Let's Talk About ENBs

[Guest NeonFirefly]

I was thinking this past week, as I sat at my desk testing as many different Enhanced Natural Beauty mods as I could possibly find in a short a span of time as was humanly possible. They say every ENB has its own philosophy; its own artistic statement. Some strive for natural-looking realism (i.e. Realvision, Sharpshooters, etc), some aim for fantasy (i.e. K, Jasmin, Wintertide, etc), and others go for a certain mood, tone or atmosphere (i.e. Somber, Bleak, etc).

 

I've been trying to figure out what I want in an ENB, and why I seem to get tired of each one in under a week after installing them. Sometimes I want a nice dim, artsy feel to my Skyrim, sometimes I want something bright and colorful, and sometimes I just want something that merely enhances the vanilla style. Some ENBs work really well for screenshots, and some work better for normal gameplay.

 

So my question for you folks is what do you look for in an ENB? What are your favorite presets, and why? It's a very subjective question, and let's remember, no ENB is intrinsically better or worse than another.

 

I've often voiced my adoration for Somber ENB Lut Sepia. It's my go-to choice for when I want something moody and artsy to take screenshots with.

When I want to retain the vanilla feel of the game without too drastic a change, I lean towards Unbleak ENB.

Just yesterday I discovered and fell in love with the bright blue sky and deep, dark shadows of Opethfeldt ENB. It also looks stunning even in terrible weather, which is a rare virtue among ENBs in my experience.

 

Those are some of my favorites... so how about yours?

 

 

EDIT: So, as of, like, four hours ago, Somber ENB Lut Sepia was replaced by its successor, "The Grim and Somber ENBs," so if you want to search for it, you'll find it there.

[Kaos Wulf]

I'm the kind of person that goes for as much realism as possible. I stick with the established lore of the game and go from there, letting my mind run wild. So for me, RealVision is the way to go for an overall immersive feel. Yes I find myself wanting a different look for screenshots (especially SexLab sessions) on occasion but I'm too stubborn to swap to something else just for this. I don't even play with DoF on as I prefer to feel like I'm looking through my characters' eyes and not a cameras'. Anyway, there's my preference on ENBs.

[Vancien]

Well, the only experience I have actually had with ENB's has been RealVision and Somber. RealVision was beautiful but my crap GPU could not handle the load of stress all of the suggested mods and textures as shown in the pictures were running. I was getting like 3 frames per second. Which wasn't even good for standing still. It kind of broke my heart after enduring hours of carefully installing each segment. 

 

Recently however, Somber was brought to my attention by Bade. A few screens were posted in my Chaos in Whiterun thread and I loved that artistic antique style. I really wanted to try it out. Unfortunately I don't believe I fully removed some of RV and interiors were in some cases so dark I couldn't see a damn thing. But exterior areas and open environments looked great. I am working on getting Somber reloaded cleanly after a full reformat of my rig. (It's time consuming)

 

Here is one picture that I am very fond of using Somber. Makes for a nice desktop background.

 

 

 

 

 

[drunken toad]

I am real picky on this sort of thing, but really like this ENB using the 199 version of it and I have everything enabled besides DOF and play caped at 40 It doesn't have a big fps hit for me I recommend it, it sticks to lore of the game and still greatly increases the look.

[hryh23k9823u]

My favourite is Polo ENB. I like ENB's when they just improve the graphical quality of the game, with reflections, subsurface scattering, lighting. Photorrealism. I don't like enb's that adds grain, letterboxes, or kill the contrast of the image. Or that change the colors. Mainly cause they are boring after a while. I dont like bloom or lens flares. I deactivate them always. Ugly.

 

Polo ENB is the most realistic imo, but there are a couple of ENB that are also great for realism, some of theme even the so called 'performance enb' (that in the best of the cases eats 10fps in my old pc so I actually dont use them except for screenshots...)

[Spyder Arachnid]

I usually try to go for fantasy type ENBs. I use a lot of texture replacers that work well with them, like Sexy Whiterun (and that whole series) along with NobleSkyrimMod. I love drastic overhauls and bold bright colors.

 

One of my top favs has always been HRK ENB. It is just gorgeous, though a bit taxing on lower end systems. Project ENB is always a popular choice as well. I use the fantasy setting with that one to get that bold color. Unbleak and Bleak ENB are both awesome as well. Used to use Bleak ENB when I wanted that Silent Hill feel to my game.

 

Lately I've been trying out RealLike ENB. The color is great and overall, it is really nice. Only downside is it is one of those performance friendly ENBs, so a lot of the high end features have been turned off. So lines are a bit jagged and shadows are a bit underwhelming. Plus it uses an old enb series (v0113), and doesn't have a lot of the features that the newer enb series have.

 

But if you are wanting a nice enb that is performance friendly, check out RealLike ENB lol. Works great and looks nice.

[Hayleyrose2323]

I usually use my own but ive fallen in loooooooove with this one. http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/50483/? its called Photoreal ENB performance. I have slightly edited the quality of certain things to run a bit faster and have enabled Lens. but yea i love it.

[hryh23k9823u]

I usually use my own but ive fallen in loooooooove with this one. http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/50483/? its called Photoreal ENB performance. I have slightly edited the quality of certain things to run a bit faster and have enabled Lens. but yea i love it.

 

I've tried it and it looks good, but only looking at the pictures there, you notice how it kills contrast totally. For me, the best performance/realism enb is still this one (you can optinally disable the letterbox)

 

[Irrational]

I used to be all into veristic ENBs. They made skyrim look pretty, but they lack subtlety that creates ambience. So I moved to ones that are more ambient such as Seasons of Skyrim, and Somber Lut Sepia. As of recent I re-installed Skyrim using Saraan Suum. I created the first Arcana chapter using it, and will have to stick with it until I conclude the story.

[Uno]

I use a different Enb for every gameplay. My favs are Polo Enb, Unbleak, Blu Enb, Jasmin (non cot version), Seasons of Skyrim (tribute version) and -the now extinct- JT Enb, each one of them with its own charm. But, at the end of the day I always return to Polo & Jasmin configs, adding from there my own tweaks.

[Guest]

Well, the only experience I have actually had with ENB's has been RealVision and Somber. RealVision was beautiful but my crap GPU could not handle the load of stress all of the suggested mods and textures as shown in the pictures were running. I was getting like 3 frames per second. Which wasn't even good for standing still. It kind of broke my heart after enduring hours of carefully installing each segment. 

 

Recently however, Somber was brought to my attention by Bade. A few screens were posted in my Chaos in Whiterun thread and I loved that artistic antique style. I really wanted to try it out. Unfortunately I don't believe I fully removed some of RV and interiors were in some cases so dark I couldn't see a damn thing. But exterior areas and open environments looked great. I am working on getting Somber reloaded cleanly after a full reformat of my rig. (It's time consuming)

 

Here is one picture that I am very fond of using Somber. Makes for a nice desktop background.

 

That's so weird. i can run RealVision at full quality with 35+ fps, but, with Somber, even using performance setting, I don't even get a solid 15.

[Guest]

I'm into the moodier, softer lit presets with more naturalistic palettes rather than the hyper-real ultra clarity sort or those with pumped up vibrancy. I like nice deep looking shadows with some strong warm fire and torch glow. And I love it when a preset nails dawn and dusk light too, makes my early bird campfire breakfasts more immersive. 

 

I'm test drivingt Claymay right now and I really like it. Strong on the bokeh and tilt shift, the palette is in the dark earthy range, it's very performance friendly for such a distinctive looking enb. Goes great with Realistic Nights default. 

 

Those I've used most consistently are Saraan Suum and Somber. 

[pinky6225]

Have sharpshooters mainly because I found a youtube tutorial by the same dude that does the TES5 Edit one saying how to install it.

 

Is switching between ENB's simple (i.e just over-write stuff in the folders) or is it more effort?

[Guest]

Have sharpshooters mainly because I found a youtube tutorial by the same dude that does the TES5 Edit one saying how to install it.

 

Is switching between ENB's simple (i.e just over-write stuff in the folders) or is it more effort?

Maybe give this a try for managing your ENB installs. Works like a mod manager, automates the process of loading and unloading enb files.

[Claynation01]

 just tried out seasons of skyrim enb after i saw it mentioned here and so far i like it Alot 

 

 

[Dutchbat]

Have you guys tried this allready?  it's pretty awesome

 

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/50638/?

[bytion]

I have one big problem with ENBs, most of their DOF effect can't work on crossfire setups, only some older verisons can work, which are not what I want.