Snapshots

Hello people. Does anyone know how to take good snapshots? I'm already doing what I can - using Hi Res snapshots to disk, then resize in photoshop. But - the ugly jagged edges remain. Anyone have a good tip on how to take better snapshots?

Thanks,
Xylo

The snapshot is only going to be as good as the level of detail your graphics card displays on the screen. Otherwise maybe a little softening brush on those jagged edges? :^)

Dunno, Hope this helps I use Corel 10.

In Corel we have a "resample" feature which can be use to change resolution amongst other things.

It takes a bit of practice if you're doing snapshots without poses. Noon has best lighting too. Rest you may have to edit it.

Hi Xylo, are you on a Mac or Windows? I have a free little Mac program called ImageWell that I use to crop and resize before I use photoshop to adjust color and lighting levels. ImageWell is superfast, and can also be used to do quick conversions to other formats (it opens many, and saves to jpg, png, or tiff).

You can set the export size by percentage of the original or by pixel count. I usually find certain percentages (like 50%) give a sharper result, while others (say 43%) seem a little more soft focus, but this is only obvious to me when the photo is an avatar closeup.

And best of all, jaggies are gone!

Who-wha-huh?!! Noon has the best lighting?

You mean for landscapes or objects, but not avatars, right? Here's me at noon (on the left) and sunrise (on the right).


/me does not like looking like a cavewoman.

I don't know I was told noon was best but reccently I had something similar happen with my photo of my other alt. The person who told me makes her clothes, often does her own modeling and photoshoots. I am wondering if they changed lighting settings or if I am imagioning things. I had photo shot where things looked even darker for some odd reason.
That werid that sunrise would show your face much brighter. I took noon shot last week and it looked night perhaps it has too do with settings.

Make a note of any settings you change in case they slow down your system. It might be worth a temporary slow down anyway to get a good snapshot.

1. Preferences > "Advanced Graphics": Tick 'anisotropic filtering'. Assuming you have a good graphics card, this is enough to smooth ugly edges.
2. Preferences > "Graphics Detail": If the primary subject of your snapshot is an avatar or object, then consider increasing mesh detail sliders for these things.
3. Hold down Ctrl + Alt + D to enable 'Client' and 'Server' menus at the top of the screen. Select 'Hi-Res Snapshot' from the 'Client' menu.

Hi Ava,

I'm on Windows. I use Photoshop - does resizing to 50% really look better than resizing to less 'round' numbers?
I'm photographing furniture, with or without a posed avatar. Whatever I do, I still get the ugly jagged edges. I'd show you a picture, but I don't know how to upload an image to the forum. It doesn't seem to say in the FAQ.

Xylo

Agreed....sunrise or sunset gives the best images.

Noon snapshots remind me of that Seinfeld episode where Jerrys dating a woman that is always getting caught in the wrong light and looks hideous.

hehe

An oldie but a goodie tutorial...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZyBNBW2yjI

- Infrared

Face your avatar South and use sunset or sunrise, even add some local lighting. The higher the resolution of your screen + good GC with good rendering options, take a Hi-Res snapshot (in client menu) and adjust the pic in Photoshop/Fireworks/Paintshop using 'Levels' to gain good sharp rendering, resize using resampling, and apply 'Unsharp Masks' after colour balancing. If the pic at that stage is too 'stark', apply a controlled amount of blur to slightly soften the edges. Adjust shadows, midtones and hilights and you should have a great picture.

Easy eh?

If you take a series of pics, all at the same time, and like the results of the finished pic, save yourself some time and use history function to batch apply to all the pics (copies, just in case).

Here's what I do and yes, I use noon... but I have a shoot 'screen' (it's more like a box) that is set to be a light source. So, I get rid of the shadows under the eyes.

Also, if you are using full screen mode, make sure the snapshot is in your screen size. I found the jaggies happen when you use the 'default' size.

Marzipan (avatars first name, has a shop on Ethics Island) sells a device called Radiance. It brings better contrast to your face and neck for pic taking.

No, not noon. Try sunrise or sunset, instead, at least for portraits.

Also experiment with lighting and camera controls

Look up the Torley tutorials on photos.

Look at some of the shotsd on Snapzilla or the SL Flickr group. Maybe join them.

Practice.

Mari

Never, ever, EVER, nooooon! Yuckerooo!
Apart from the top of my head getting sunburnt, I'm the other 99% in shadow

Thanks, everyone, for your advice, some of which was pretty detailed. I will try everything (the only thing I had already tried was checking Anisotropic filtering, which did change my snapshots a little, in a strange way, but had no effect on the jagged edges.)

Going to be a lot of work! Ah well, taking endless snapshots of one's products is already long & tedious work...Not that I'm lazy. Oh no, not that.

I don't think we can upload here, just link to something (except your forum profile and av pix).

As for resizing and getting rid of jaggies: Different programs use different methods to resize images, so the results vary. One of the reasons I'm using ImageWell is that I don't always like the results when I shrink images in Photoshop.

In IW the results are very nice at nearly any percentage, and it gets rid of my SL hi-res pic jaggies at percentages as high as 70-90% (depending on the image). When sharp edges and clear focus are important (such as an av on a black background), I stick to the "fives"... 40%, 45%, 50%, and so on. If I instead define the size by pixel count (say 750px tall), the result is SOMETIMES a little soft-focus. But it's easy to remedy... just change the numbers a little and resave (it usually creates a new file, leaving the original untouched, so trying different variations does not degrade the image). The program is set up for quick and easy editing and exporting, so each time through takes just a few seconds.

None of which helps you on a Windows machine! Perhaps you can find some nice similar freeware for Windows using Version Tracker or another shareware web site.



Welcome to my Second Life!

Xylo, you're not wrong... there are a lot of things that can affect the appearance of a photograph, just like in RL, and then post-processing adds a whole new set of options. I'm just learning too, doing avatars as well as objects and landscapes, and they all have their different needs. If you ever feel like chatting about it inworld, just give me an IM.

P.S. The Client menu is the SL photographer's friend!

Thanks again, Ava. I'll try out all the advice, and in so doing I might take you up on your offer.

Xylo

Two options that I use for similar resizing issues.

Option 1) Apply a light Gaussian Blur to the image before resizing.
Option 2) Duplicated the image. Apply a heavy Gaussian Blur to the image before resizing copy 1. Resize Copy 2. Paste Image 1 onto image 2 and adjust the transparency of the pasted image until happy with the result.

After this manually blur or smudge areas that still look a touch to jagged.

Well, it's tricky, Casc. I want the jagged edges to disappear, but because I want to show off the furniture I make, I want the photo to preserve as much detail as possible - blurring would be counterproductive.

I use Gaussian Blur option in photoshop filters to get rid of jagged edges, and to repair poor avatar joints in poses I just use retuching by brush. I have played about with manipulating lighting and usually i brighten the colours and increase contrast - but only slightly.