Photoshopped Pics not matching items sold

Hey, Alan, I use the shots with the effects in place. The snapshots don't show the contrasts I WANT to customer to see. The fact that it's a prim wig over AV hair must be stressed.

But later today, I'll go back and see if I can plop an actual NPC mannequin in the store. That's as far as I'll bend. Making displays doesn't feel tedious when I can Lash them up a bit.

I'm thankful at all I have clothes to wear. Some avs have to make do with cardboard boxes and duct tape, ya know!

I photoshop the crap out of everything since SL's graphics suck.

kthxbye

Aimee... that was beautiful. I needed the laugh.

Here are some examples of the pics that I place on my items and clothes. What I do is take the picture in a green box, take the snapshot,delete the background and put the pic in my frame. Sometimes the lighting and shadows makes an outfit or item look darker than it really is. In that case is when I adjust it to look like the actual item. I have only posted on the forums one revamped photo, and in that situation the header for the picture was "Some photoshop goodness" and even in that picture, the outfit looks pretty much the same (dark outfits tend to not show the details in the snapshots with my video card).

So far the only time I have had to refund any money was with a Ryohhki, because the player didn't like that it was set to no mod.

Also, a snapshot of something on a boxed item that is made of prims, like furniture, shoes, handbags and even prefab houses, appears to smooth the prims. This isn't trickery, just the nature of how SL works. Primy things always look better in a snapshot.

I buy a lot of things. Thats not really practical. It's the low cost things that really are the problem. They add up.



Mistress, if I did that, I would quickly become banned from all of your stores. I would be labeled "the woman who returns things." I buy a tremendous amount of clothing. About half the time it goes into the "bad clothing" folder, never to be worn again. Hey, I'm picky, I'll admit that. If I could see what I'm buying, this wouldn't be a problem

The latest item that I was not happy with was a pair of jeans. Photoshopping wasn't the issue; they had very bad side seams that weren't shown in the picture. The picture looked fine and was not altered. It was just carefully taken at an angle that didn't show the problem.

So sellers, do I really get to return half the stuff I buy--maybe up to 4 or 5 items a month? Is that really ok? If I can, I will probably buy even more of your stuff.

You know my partner has already responded on how we do our stuff, To be honest is a simple 2 minute process for each one as it takes longer to download and upload the pic than it does to overlay our logo on the pic.

But something people haven't considered not everyone uses photoshop and has all those elegant filters and such to create this non-standard off reality in SL.

Granted a base line SL photo doesnt do justice to a clothing article but I assure you those that have lower graphics cards could care less about the "Bling" Bling that a product has on the photoshopped images when it doesnt show up in the clothes.

I stand in aw at times where I see people have done extreme efforts to photoshop a set of graphics to make a sale.

I dunno if its me being Lazy or what but I don't have time to sit there and finesse a photo just to get a sale to me its about creating something people wanna wear in the first place.

Kinda look at my stuff like Wysiwyg nothing better than having a customer IM you and tell you "wow this actually looks better than the box pic thank you for the great bargain".

I think the most expensive clothing Item we have throughout JJW is maybe 250 but thats only if I missed a Leather Bomber Vendor somewhere. Currently Most of our stuff is 200 or waaay less in clothes mind you. Skins are a different issue entirely.

I think the big thing is most of the clothes are ripped from RL pictures totaly. I wont lie I used to do it a lot when I was first learning. I had some hidious shirts out there when I did too. Since then I have reverted to using basic square textures that dont relate to anything and creating hand made embelishments through subsequent imagery such as taking a gold relief and making a Necklac out of it in SL.

Or hand painting a base garment and then adding a sub texture to create the garment and manually adding shading latter. But these are all things I learned and I am still learning. My first totaly RL free clothing was the Spider outfits I made. Since then I have made others. I get Ideas from RL but I for the most part wont use a RL pic anymore to accomplish my goals in clothing.

Why? Because, finding decent clothing that have the pixel quality needed to create a decent non-look like you slapped a RL pic on a template stuff is hard to find. So my Creations are my own, The Pics are Wysiwyg and the prices are cheap cause I generally do it for fun anyway.

But to Echo the sentiment of the other designers. If you have a problem with an Item of mine you can IM me I wont bite and sometimes well my customers know what the sometimes means.... But anyway, I digress and still sit in aw at those that "HAVE" photoshop and have the ability to make pics look so kewl.

For those that want to know what I use. I use Paint Shop Pro 9 as does Pahoa and Crimson.

Thank you for your time and Patience in reading this.

Sincerely, Shadow Weaver

It's okay with me, Kim It doesn't do me any good to have stuff sitting in your "stuff I never wear" folder. I'd much rather have you wearing stuff and loving it so that people will ask "ooh, I love that. Where did you get it?" If you buy anything from me please don't ever hesitate to return something you're not completely happy with. Honest.

Basically what Chip said but here is the secret about it all. You do that we figure out your taste and we start creating things that you won't return and then your at the point of OMG I have all these cloths lets see if I can rotate through them all in one night...if they will rez quickly enough..hehe.

But yeah dont hesitate to IM.

Shadow

Aimee, that was hysterical and unexpected. You rock.

In my case, I will photoshop a background in (like putting my model on the Great Wall of China), but the actual avatar and clothing remains untouched. I have a low-end graphics card, so what you see is about as bad as it can get (I hope).

That said, I agree with the other designers here -- anyone who has a serious problem should speak up and ask for a fix or a refund.

That's very interesting -- Nephelaine does Photoshop her images quite a bit and although the quality of her clothing is jaw-dropping, it is a bit hard to discern what's Photoshopped and what's not (many designers do this; sorry to single you out) -- if the avatar itself, and everything around the clothes including the background, is Photoshopped, how is the customer supposed to be able to tell that the clothing is NOT retouched? Nephelaine has a good reputation and oodles of skills, which is why she is so successful and why in her case it does not matter.

I suppose the point here is that you don't want to scare off customers by making them think that the picture has been concealing flaws even if you're being completely honest about the clothing itself. I admire Ambyance2 Anubis's ads -- they show movement and the pictures aren't TOO Photoshopped.

Here are some of my pictures -- I took the pictures of the model using a light gray background and then stuck them on pictures I took of other locations in SL (including Living Cities and some of Lordfly's South Grignano land). I think I added too much noise which makes the clothes seem grainy. Oh well.

Ya I would ban your ass from my store.

KIDDING! I would refund your money Kim. But after a while I WOULD wonder why you keep buying my stuff as the quality from item to item is roughly the same. After the 4th return you would pretty much know what you are getting from *PREEN*.

Ok, maybe I should suggest something that seems utterly obvious and if there is actually a good reason for it not being done, then I'd like to hear it but.....

Has anyone thought to doing what most skin designers do, making a test pattern that people can buy for $L1, but have "Test" or "Demo" or "OMGWTFLOL!!!1!1" written over it, not enough to mask the design of the outfit, but enough to make it worth buying the real things to remove it?

It would only cost probably 10 minutes of Photoshop work, 1 prim for a vender, and L$10-L$100 depending on how many pieces there are, and most would make that up that cost easily, and in 99% of the cases, you'd know for sure what you were getting, regardless of how Photoshopped a box was.

Just wondering why this hasn't been done yet, or if there is a good reason for it not to be done, or if everyone is just that lazy.

Yes, we are that lazy.

You know Nala, I have been actually thinking about it a while and when Torrid reminded me earlier with her statement about the same thoughts I kept asking myself why I hadn't yet. Especially considering I have done it with my skins already. I guess the big thing is a lot of people really dont like the Prim vendors IE one that has 100 Items in it for you to cycle through to save on prims. Now Imagine that same vendor with a sample of each article...OMG they would be there for a hour just cycling through.

However, I am seriously considering it on this aspect now.

Most of my vendors are based on one Design of sorts made in multiple colors not tinted in SL. Maybe If I made a vendor that had a primary of each style in it to give a guide line that would be acceptable than making 800 additional boxes to go in our vendors.

So I am keeping that in mind.

Shadow

Lazy is part of it.

Doubling prim count is another big part of it. Say I have 100 boxes and 10 stores. My prim usage will go from 1000 to 2000 in one swell foop.

On top of the "just add another box" request, there are also those that feel it would be easy to sell a "No copy, Yes transfer" AND a "Yes copy, No transfer" version of any item I make. Yes, it would be easy, but now I am up to 3000 boxes.

While this is certainly a big issue, I haven't had enough complaints regarding box photos OR privs to justify the effort or prims.

I use photoshop and poses to make good looking box art. Aside from that the imgae is exactly how it was shot in the world albeit croped. I too agree that if someone is not happy with an item they should not hesitate to call up the creator and voice their concerns. Just kinda echoing others sentements here, and showing off my box art as well. This was an interesting read, very insightfull.

Granted, I don't care for them that much either, but for those who use them, adding a box that was linked to the main one that cycled through the demo outfits along with cycling through the main ones, that was my original thought on it.

For the box venders, like Neph and Mistress and others use, a possible solution might be eating the cost of a demo, by having the box have a touch script in it. Touch the box and it gives you a demo. Buy the box and it gives you the outfit.

Again, I haven't sold a thing ever, so not sure if this is feasible techincally, but again, I'm just spewing forth ideas to make clothing shopping better. I know there are several outfits in my inventory, even some from Neph (Sorry hun. Love *most* of your stuff ), that I either couldn't tell what parts were what due to lighting or from angles (since I'm very picky about seams and that never gets shown in pics), and only found out afterwards that there were parts I couldn't see that looked horrid.

Not such a bad idea Nala. Another idea would be to take all of our outfits and stuff the demos in ONE box. A catalog if you will. The catalog can be distributed for free to everybody/anybody so they can try stuff on at their leisure. And when they want a watermark-free copy of an item they can go buy it.

I will think about some ideas for this, but we haven't overcome the "LAZY" problem yet.

LMAO, you know I though of something stupid...Imagine all the designers go through make "Watermarked" Clothing with "Sample" or "Test Only" or some other short burb to annotate it was a sample clothing article.

Then its either passed out for free or sold for 1-10 lindens each and boom a whole new clothing wave of...hey I got a JJW_SAMPLER Polo what do you have ....Oh I got a Preen Jumpsuit...we would end up like Fila and Gucci...LOL

Then their friend walks up...Hmmmpfff a Real JJW doesnt have that on it...and turns nose up in the air and drowns...LOL.

Shadow

Kim I would never EVER ban you for returning something, you're entitled to be happy with something. Designers are customers as well... and I totally know what you mean i can't STAND seams.. honestly I buy a lot of things..find a seam and then can never wear them ..I guess it's my bad too, because I don't always point it out.. just make a mental note of who it is that didn't take the time to put in a seam..and don't shop there again.

On your last statment, yes, you can buy and return as many items as you are unhappy with, I personally always offer to fix the problem first..incase you'd like it 'if not for one flaw' but if it's just not what you wanted.. it's not what you wanted. and that's totally fine.

That's a really great idea actually
Would this lag more though.. consider that umber has about 10 clothing stores in it.. if every box had a touch script..
I'm not a scripter.. so I'm not being difficult this is an honest question

Lash has this I believe and it works quite well... I was able to try on all her items before buying.

I could start doing that from here on out.. but I don't still have all of the textures to re-make demo versions of everything.
For now what I can do is change permissions to *Modify, *Transfer, *No Copy
so that if there is an issue returns can be easy.

I think you can get medication for swollen foops. This is why I don't have demo versions of clothing. I'd either have to double the prims I use for displays (which is more an issue of wall space than the prims themselves) or use scripts. Sell contents is so nice, simple, and convenient that I'd hate to have to complicate it.