Your Advise Please :)

[Tempest Rosca]

Hola!   Two questions for you - am hoping you can help because am getting a little frustrated and I'm sure there is a really easy solution.

I love taking pictures in SL - and whilst am far, far from being as good as lots here - i really find it rewarding and enjoy taking picture most days - however, I seem to be having issues with my shadows.   Whilst am working in my studio - which is in the sky - the shadows usually work perfectly however there are times when whatever WL i work which, the shadows don't seem to be very defined - ie, they are subtle when they sometimes can be fabulously unique the following day!!    The real problem comes when i got out and about and take pics in different locations and on different sims - I can't seem to get shadows to work properly at all - the WL changes, however, when i used phototools >edit Sky> and slide the Est Ang and the Day sliders,,,any changes (if any at all) are really really subtle - am finding this amazingly frustrating.   

My graphic are on ultra and my computer seems to handle lag really well - it's a good spec so I've been told - so am unsure why I've just started experiencing this issue.     Also the pics I take inworld on my screen, don't seem to rely as well when i save to disk (4000 wide,,higher sometimes, PNG,) and DOF also don't come across in my pics when I take them in world 

Am unsure if this is all related - but am hoping one of your fabby people could help.   Am happy to skype and share screen so that you can see what am talking about - am just at my wits end :( 

Also - and I can imagine this has been posted her before - but could someone send me a link to how best to tweak my graphic card to take the best quality pictures - details of my card/computer below:

 

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2630QM CPU @ 2.00GHz (1995.53 MHz)

Memory: 8107 MB

OS Version: Microsoft Windows 7 64-bit Service Pack 1 (Build 7601)

Graphics Card Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation

Graphics Card: GeForce GT 555M/PCIe/SSE2

 

Thanking you in advance - feel free to contact me here or in world or via email (tempestrocsa@gmail.com)

Tempe <3 

[MIstahMoose]

Try using another viewer made for photos Just a quick google search brings me up one "Nirans" And it has a video that has some NICE graphic settings. I might even try it. Other than that if you're setting it to the highest it can go and not having any issues with lag it ends up not being the card but rather just the limits of your viewer. Note that a lot of SL photography also ends up being a lot of post-processing as well. (IE Taking a picture of an avatar with a pure white background, deleting the background and setting a different one into it, using dropshadow on the avatar to cast a shadow of it )

[Jackson Redstar]

The issue is more the sun time of day, and the color/intesity of the sun and ambient

 

a sun between 11-1pm is almost straight over head and east angle won't change it much. use early morning or late after noon sun

then, you need to make sure the sun and ambient are balanced to give you the shadow darkness you desire. increasing sun brightness (brightness in this case mean picking a color closer to the white end) and decreasing ambient brightness will make darker shadows, and vica versa. you want to play with those 2 settings to find the right balance

also keep in mind how your subject is positioned E, W, N and S will also affect how the sun can be positioned for shadows