Photo help...

Hi everyone...I'm trying to figure out how to take pictures in sl and add backgrounds, text etc..in photoshop, does anyone have any ideas where i could start or a good tutorial?? thanks!!

www.good-tutorials.com is one of the best sites out there for Photoshop tutorials.

The easiest way to take pictures in SL with the intention of adding a different background is to create a sort of photo platform. What I do is make a sort of open light box (in the picture below, it's actually an open cylinder instead of a box) or platform that I can position my avatar inside while I take pictures; use a blank background for the box that is set to white color and select "light" from the prim types. This way I have a clean white background that can easily be selected with the Magic Wand Tool in Photoshop, then erased, to add whatever background I want behind it.

Also, it's best to position your avatar so he/she is facing the "sun," or the light source at any given time in SL. To get consistent "natural" light in SL, before snapping the pic, I hit alt-n (which makes the sun rise to the highest point in the sky if you have the Debug Menu present, which can be activated by hitting control-alt-shift-D), then turn my avatar until the light is brightest on whatever part of her I want to snap a photo of.

Once you have your picture with the white background erased, you can add whatever you want in new layers (Layer-New-Layer). Then you can arrange the layers how you want them by dragging and dropping in the little Layers tab, or go Layer-Arrange and change their position that way.

Here's a couple pics of how I do this and a final pic with a very simple new background layer (I did this very fast this morning so the images are rough and not very well cleaned-up , but I hope you can get the general idea):

thanks so much that helped alot!!