PHOTOSHOP close ups issue

Hello all, i am having an issue with close up photos, i cannot seem to rid of the problem. I have placed two photos to show. The first is what i want my skins close ups to look like. The second is what my photos come out as. Anyone know why my pic looks sort of stretched and odd, the first is perfect, my friend took.

Thanks!

-BR

Your pic is not actually stretched, but just the opposite, it's squished horizontally. It looks like you took a screenshot (or snapshot) of a wide format SL window, and then transformed the image to fit onto a square format canvas. Cropping would have been the thing to do, rather than transforming.

What exactly was your procedure? If you list the exact steps you took, I'm sure we can tell you precisely where you went wrong.







By the way, for what it's worth, the second image looks like a pretty fair depiction of a starving Dave Navarro, strung out on heroin. If you ever want to pretend that that's what you were going for, you nailed it.

I actually did nothing but zoom in close with the mouse and take a snapshot.

Thats funny you say that, I was told that already lol ... I like him so yes, a compliment

What other info did you need?

I have my snapshots at Large 512 by 512. PC res is set at 1280 - 1024. It just seems whenever i zoom in with the mouse the face looks that way.

Take your snapshot at full window size, and then resize/crop in Photoshop afterward. Forcing it into a square format in-world is likely what's causing the problem. I think there are some settings you can change to toggle between squishing and cropping for snapshots, but I forget off-hand what they are. Photoshop does a much better job of both, so there's little point in letting SL do it anyway.

I usually don't even bother with snapshots at all, by the way. I just do an OS screenshot, and then paste the image directly into Photoshop. If you're doing a lot of pics, this saves a ton of time over saving each one, and then having to open them all. The only time I use snapshots is if I need a high res image for print, which is quite rare for me.

That seems the problem, i cannot get it to look flat and square, that is what i need to do.. other snapshots are fine because they are not close up and so focused like that, but it seems i cannot get it flat looking like my friend did.

Was I perhaps unclear? I just gave you a work-around. Take a full-window-size snapshot, and there will be no squishing, whether you're zoomed in or not. Then simply open the image in any raster editor, (Photoshop, PSP, GIMP, MS Paint, whatever), and crop it to a square format there, if square is what you want.

This may sound dumb lol, but how do i take a full window size, do you mean take a 1280 by 1024 snapshot?

In the Snapshot Preview dialog, simply set the size to Current Window.




Notice on mine, the numbers ended up as 1874x1064. That's just what my SL window happens to be at the moment. If I were to resize the window, which I do all the time, those numbers would change. If I were to run SL in full-screen mode, the numbers would be 1920x1200, since that's what the monitor is that I've got SL on right now.

Ah, i just fixed it, i actually just took a "Snapshot to disk" and cropped in PS that worked thanks so much for your help!

You're welcome. Glad you got it worked out.

Snapshot to disk is almost ALWAYS going to give you a better pic than a snapshot saved directly to inventory.

This is because taking a snapshot to inventory forces it to a square 512 x 512 image, no matter how big your window was, or what proportions your window had. If you were running SL full-screen, or in a window that is not perfectly square, the image gets distorted.

But a snapshot to disk allows you to capture the entire window, at whatever size you choose, and at as many pixels as you can display, without distortion. You can then crop and rescale as desired for just the right effect.

There are some people who can set their window square, and do in-world snapshots with amazingly good results. Just like there are some people who can take a disposable grocery store camera and get results better than what most people could get with an expensive 35 mm or digital camera. But for most people, taking pics to disk and editing them there works much better. It's also cheaper. You can take as many as you like to disk, and it is free. Just pay to upload the edited ones you want to keep in-world.

Oh, I get what was happening now. Bastian, you'd been using Snapshot To Inventory? That would indeed explain the squishing.

I had assumed Snapshot To Disk was what was being used all along, since the title of the thread had the word "Photoshop" in it. One cannot Photoshop a snapshot one has not downloaded, after all.

Just so you know, if you'd rather go straight to inventory, just disable Constrain Proportions in the Snapshot Preview dialog. With that option unchecked, the image will crop instead of scale. You'll even be able to see the cropping in the preview dialog. This is most likely how your friend was doing it.

That said, don't do that. As Ceera said, it's much better to go to disk first, so you can edit properly, and then upload the finished image.