Taking the Best Photos Possible?

I enjoy taking photos for my blog and just in general. I am, however, ABSOLUTELY NOT a professional by any shape or form. Nor will I ever achieve the results of the real professional photographers in SL.

However, I do enjoy learning and doing the best that I am able. To that end, I've currently set myself the task of finding resources to assist me in ensuring I'm doing everything I can to take decent photos.

I've Googled, searched through the forums, but am now asking here for any additional resources.

I know about video card settings, the Graphics settings under SL's preferences, saving to the hard drive, the High Quality option under Advanced etc. But I fully admit that I could be missing some key information.

Are there any tips for Windlight settings and lighting? I do have a blog post saved RE optimized windlight settings (http://secondsoigne.wordpress.com/windlight-guide/). Are there others?

Also, and perhaps at the top of my list -- how do I make my eyes focus in a specific direction while still lining up and taking a self portrait? I do not use a conventional mouse (I use a joystick) and do not use the normal camera controls within SL -- but I am willing to learn to use the normal camera controls if it helps with this issue.

Thank you for your kind feedback and information.

Cheers.

As far as windlight settings and such, that's a matter of personal preference and the overal look you are trying to achieve.

To make your eyes look in a specific direction, rez an invisible prim in front of you and use that to center your camera. Your eyes look where the camera goes.

/me laughs so hard

/me feels like an absolute idiot for not thinking of this

/me crawls into a hole and covers himself

Thank you.

Here is an example of what Annabelle said.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/23212529@N04/3454229451/in/set-72157604016753899/

Your eyes will also follow the mouse cursor (as you can see in my profile pic, but it can be fiddly) but not directly into the camera.

C.

Thank you. I just feel like a complete idiot for not thinking of something that should have been so obvious. Well, it wouldn't be the first time. /me chuckles

This will be very easy to rectify with the joystick (I was afraid I would have to use the in world camera controls).

Thank you again.

windlight presets I enjoy using:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mescalinetammas/3513305333/
http://analutetia.com/blog/sharing-windlight-presets/

and of course Torley's.

The hi-res snapshot option is broken in the 1.23.4 viewer.

Use anti-aliasing (graphics preferences, hardware options).

A few debug settings that are helpful:

RenderVolumeLODFactor. Set it higher, leave it there.

RenderTreeLODFactor. Setting it higher in pre-1.23 viewers improves Linden trees remarkably. Set it higher to increase the range. It can also really kill your frame rate, so you'll probably want to reset it after you take a photo. Not so useful in 1.23.4

RenderAvatarMaxVisible. Removes avatars from the scene in viewers before 1.23.4. Another fantastically useful feature LL screwed up in 1.23.4.

Check out Torley's guide to SL photograhy:

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/User:Torley_Linden/Snapshot_tips

And get Torley's Windlight presets:

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/WindLight_settings

There are many elements in a good photo. BEFORE snapping the shutter in SL, here are things to consider:

1. Your avatar appearance. Skin, hair, outfit, jewelry, etc.
2. Avatar pose. Use a pose stand, or poseball, or a HUDDLES, etc.
3. Lighting. Sometimes this means taking OFF a facelight. Other times it means adding a little light. Be aware of the color of the light, as well as its intensity. A slightly warm shade is flattering, just as it is in the real world.
4. Background. You may have a specific location in mind. Or you may decide to add the background later, in Photoshop. In the latter case, a big white prim set to full bright behind your subject will give you a good foundation for later.
5. If the background is an SL scene, try different Windlight settings to achieve the look and mood you want. I particularly like "Coastal Sunset".
6. Framing. Follow the "rule of thirds" and put an eye of your subject at the intersection of an imaginary tic-tac-toe grid drawn on your screen.

I take pictures at full screen resolution, and have "hi resolution snapshots to disk" checked.

In Photoshop, you will crop the picture to correct any framing errors, and also to set it up for the aspect ratio you intend as the end use. (4:3 for the front page of a profile, 16:9 for a profile Pick, etc.). Apply any filters or corrections. I'm fond of gaussian blur to simulate a shallow depth of field, and also lighting effects to emphasize the subject and move the background into, er, the background.

Save the final image. Then reduce the image size to 512x512 (no matter what your final aspect ratio is going to be), and save it as a .png or .tga file. Uplioad it to SL.

Here's your free tip of the day. Take your photos high-rez to the hard drive and work them in Photoshop. Do a google search for "Virtual Photographer" plugin for Photoshop, which is free.

Have fun playing with the filters and effects. Do them on a duplicate layer and adjust the transparency to vary the amount of the effect vs. the original layer. The filters really over processes some things.

Thank you, everyone, for your kind responses and "filling in some blanks" in my knowledge.

Have a delightful weekend.

I completely forgot I had installed that about a year ago and when I redid my system earlier this year, I missed putting this back! Thank you for the reminder! Yes, I began playing with this and then, as always happens with SL, grew distracted with something else...

Thank you.

Thank you all for the tips!!!!

A couple more RL photography tips that carry over to SL:

1: Good photography is the result of lots of bad photography. Unlike the days of film, photos are virtually free to take. So take a lot. For one thing, it gives you a lot of practice. Just as importantly, it gives you plenty of choice when picking just which shot you like.

After you've chosen a shot you think looks good, you can look back at the not-so-good ones and work out what's wrong with them, so you make fewer mistakes next time.

2: Check your vertical lines. If there are any vertical structures (buildings, fences) in the background, make sure they look vertical on the photo. Horizontal lines don't have to appear horizontal, but the horizon generally *does*.

Things I do -


Use only the camera controls - do not attempt to line a shot up using your mouse and holding down ALT.

Always have your environmental settings windows open - use the East Angle on the sun to get the lighting right

Fill the frame with the subject. (The most ignored rule of composition in amateur SL pics.)

Use control-0 to zoom in, control-8 to zoom out, and control-9 to restore. The default setting is rather wide-angle for most photography, making avatar faces look distorted -- much like many cheap RL single-focus-length snapshot cameras.

About the eye direction -- maybe I'm dense because I don't understand.

If using two viewers, myself and an alt to shoot, sure. But when using a single viewer, when I change my view it moves my eyes.

What do you mean by "an invisible prim in front of you and use that to center your camera". What does this invisible prim do that simply looking in that direction doesn't do -- and how do I get my av's eyes to lock on that while I move my camera to shoot myself?

Thanks!

PS: I wish SL had a depth-of-field control! Filtering with PS just doesn't look the same. But I doubt it would be simple to do.

Lance Gray published an easy DOF-simulating trick in one of the Geek's magazines recently. It's better than the filters. I'll see if I can find it in the stack of back issues.

Any help on what folks above meant about rezzing an invisible object to point the eyes? I still don't understand what they were getting at.

Thanks!

It's another way to pull focus when the viewer wants to shoot you all over the place. Rez an object to focus the camera on (any prim will do, I usually do a basic cube.) When you've got your shot set up correctly by using the object to position your camera, click on the object and make it transparent. Your shot will still be set up perfectly and the object is now transparent to remove it from the picture.

I use a sphere, but it really does not matter.

1 - Sit on the pose ball or how ever you position the avatar.
2 - Res a sphere. You can make it small and place it just infront of your face or even just move it over your head like a diver's helmet.
3 - Go to the texture tab and set the texture to "*default transparent"; it is in your library folder.
4 - Exit edit mode. Hit Ctrl-Alt-T to highlight transparent.
5 - Alt-click on the ball to focus on that object. Then you can spin and zoom the camera all you want. Hit Ctrl-Alt-T to turn the highlighting off when you are ready to take the shot.

As you are moving the camera around using Alt-click or Ctrl-click, you are constantly repositioning the eyes to look where you touched on the prim. This will cause you to look as if you are following the camera with your eyes.

So, are you using two avatars here: one as the subject, looking at the prim (in which case who needs the prim ...)?

This is really confusing because I can't tell when, by "camera", you mean the view that's taking the picture, versus the subject's camera (to point the subject's eyes).

Or, if this is using one avatar (which was the OP's question), how can you move the camera after you've adjusted the camera to point the eyes, without changing the eyes?

Are you using the word "camera" here to mean two different things? Arrgh!

Is this what you're trying to say:

Point your eyes by alt-clicking the object. If you move the object, the eyes will follow it.

Point the camera without moving your eyes ... how? Using "camera controls" only? (When I do that, it moves my eyes. But perhaps I hadn't alt-clicked on an object last.)

Thanks!

Argh, testing to see if the post goes through..

That worked, now editing to add what I was going to say:

I only move the camera around using alt-clicking, so here is what I do. I focus on something, whatever, around my av to make the eyes go in the desired direction. I then use "snapshot" to open the snapshot preview, and check Freeze frame. The avatar is now frozen and you can alt-click around to your hearts content, taking pics from different angles - the eyes remain fixed.

Before i learned this I used the camera controls (and they drove me batty to say the least), or I had an alt do the photographing.

Now I'm confused

I'm not sure what you mean by eyes. When I'm taking a picture, I'm using the viewer as a lens to set up the visual shot. I tend to take mostly scenic shots, but product shots sometimes too. With the scenic shots, you frequently don't have anything to click on to focus your viewer/lens and line up the shot correctly because the SL viewer only allows you to grab objects - you can't grab the sky, ground or sun/moon to line up your shot. Or the only thing you can click on, you want slightly offset in the frame, which is hard to do without using a prim as an "anchor." The other way is to get close and then use the Camera Controls to adjust.


ah, I think I get what you were meaning -- you're talking about focus of the eyes on an avatar subject. That, I'm at a loss for. I think that's what most SL photographers use a pose stand for.

Aha! Thanks! Never really noticed that button, I guess.

Yup, in response to the OP's question,

I can see how that would help for scenic shots, since you can't alt-click on the sky.

Thanks again