Part of the Tips & Tricks series:
- Tips & Tricks Guide Hub: Start here.
- Best Quality-of-Life Settings: Tune the game for comfort and looks.
Quick Answer
- Photo Mode lives in the quick menu, the same radial wheel that holds the analysis visor and quick-build options.
- The camera detaches and flies freely within a limited radius, reaching angles the normal camera cannot.
- Field of view, focus distance and depth-of-field blur do the most work in any shot.
- Filters, exposure and colour sliders let you grade the image in-game instead of editing later.
- Hiding the HUD is a single toggle and should be your first move on almost every shot.
- Weather and time of day change a scene more than any slider does.
- Screenshots land in your platform's normal capture folder, unless you use the in-game capture.
Overview
Photo Mode freezes the world and hands you a free camera plus a small set of image controls. It is the difference between a flat, HUD-cluttered grab and something that reads as a photograph: a subject, a horizon that sits where you want it, and a background that falls away into soft blur. The tools take ten minutes to learn and years to exhaust.
The catch is that Photo Mode rewards planning. The best shots come from noticing a scene before you get there, flying into position, then opening the camera. Once you are in Photo Mode the world is paused, so a creature mid-leap or a storm mid-flash stays exactly as it was. Getting good at screenshots is mostly about spotting those moments while you fly.
Opening Photo Mode
Photo Mode is reached from the quick menu, the radial wheel you hold open with the quick-menu button on controller or the equivalent key on PC. It sits among the utility options there, alongside things like the analysis visor and quick-build shortcuts. Select it and the world stops, the HUD collapses, and your camera lifts free of your body.
It works on foot, inside the cockpit and while riding a creature. What it does not do is let you roam the planet. The camera is tethered to your position by a leash of a few dozen units, generous enough for wide establishing shots of your ship but not enough to clear the next ridge. If the shot you want is further out, exit, move closer, and open it again.
Time staying paused is the mode's most useful property. Storms hold their lightning, waterfalls hold their spray, and a Sentinel drone that was about to shoot you sits harmlessly in the air while you find your angle.
The Controls
Exact slider names and layouts vary a little across platforms and updates, so treat the list below as what each control does rather than a literal menu transcript.
| Control | What it does | Tip |
|---|---|---|
| Camera movement | Flies freely on all three axes within a tether around your character | Nudge in small steps; large sweeps overshoot |
| Camera orbit / rotation | Pitches, yaws and rolls the view independently of movement | A few degrees of roll adds energy, but keep landscape horizons level |
| Field of view | Widens or narrows the lens | Wide exaggerates scale; narrow compresses terrain layers together |
| Focus distance | Sets the plane that stays sharp | Pull focus onto your subject first, then adjust blur |
| Depth of field | Controls blur strength outside the focal plane | Heavy blur isolates a subject, light blur keeps a landscape readable |
| Filters | Applies a preset colour and contrast look | Cycle all of them; some transform a dull biome completely |
| Exposure / brightness | Brightens or darkens the frame | Under-expose slightly on deserts and ice worlds to keep sky detail |
| Colour and contrast sliders | Adjusts saturation, contrast and tint | Small moves. NMS palettes are already loud |
| Vignette / grain effects | Darkens edges or adds film texture | A gentle vignette pulls the eye inward |
| Hide HUD | Removes remaining interface elements | Toggle before judging any composition |
| Atmosphere and cloud controls | Where available, adjusts cloud density and sky conditions | Salvages shots taken under flat, empty skies |
Not every build exposes all of these. Console and PC versions have carried slightly different slider sets over the years, and the atmosphere controls in particular have moved around. If you cannot find a control described here, it is likely folded into a nearby slider rather than missing.
Composition That Actually Works
Use the rule of thirds. Put the horizon a third of the way up or a third of the way down, never dead centre. Put your subject on a vertical third rather than the middle of the frame. This one habit fixes most amateur screenshots on its own.
Give the shot a subject. A pretty landscape with nothing in it reads as wallpaper. Your ship parked on a ridge, your character silhouetted against a gas giant, a grazing herd, or one strange rock formation gives the eye somewhere to land. Ships are the most reliable subject because you control exactly where they sit, and a distinctive hull is worth hunting for. Our exotic ship guide covers where those turn up.
Shoot at low sun angles. Dawn and dusk stretch shadows across terrain and turn the sky into a gradient. Midday on most planets is flat and harsh. If the light is wrong, wait; the planet's rotation will hand you something better.
Shoot during storms. Rain, dust, radiation flares and lightning add atmosphere and depth cues a clear sky cannot, and airborne particles catch light beautifully. The trade-off is hazard drain, so top up protection before settling in. The planet types and hazards guide covers which biomes produce the most dramatic weather.
Layer your depth. A strong shot has something close, something mid-distance and something far: a rock in the foreground, your ship in the middle, mountains behind. Depth of field then has something at each distance to act on.
Get low. Dropping the camera near ground level makes terrain loom and skies dominate. Most players shoot from standing eye height out of habit, which is why most screenshots look alike.
Creatures reward patience. Scan first, since a fleeing animal is no use to you. The fauna and flora discovery guide is a good primer on finding the odder species that photograph well.
Subjects Worth Travelling For
If you are hunting a shot rather than a resource, sandworms are the only creature in the game with real scale, and infested planets guarantee them. They pay nothing and cannot be scanned, which makes photo mode the entire point of going.
Where Screenshots Are Saved
Photo Mode composes the image; capturing it is usually your platform's job.
- PC (Steam): the screenshot key saves to Steam's userdata screenshots folder, browsable through the overlay's screenshot manager. Windows Game Bar capture goes to your Videos or Pictures capture folder instead.
- PC (GOG or standalone): use Game Bar, an Nvidia or AMD overlay, or a third-party tool, and check that tool's output folder.
- PlayStation: the Create button saves to the console gallery, exportable to USB or the mobile app.
- Xbox: the share control saves to Captures, syncing to your account and reachable from the mobile app or a browser.
- Nintendo Switch: the capture button saves to the album, transferable over USB or the smartphone transfer option.
Some builds also include an in-game capture option inside Photo Mode, which writes a file into the game's own directory alongside your saves. If a shot seems to have vanished, look there before assuming it failed.
One habit worth adopting: capture two or three variants of every scene at different focus and filter settings. Reproducing an exact composition later is near impossible, and you will often prefer the version you nearly discarded.
FAQ
Does Photo Mode pause the game in multiplayer?
Time only stops locally. Other players keep moving in their own sessions, so a co-op partner will walk through your frame while you compose. Ask them to hold still, or shoot when they are somewhere useful.
Can I use Photo Mode during combat or while flying?
Yes to both. Space combat produces some of the game's best shots, since the camera can pull away from your cockpit and show your ship taking fire. Exiting drops you straight back into the fight with the same incoming damage.
Why does my depth of field look wrong?
Almost always because the focus plane sits at the wrong distance. Set focus onto your subject before touching blur. Heavy blur can also swallow a small subject entirely; ease it back.
Do Photo Mode filters affect normal gameplay?
No. Filters and colour adjustments apply only inside Photo Mode and reset on exit. Permanent visual changes belong in the graphics options, covered in the quality-of-life settings guide.
Can I move the camera further from my character?
Not beyond the built-in tether, and the radius cannot be extended through settings. Reposition your character closer to the subject, then reopen Photo Mode.
Key Takeaways
Photo Mode's controls are shallow by design, and that is fine, because the variable that matters most is never in the menu. Where you stand, when you stand there, and what weather is happening decide the shot; the sliders only refine it. Players who produce consistently striking screenshots are not working harder in the interface, they are flying with an eye out for scenes and landing when they find one.
Treat four steps as your default workflow. Hide the HUD, place the horizon off-centre, pull focus onto a deliberate subject, then add blur. That sequence handles the vast majority of shots and takes under a minute once it is habit.
Everything past that is taste. Filters and colour sliders reward restraint, and the same scene shot at dawn under a storm beats any amount of grading applied to a flat midday capture. Spend your effort on finding the moment, and the rest becomes a formality.