What is nvidia ansel and how does it work

Over the past few years, PC gamers have shown an interest in taking pictures in games, something that has become increasingly common in this generation. This pronounced interest in taking high-quality, personalized screenshots comes from social media and the innate desire to share experiences with other users. To that end, we've seen “Photo Mode” appear in games like Uncharted 4 and Infamous: Second Son on consoles, while PC gamers have received something even better with Nvidia Ansel.

What is Nvidia Ansel and how it works

Nvidia debuted Ansel technology a few years ago, as a more uniform “Photo Mode” solution, which even indie developers can implement with just 40 additional lines of code. Mirror's Edge Catalyst was the first game to include support for Nvidia Ansel technology.

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Like the Adobe Camera Raw utility, Nvidia Ansel has a variety of features to beautify captured images, while playing your favorite games using a GeForce GTX 680M or better graphics card. Post-processing effects such as filters, brightness / contrast adjustments, and color enhancements are in place as expected. Plus, with a free camera, you can freeze time, widen the field of view of your shot, and take full control of the camera, whether you do it with a controller or keyboard and mouse.

The most innovative aspect of Nvidia Ansel, however, is the Super Resolution functionality. Leveraging the power of your PC's GPU, it can render exceptionally sharp images up to 61, 440 x 34, 560 pixels in size. Super Resolution images are not only great for cropping without losing quality, but they are also great for reducing resolution for use as prints.

Lastly, Nvidia Ansel offers 360-degree image capture support for use with VR headsets, PCs, and Android devices. There's also a stereo mode, in case you want 3D without the option to see what's behind you. If you want both, Nvidia already thought about that and consequently included 360 stereo functionality as well.

How to activate and use Nvidia Ansel

The process of acquiring Nvidia Ansel depends largely on the game you want to use it with. As long as the game is supported, all you need to do is download the latest Game Ready controller through Nvidia's GeForce Experience software or directly from the company's website. After that, make sure the game is up to date by going to the digital distribution client l your license originates from, for example Steam, Origin or GOG Galaxy, and check its properties. At this point, assuming you have a Nvidia Ansel compatible graphics card, you should be able to start taking pictures with its outstanding toolset by now.

With the prerequisites met, it's time to really start using Nvidia Ansel. It may surprise anyone who is familiar with loading PC games that, like many of the services that Nvidia provides with its graphics cards, launching Ansel is fairly straightforward.

Just open one of the supported games and press Alt + F2 to bring up the Nvidia Ansel menu screen. From the menu, there are a large number of options to toggle. From top to bottom, there are four different filters to choose from: black and white, halftone, retro, and sepia. Beneath is an intensity slider that changes the impact of the filters, accompanied by brightness, contrast, and vibration adjustments, as well as sketch effects, color enhancer, and vignette.

After playing around with the rest of the settings, you can change the field of view and roll in the camera and capture section. Increasing the field of view allows for greater coverage in long shots, while the Roll's fine adjustment actually rotates the image for a dramatic effect.

In capture type, you will find six different options; screen size, EXR, super resolution, 360, stereo and 360 stereo. Screen Capture obviously captures the frame in its native resolution. Whether it's 1080p, 4K, or something in between, it depends on your setup specs. On the other hand, EXR allows you to export screenshots in Industrial Light & Magic's OpenEXR format, allowing you to modify the exposure, colors and levels of the camera using a third-party photo editing application.

The 360, Stereo, and 360 Stereo modes are all three designed for VR. As the name suggests, 360 produces an image that can be seen from all angles. Stereo, on the other hand, is designed for stereoscopic 3D screenshots. As you probably guessed, 360 Stereo offers the best of both worlds by placing images that are 3D and 360-degree visible on Google Cardboard, on a PC, or in a VR headset.