Picture Perfect: Gran Turismo 4's Photo Mode

We've been making our way through the massive import version of Gran Turismo 4 and have been constantly impressed by the graphics in the game. The 480i version looks nice, it's true, but it's the 480p and the 1080i versions that are giving our HDTV a true workout. There was an unofficial GT4 race station in our demo room, but we had to move the table with the racing wheel out of the way in order to make room for all the other games. You know, the other games that don't happen to be GT4 and don't feature 1080i racing.

So after being bumped back to a regular TV, we decided to dig into the photo mode and found that it's more than just a slight diversion, it's a solid function that acts as a beautiful trophy maker for the rest of the game. GT4 provides a selection of different locales in which any car in the player's garage can be shot. All that's required is to pick out a car from the garage as if going to a race and then choosing the location in the Photo Mode area. From there it's a matter of finding one's inner artist and creating new ways to show off your pride and joy.

If the results of this were just the ability to see the car from different angles the feature would be nothing to talk of, but GT4 outputs images of 1280x960 resolution that can be directly printed to a photo printer with impressive results or dropped right onto a USB flash drive. From there the image can be put on a computer for printing, shared on the web with friends, or even just put up as wallpaper for your desktop. But to get to that point the photo needs to be taken and we'll walk you through that process so you'll know what to expect.

After the car and location have been picked the photo mode screen will come up that is split up into three areas: the map, the camera's view, and the camera controls. The map has an overhead view with some red and blue splotches on it. This has nothing to do with politics, but just about what areas are kosher for the car (red) and the camera (blue) to be located for the shot. Sometimes these areas will overlap for a slightly purplish color, but they're usually distinct.

Moving the car is just a matter of selecting it, moving it around, and deselecting it to drop it in one location. Along the way it's also possible to rotate the car by using the L2 and R2 buttons. Nice and easy. The camera works in the same way except that its direction can't be changed in the map area. That job is done in the camera control area.

To tweak the camera and get the perfect shot there are four different types of movement that each get an icon. The first turns left to right and up and down while staying in place. The second is for rotating the camera view clockwise or counterclockwise. The third is for moving forward, backward, left or right, and the last one moves up and down.

Just doing this is enough to get the general shot, but there's another key element here: the zoom factor of the lens. The choices here range from the fisheye effect of the 16mm all the way to the flattened telephoto action of the 300mm. By mastering this one extra element it's possible to move and groove and get the shot you want.

But the work isn't done just yet and there are still some more toys to play with. The f-stop can be tweaked as well for different depths of field. This is the way to get those shots that blur out the background to highlight the car in one direction or close the aperture to get the background in focus as well.

For an extra dramatic flourish it's possible to even turn the car's wheels 30 degrees in either direction. This may sound frivolous, but this helps to both highlight the rims and give the car more of a feeling of movement through the shot. It's more dynamic and gives even more flavor to a nice shot.

But wait, there's more. The colors can be changed to be vibrant, normal, or black & white. The white balance can be shifted one way or the other as can the brightness. Different lenses can be swapped in and out and as an extra bonus there's an option for focusing the shot. This last one is key for getting a slick effect of focusing on the front of the car and throwing in a low f-stop for an extra dramatic shot.

And right when everything is done it's just a matter of hitting the red button to see a full-screen version of the shot. This takes just a few seconds and transferring the file to a flash drive takes just a few more. It's surprisingly quick and taking a series of shots of one car in a single location can be pulled off incredibly easily.

The only problem with the flash drive solution is that GT4 is finicky with what drives it will work with. We had to go through four different drives before we finally found one in the office that GT4 was compatible with. Space wasn't the issue since we tried a 256MB drive and the files range in size from around 200k to 350k. It's mostly just a matter of luck and players would be well advised to check around before they buy a drive to make sure that it's compatible.

So get ready to make your own gallery of car shots. This bonus feature may look like just one more little bullet point in a presentation, but it's surprisingly fun and rewarding with the hi-res output. Throw it in with an already stellar racing game and life just keeps getting better.

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