly as good after exporting as when you were editing the photo. To fix this, you need to enable "Preview for SDR display" to see what it looks like before exporting. Luckily, you can edit the SDR Settings. Typically, the only things I change in those settings are turning up the whites up to around 100, turning down the contrast (Around -30 - -50) and turning down the clarity (Around -50). The rest of the settings completely depend on the photo.

Color Tab

I hardly raise the saturation and vibrance sliders, its just much more clean and realistic. If you want realism, I suggest going to the color mix section and slightly desaturating oranges and blues, just dont over do it. (Oranges slightly red as well with -25 to -35 saturation) For the blue I turn it very slightly aqua color (-11) and the saturation to around -25 to -40. Also I usually desaturate the yellow a little bit (around -40) and turn yellow slightly green and turning the luminance down a bit. (Luminance depends on the photo however) I rarely change the temperature slider, unless the style I'm going for needs it. My color grading is a little blue shadows (about 7-10) and highlights slightly orange (about 7-10). Very occasionally I have aqua mid tones (about 2-4).

Blur Tab

I rarely use this tab. But if I ever do use it (only if the background blur in the photo already isn't enough.) I usually would have it set to around 30 Blur Amount, and use the "5-blade" option at the bottom.

Effects Tab

Some tips I share with people is to keep clarity and texture low. I like to keep clarity below 15, and texture below 10. Although, something I've learned is that slight negatives are good as well for clarity and texture, but don't overdo it. For the vignette I dont turn it down all that much if any (around -9 or so if I am using it).

Detail Tab

Never turn the sharpening up, in my opinion it destroys quality and adds unwanted lines. Also I only ever turn up the color noise reduction a slight bit whenever there is noise in the sky. This usually only happens to me if I am using masking to darken portions of the sky. Only ever use it a little bit when it's slightly pixelated.

Optics Tab

I used to use this tab a lot, but nowadays I rarely use it. The only times I ever use it is if there is some Chromatic Aberration in the photo (Red and blue around lines), only use the Lens Corrections menu if it is a photo taken in real life because the Forza camera doesn't have distortion.

Color Profiles

Another thing I did to get better was I looked at was the color profiles, two profiles I like to use is "Modern 4", "Modern 2" (I use modern 2 for realism), "Vintage 6", and "Vintage 7", but I rarely have them at 100. That depends on what settings you are able make beforehand.

Masking (Premium)

This is by far the largest difference maker in my photos, It's my secret weapon and is definitely worth paying for. If you have premium I would definitely consider using masking. It drastically improves photos. I will provide examples on what typical masking looks like for me.

Linear Gradient

I use linear gradients in every photo I do. These help draw attention toward the subject or brighter parts of the image. They're often used to add depth or balance the exposure. The first portion is definitely the most important one. It is a gradient on the bottom of the image that darkens it. The second portion is a gradient on the bottom of the subject. Finally, the third portion is the least important because it depends heavily on the original photo. I only use that one if the sun is in the other corner, but I don't darken the exposure that much.

Radial Gradient

I use radial gradients only when there is a light source somewhere in the scene. It doesn't have to be a visible light source though, because you can add a radial gradient to the edge of the photo to enhance the existing light source. Usually when I use them on a light source, I turn up the exposure a bit, (+0.33 in the example, but relies heavily on the original photo) and I turn down the dehaze a bit (-11 in the example). And occasionally I will turn up the warmth.

Select Subject

I use the select subject in every photo I do. Usually I will turn up the exposure, shadows, clarity, and texture. However I do not increase any of these sliders very much, especially the clarity and texture sliders. This essentially creates more visual appeal and makes the subject pop out of the photo more to create more attention to it. Sometimes I will use a "Select Background" mask and darken the background for the same reasons as before.

Color Range

I use the color range mask in just about every photo. My most common use of this mask is when I select the dark parts of the sky and darken them to create contrast. ALSO, a very important part of this mask is that in order to keep the mask IN the sky is that after you select the dark part, you subtract the sky and then invert the subtraction of the sky (If this sounds confusing, just double click on the color range mask and click subtract, then select sky, then click on it and find the invert button on the left). I also do the same to the whites in the sky, but instead increase the exposure and whites.

Another crucial part of this mask that I routinely use is I select the dark parts of the lighting on the car and darken them a bit to add contrast. You can also use the "Luminance Range" mask to do this, but they seem to do relatively the same thing in this case. Also, if the whites of the car are a bit low, I also select the highlights of the car and turn up the exposure and whites.

Brush

This one I don't really have a routine for. I just use my eye for what needs to be changed, and I rarely use it. Although sometimes I do draw the outline of the car (excluding the bottom of the car), and turn down the dehaze. Make sure to subtract the subject from this mask. This mask creates more separation from the car and the background. Do not lower the dehaze on this too much though, or it will look pretty unorthodox, so only do a little bit.

Healing Tab

The size of the healing brush depends completely on whatever you are trying to remove in the photo. I like to use the healing tool to remove watermarks from taking screenshots on certain consoles or games. For example, when taking a photo in Gran Turismo 7, it puts the watermark on it, and it looks really ugly. Another watermark added on there from taking a screenshot on PS5, is the sony text in the bottom right of the screenshot.

Presets

Presets are controversial, but they helped me improve rapidly and as I learned new things, I added to a preset that I like. I like to replicate people's styles and it really helped me learn things and build off of what I got from recreating someone else's style. Don't be afraid to "copy" someone. Practice trying to get your photo to look like another persons, but only to learn for yourself. One thing about presets is do NOT rely on them, use them as a base for your editing. If you ever want a preset to any of my photos, feel free to DM me on discord (@Varsinity), and I will hook you up with a preset to look at what I have done and to get a feel of how I edit. To import a preset into lightroom (DNG File), import the file like it's a regular photo and it should show up in your photo gallery with all of the edits already done to it.

Watermark

I use a graphic that I made with Adobe Illustrator. If you don't want to do that (or you don't have access to such software), you can use the text built in. I recommend making the size fairly small, very close to the bottom and decently opaque, typically if it is too bright it takes away the focus from the photo. Hence why you want it small and/or fairly transparent. The settings I use for my watermark (as of 10/24/2025) are; Size: +5, Opacity: +43, Vertical Offset: +4. These settings will be different for every watermark though. Also I use my watermark as a graphic design element, rather than an actual watermark, this is why it's bigger and more opaque. If you want a legitimate watermark I would suggest using something like what I have in the example. I Have it automatically centered on the bottom middle dot in the preview image above these settings. "Horizontal Offset should be greyed out if you did that right.

Overlays

Sometimes I use overlays on my photos, such as "Illusive" you can find those overlays on their discord. To apply these overlays, I use Ibis Paint X and load in the photo I want the overlays on then I add the overlay as a layer using the bar at the bottom.

Other Effects

An app I used to use for special effects would be picsart. If you are looking for an older, more vintage photo, I like to either use "Film 3" in the FX tab. If the filter is too harsh on the photo (or too dark), I like to change the setting on Film 3 to be "Lighten". Another filter for vintage photos on picsart I like to use is "1994" with the lighten setting. I then take that photo with "1994" and import it back into lightroom and typically turn the contrast up a bit (around 10) and turn the oranges back to red, because the 1994 filter makes red pretty orange. Occasionally in picsart, I go to the "Paper" section and look through them for some fancy effects. Rarely do I ever use any of them, but some that I would use are "Stenciler 3" or "Stenciler 4".