Taking Photo's Tips!!

Hi all i'm interested in taking a few pictures for fun and placing them on my flickr account. I'm just wondering if there any decent studios out there i can use for free, i can't afford too buy one myself at the moment and if anyone has any tips on making pictures in world look great.

Thanks guys
Baby xx

There are oodles of free photo studios out there- just use search. However, taking photos doesnt require a studio..I just go on-location or use a big prim...

Shoot me an IM in-world and I'll send you a LM to my studio. You're welcome to come by and use it. Like was said, a studio isn't required, but it does have some cool add-ons to let you do things in-world (smoke, colored fog, colored lights, backgrounds, loaded with poses, etc)

Make sure you're saving to the HD and taking High-Rez snapshots.

One word: Photoshop.

You can take a pic in world, and then enhance it in Photoshop. For this type of picture, play with the Environment settings for best lighting.

Or you can take a pic of your avatar against a blank background, then cut out the av and add any background you like in Photoshop. You can buy an SL photo studio (eg., a Photosphere) for this, but it's easy to make your own...just a hollow cut sphere or a couple of flat prims to hide the scenery,with a blank texture set to full bright.

I love my Photosphere. <3

I really don't do much post-processing on my images...crop and a little touch up if prims are doing something strange is about all. I have been tinkering a bit with Picnik on Flickr lately, but those edits are generally mild too.

I've seen some really amazing Photoshopped SL images, and I keep thinking I should learn some of that but, when it comes down to it, I seem to prefer (mostly) minimal processing in my own pics. *shrug*

Digit Darkes had one a while back, don't know if it's still there or not, but worth checking out. I'm not in-world atm, and someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm thinking the sim is "Addictive"

Ashe

Lighting, lighting, lighting, just like in RL photography.

Composition, just like in RL photography!

A close up medium, just like TV, online photos appreciate being cropped in Gimp (or PS or whatever).

So just like taking RL pictures, make sure you are not taking pictures toward the sun? Why not work with it and move the sun where you want it instead?

If you don't want to mess with the sun directly, use the sunrise or sunset settings, when most pics are taken outside in RL or is recreated indoors with warm low angle lighting.

The beauty of SL is you also get to control the environment as in a RL studio. So you can add a fill light by simply putting a prim on the shaded side and clicking the light button, either lower it's intensity or move it farther away.

Consider making it a warm tone rather than leaving it white, think candle light?

Finally have your model alt-click on a prim where you want their eyes to look and head to face (assuming you have proper poses that leave the head free to move).

I've never found a use for an SL studio, with a prim behind you set to green or blue (whichever isn't in your clothing) you can simply replace the background with anything in Gimp or PS or texture it in SL set to full bright. It seems quicker and easier to choose my pose from inventory than click through them in a studio.

Well......I agree you don't need a studio........all you really need are some good sets of poses and an eye for photos. Once you get the hang of camera angles....you can pretty much master SL photography......just takes practice. It's also a good idea to familiarize yourself with the environment settings as you can alter your lighting a million different ways just by using the sky editor. 99% of the time....that's how I adjust my lighting for photos....outdoors or in.
I do have a studio set up.....and I can put out all kinds of posing structures and backdrops........But a good trick for a simple background........use 2 square prims at right angles.....as large and flat as you can make them.....color them white (or whatever color) and pose your avatar against it.......I do that when I want a white background in order to take the image in photoshop and cut & paste it to another setting. Works great....and it's an easy 'do it yourself' studio.

Turn on anti-aliasing in the hardware settings of graphics preferences. It will clean up the jagged edges in your pictures.

If you haven't downloaded Torley's Windlight presets, get them:

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Windlight#Torley.27s_WindLight_settings

Experiment with the advanced sky & water settings in the environment editor (under the world menu).

Kirsten's Shadowdraft viewer can produce stunning results, if you have a powerful enough graphics card:

http://kirstenleecinquetti.blogspot.com/

For snapshots, get the SD2-R7 version from her FTP site. (Don't try to use anti-aliasing with it, though).

Hiya Baby,

Few basic tips not mentioned yet (if you know them already just ignore me )
ALT + click on your face or body to focus the camera on yourself.
Ctrl + 0 to zoom in for the perfect close up (Ctrl + 8 to zoom out/fish eye effect and Ctrl + 9 to reset your camera controls back to normal)
Also there is a slow animations button - go to Client > Character > Slow Motion Animations, which is great for capturing gestures and action shots!


We have also have a studio - ready for ya to take some pics....just drop me an im if you want to come over!

Amisha

make a few lighting spheres also..
in features in the editor you can set prims to have certain lighting..
put them around you ..

also make either a green room or white room and in photoshop the magic wand makes for easy quick cuts