Special Effects and Post Processing tips

Introduction and Required Addons
I finished an improved version of this guide, you can find it here!

Welcome and thank you for taking a moment of your time to take a look at this guide.
In this guide I will show you the methods I use to improve the quality of screenshots.

Required Addons:
Ragdoll Mover
Joint Tool
Post Processing PLUS
Advanced Particle Controller
Soft or Purple Lens Flare
Basic Vignette
Cinematic Overlay
Resizer
Drako2k's SFX Pack (Glow Tool)
TF2 Particle Fixer Script
Graphics Settings and Screenshot Quality increasing tips.
I set all my settings to highest and turn off Acceleration Blur off for it's something you don't need when you make screenshots.

Also be sure to type mat_picmip -10 in the console for that maxes out character/ragdoll textures.
Without mat_picmip -10(Left, Look at the Capture Point) With mat_picmip -10(Right look at sleeves)

I use Super DoF on all single layer screenshots for it supports Anti-Aliasing, so it makes screenshots smoother and less pixelated.
If you use it in multi-layer screenshots you will get intense blurring of the background character which is not pleasant at all.
Special Effects and Dark Scenery Post Processing
As this guide is not focussed on posing, I will skip immediately to the part where I start adding effects to the screenshots. The first one of the screenshots I tackle are dark effect screenshots so that you can see how much effect adding will influence the quality of a screenshot. This is basically what it should look like after you found the proper angle and lighting on the ragdoll.



You may notice I already added the light here.



I'm going in on adding lightning on the hand open the Advanced Particle Controller and place a prop down which causes lightning to spawn and No collide it. Be sure to place at the right location and set the Resizer tool's XYZ Scale to 0.01 and make the prop invisible.



After we have the effect alligned with the camera properly(after all we take it from a certain angle so we have to make sure it looks best from that angle), we start focussing on adding effects to the eye.
We are going to use Glow Tool.

You can always reconfigure the glow effect in multiple fashion. In this case I will use it as something to light up the eye. Be sure to make it allign with the Camera(The angle where you shoot from) because the hood here blocks the face so we can't post it on the eyes.



After we added all the effects to the scout, we can finally add some explosions to fill it up a bit more so we set up some explosion effects with the Advanced Particle Control and place them at multiple locations so that the explosion looks big. Be sure to always put the middle of the explosion the most forward.



Now we are going to add some shaders and post processing.


I'm using Post Processing PLUS Lightning effect to darken the surrounding and increasing shadows, thus darkening the Scout's face. After that I used bloom with Color Multiplier setting 0.5 and set the Darken Ammount to 0.25

Now that everything is ready let's activate all the effects we added!


Zoom in Screenshots
You may notice that the surroundings are very different when I make a screenshot that's because I zoom in.

This is what the demoman looks like without the zoom in.



Now we use the Crossbow from the Half-Life series and zoom in on the scene. You can also use the camera to zoom in and out by holding the right mouse button.

Now we add some effects with Lens Flare and Sun Editor we move the sun behind them a little to light up the scene. Remember to type in cl_drawhud 0 to remove your HUD


Adding Atmosphere
You can also add some little bloom yourself by setting up a glow effect in the background. You need to tweak with the Optimal Vision settings. Here you can see I use the Glow tool to add an effect to the screenshot's bloom.



Instead of using it as an effect to add intensity to a screenshot or as a shine, I now use it as a background bloom to increase the impact of the screenshot.


Blooming and Color Modification
Most of the time when you are finished posing something you want to add some shaders to increase the impact or lessen it.

Here is a screenshot that is already finished with lighting and posing but without shaders



Now you start adding bloom to the screenshot (You may notice I already added Cinematic Overlay.)



Now that you finished blooming it you can start with Color Modification



And there you have it!



It's important to know that Color modification makes a screenshot more vibrant or more dull depending on the values. You can also make it so that certain colors are gone while others remain. This grants new possibilities.

Here are a few examples of screenshots which were done with Color modification and bloom combined.



A few more tips and last words
Watch out when you use Post Processing PLUS Snow and Rain, they don't do much and break your ragdoll.
Post Processing PLUS Lightning effect has a nice variety if combined with bloom properly but it does make your screenshots more pixelated, try counter that with Super DoF.

The angle the lamp shines from has a big effect on what atmosphere you create. Don't forget that Post Processing PLUS also greys out a lot of things so it's ideal to cause greyed out and shadowed screenshots.





Post Processing Plus also whites out the sky in dark locations.



Zooming in with the Crossbow is only for close ups so don't use it when you don't need to.

You can place a lamp everywhere and even shine in different colors to gain many different effects.