Best possible ENBs/mix of ENBs - help?

[Uncumber]

Hi there! I've recently got Skyrim up and running amazingly smoothly with STEP (gad, you guys are amazing), using wyre bash, mod organizer, ddsopt, tes5edit, boss etc. and an awful lot of other mods installed, most of them graphical - it does look pretty! It's set on ultra, with all the ini tweaks maxed out that I could find. However, I'm lucky enough to have a really nice PC capable of running better (I've got correct drivers too) - I've tried so many ENBs now but none of them even come close, honestly, to some of the really nice screenshots I've seen (I realize that the very best screenshots are purely that, for screenshot purpose only with 0fps, but my best looking screens still look a lot worse than some of the very pretty and playable screens I've seen.) I'm absolutely sure my PC would be able to run something similar, I'm just at a loss of what to do.

 

As stated performance is not an issue, and nor, really, is my personal taste - I'm a professional artist in 'real life' so I guess I miiight be more picky than most, but I guess I want it to just look, well, stunning. I geenerally prefer more muted colors and realistic 'feel', but then some more vibrant screenshots have blown me away too. I think what's common in all of the 'very nice' shots, is what appears to be a pronounced 'softness' over the screen - making it look almost like a digital painting, or a dreamy photograph (whilst these screenshots have definitely not been photoshopped). Whilst some of the ENBs I've used seem to have achieved this more than others, and fiddling around with bloom.. as stated, I've not got close to what I've seen pop up occasionally on the web.

 

I've read that often (sometimes?) people mix and choose what they like from different ENBS. Is there perhaps a general consensus of a few good 'mixes' or even a guide to go about doing this? (obviously, teechnically it's easy, just changing a few numbers, but understanding what that will end up looking like in game seems like another kettle of fish altogether) - is any of this even needed though to achieve what I'm after? argh, I don't know anything :(

 

I like to think I'm relatively computer literate! usually manage to get things sorted in the end after maybe a word or two of help - but here I feel like I've been experimenting to no avail >.< Any advice or information whatsoever would be so, so appreciated, I can't seem to find much at all Googling. Thanks for your time! =)

 

(as far as my in game lighting, I'm only using a sliiightly tweaked SkyRealism Bleak ENB at the moment with some SweetFX tweaks and RLO - no CoT)

[TechAngel85]

I was going to recommend you try SkyRealism Cinematic but you've already got that downloaded if you're using Bleak. I can't think of any that will give you "muted" colors with high bloom for that "softness". The Wilds ENB would have been great, yet it's not anything close to muted colors. Not to mention, it was removed from Nexus the last time I checked. There are a TON of ENBs on Nexus that you can browse through and test if you'd like, but I've never heard of anyone "mixing" them before either. Your best bet is to just sit down for a few hours to browse and explore all the different options on Nexus until you find a handful that look like they might match what you're going for. Then test those to see if you find your perfect match! :)

[Uncumber]

Thank you for your response! The slight tweaks I mentioned to my Bleak setting, was just crossing it with the Cinematic - so you got it bang on :) About the whole 'muted' thing, it really is only a slight preference - if there's some really, really incredible 'fantasy' one, I'm sure I'd be bound to prefer that - just all else being equal I think I prefer muted =) Thing is I have tried an awful lot of ENB's, perhaps I just haven't found the right one! If there's not a guide about, are there perhaps some recommendations of some better, more performance intensive ones that I can dig around for?

 

edit: also you mentioned 'high bloom' I have fiddled around with the bloom a liiiittle - but there are an awful lot of bloom settings! And I was unsure if I ought to change any other settings to compensate for the changes, so I was worried going further. Is bloom alteration really all that's needed for the 'softness'?

[Tesshin]

I would recommend Kountervibe ENB. Its in a league on its own. It will forever be a huge mystery to me why people choose ENBs like Realvision etc when you have Kountervibe. I guess I will never get an answer to it either.

 

The amount of effects on Kountervibe is massive, without looking to much like a fantasy ENB. Its crisp, beautiful and you can choose performance and quality etc.

[Aiyen]

Well many people do not like bloom based ENB´s. Many things can be said about Realvision, but many people just like the high contrast, high saturation look.

 

I also think Kountervibe, K-ENB and many other bloom based ENB´s are really beautiful! However I find that after playing with them for a while the bloom starts to annoy me. But such epic screenshots that can be made using those!

 

The main drawback with Kyo´s work atm, is that his files are so massive, and with all the settings on max, then it is really in dire need of some major optimization (The difference between his and my ENB enbeffect.fx file is actually measureable in several FPS. )! His creativity is really epic, however he does tend to forget that not many people have the beast of a machine he does! :)

 

But yeah I hope he continues doing what he is doing, since he really do inspire me to produce better stuff!