How to take spectacular screenshots with Alan Wake 2’s photo mode

Much like its predecessor, Alan Wake 2 is no ordinary game and triumphs as a complex work of creative genius. The multidimensional horror story—with a narrative written in part by the game’s titular character—delights in its own metanarrative and is told with a perfect execution of developer Remedy Entertainment’s trademark mixed-media presentation.

The game just happens to look absolutely stunning too, with intricately crafted environments, fantastically detailed character models, and ray-traced lighting, shadows, and reflections (if your hardware allows for it). Exactly the sort of things that make a game perfect for some eye-catching virtual photography, so you’ll be glad to know that Remedy has finally added a fully featured photo mode to the game along with the recent release of the Night Springs DLC.

The photo mode is certainly not as complicated as the game’s narrative, but there are still a few things that you’ll want to understand about it to get the best results. 
 

Photo mode access and camera presets

The photo mode is available for free to everyone, whether you’re playing the base game or the Deluxe Edition with all the latest DLC. As there’s no shortcut button for it within the game, the photo mode is found via the pause menu and can be used right from that first naked and ill-fated trudge through the woods. Just note that it can only be accessed in normal gameplay moments, though, and not during any of the cinematics.

As soon as you dive in, you’re greeted with a simple UI that shows a selection of camera presets. Each of these is designed to set things up for a particular kind of shot by adjusting the rest of the photo mode settings for you. In fact, if you don’t feel like delving into the rest of the options, there’s nothing to stop you from just using these five presets for all of your shots.

The different setups are mostly self-explanatory. Take the Landscape preset, for instance, which gives the camera a wide angle 16 mm lens and deep focus to capture broad shots of the environments. Or Portrait, which switches to a longer 85 mm lens—always a favorite of portrait photographers in the real world—with a wide aperture that gives a shallow depth of field and a soft, blurry background.

Meanwhile, Macro zooms in even more and shifts the focus right down to the minimum distance for extreme close-ups. A couple of photograph styles make use of the frames and filters too. However, it’s worth noting that none of these will actually move the camera into position for you. That you’ll have to do yourself.
 

Camera movement

By default, the camera is in free mode and can be moved and aimed in any direction—and with a generously large range too. This mode is a great way to freely roam the entire scene in search of the right angle and composition, especially when used with the vertical height adjustment to get some shots that are not just taken at eye level.

A single click on the left joystick (LS) switches to Orbit Mode, which automatically turns the camera to face the playable character and only rotates it around them. This alternate mode is much more limited but can be useful for conveniently trying different portrait angles. Oh, and don’t forget to try using the camera roll option, actually labeled Tilt on the UI here, to flip into portrait orientation for classic headshots.
 

Camera settings

There’s more to composing a good image than just positioning the camera, and the Camera Settings Tab is where you’ll find all of the options to play around with other optical characteristics. The lens comes with a range of focal lengths that go all the way from an ultra-wide 8 mm to a lengthy 200 mm telephoto zoom to drastically change the field of view. Use these to squeeze a lot into a wide frame or to remove surrounding distractions with a tighter crop for a cleaner shot.

Focus Distance is pretty self-explanatory and sets how far from the camera the point of sharpest focus is, while the depth of field is controlled using aperture f-stop values. These behave just as they do on a real camera lens, so pick a small f-number like f/1.8 for a shallow depth of field with a soft, defocused background or a larger one like f/16 to keep more of the scene in focus.

There’s also an Auto-Focus option by clicking the right joystick (RS), by the way, but it’s admittedly not the most reliable, and you’ll get better results by just doing it manually.

Tip: If selecting a Focus Distance doesn’t quite get the focus exactly where you want it to be, just pick the nearest one and then carefully move the camera backward or forward to fine-tune it.
 

Lighting

Another of the most important elements in any photograph is the lighting, and Alan Wake 2 gives you plenty to work with. As well as the outstanding in-game light, there are a number of manual lighting options, and I don’t just mean the camera exposure compensation.

This photo mode offers a dedicated Lighting Tab with three different custom lights to choose from, all of which come with options for intensity, four different colors (including white), as well as options for the size and angle of the beam. That may sound like full three-point lighting at first, but that’s not what this is. There are three lights, it’s just that only one of them can be used at any one time.

The reason to have three separate lights, then, is because they each behave differently. Camera Flash is a single light attached to the camera that moves around with it. This light cannot be placed on its own, though it can be tilted a little with the LS to adjust its direction.

The second light type is aptly named Portrait Spot and will automatically shine toward the playable character. Orbiting around them with the RS and moving closer or farther away with the LS, this light is quite literally tailor-made for character portraits and is a very convenient way to add directional light across the face.

The third and final light is a flashlight effect, complete with reflector artifacts on the beam. Weirdly, it starts off in front of the character but is above head height and facing backward. Thankfully though, it is then free to be moved and angled in any direction, making it a very versatile light to add to the scene.

Tip: To help find a light when placing it, try a wide angle or move the camera back to get a clearer view of the lighting rig. And don’t forget to move off the Lighting Tab to hide the rig again—just hiding the UI doesn’t manage that.
 

Effects and frames

With all of the key elements in place, all that’s left is to add a little extra panache with some of the creative options. A small set of stylized frames can be used to imitate the look of a physical photo, and the obligatory color filters are there to shift the color tone. There is no intensity slider for these, so what you see is what you get, but the rest of the effects options add a lot more freedom.

Contrast, Brightness, and Saturation work particularly well in combination with the color filters and can completely shift the mood of the shot. It’s possible to make a dark scene much brighter and more vivid, dial down the daylight to appear much darker, or just go for a noir-style black and white.

Vignette and Radial Blur add some imperfections around the edges of the frame, with the latter being a good way to emphasize the surrealism. Meanwhile, Film Grain is especially useful for trying to re-create a film-like look that is most authentically applied on darker images.

Perhaps the most interesting single effect is one called Fogginess. It doesn’t take much to guess what it might do, though the implementation is very good and lets this otherwise unassuming slider really transform the scene.

After dialing it up just a little, an increasingly dense fog can be seen creeping across the background as the draw distance is reduced and the surroundings are gradually hidden. Increasing it further brings a dense atmosphere to the once-clear air around the characters and can be used to create a very tight and claustrophobic feel that fits perfectly with the game’s psychological horror theme.

 

That’s a wrap

That’s just about all you need to know about the photo mode in Alan Wake 2 . There are plenty of camera options to play with and great lighting tools that take advantage of the game’s fantastic art style. Alan Wake 2 is available now on the Epic Store in standard and Deluxe Edition, so get out there, give it a go, and see whether you can capture some shots that tell a story of your own.