Backgrounds blurry in closeups

[Treycee Melody]

When taking closeup photos, my background, whatever it may be, appears blurry.  I use Firestorm 24880.  The size of my snapshot is set at 5000 x 2578, checked constrain proportions, image quality is 100 and on capture colors.  Suggestions on getting a clear background?

Thanks!

Trey Melody 

 

[Marigold Devin]

The only thing I can think of is that it's showing pictures with Depth of Field enabled. Go into preferences (cannot remember exactly where) and there's the option to add shadows and DoF.

For Phoenix/Firestorm-specific issues, it's always a good idea to pick the brains of the Phoenix/Firestorm viewer support group in world via the group chat (this group is listed in my profile if you aren't already joined to it).



[Lindal Kidd]

Marigold's probably got it.  Depth of field is a common artifact in photos produced by the lens.  Some lenses are made with a deliberately shallow depth of field (the distances from the lens between which objects are in sharp focus.)  Photographers use this effect all the time, to call attention to the main subject of the photo.  In movies, there is a technique called "pulling focus" that's used to change our point of attention.  The camera starts with a closeup on the hero.  We see something blurry moving in the background behind him.  Then the focus changes...the hero blurs and we see the villain aiming a pistol at the back of the hero's head.  We are so used to seeing it that digital world creators deliberately add it as a feature.

I find it great for photos, but distracting at other times, so I generally turn it off.  It's in your Preferences/Graphics settings.  Instead of turning it off completely (which also disables shadows) you may want to adjust the DOF settings, which you can also do.

ps - 5000x2578!  Your monitor probably doesn't even have that many pixels!  Bring it down some, you're wasting bandwidth and computing cycles on detail that isn't really there.

[Peggy Paperdoll]

If you have DoF enabled in your preferences the blurry background is exactly what you would expect.  I'm sure you've seen flower or insect closups where the bug or flower is in focus and the background is blurred (that's call macro photography and it's quite an art all in itself).  The technique utilizes DoF to get that dramatic and artistic image.  For most photography DoF plays some part in the image but not in a noticable way........you need to play with the settings to get it right for your needs (or desires).  Digital photography is not at all different than film photography in that regard....you have to know what is happening, why it's happening and how to use what's happening to your advantage.

Another thing you need to understand (which is somewhat different with digital photography from film photography,,,,,,thought the reasons are the same).  There are only so many pixels available for any image (camera, camcorder, or your monitor).  In almost every case your monitor has what is kown as it's "native resolution".  That's the maximum resolution your monitor can display presenting the best quality of the images it's displaying.  Anything under that resolution or anything over that resolution is going to give a somewhat degraded image (too much either above or below and it will degrade the image significantly).  That resolution is dictated by both your monitor and your video card....by default both the monitor and video card will set the resolution to the best quality image (you can manually change it if you want but you'll loose some quality).  The image you are taking in SL is a screenshot.  It's an image of what is displayed on you monitor which contains the pixels set by your monitor's native resolution (or whatever you manually set the resolution to).  Using my native resolution of 1920 x 1080 (since I run SL in a Window that works out for the screenshot of 1920 x 1028).  If I set my screenshot to 5000 x 2578 (as you say you have your's set at) then I'm setting a resolution just about 2 1/2 times the number of pixels available.  The image I save will be 5000 x 2578 pixels.  But for every 5 pixels in that saved image only 2 pixels where displayed or rendered by my video card.  That's 3 pixels that are averaged between the 2 that are really there.......you'll get a blurred looking image (just like you would if you enlarged an image to 2 1/2 times it's size).  Add that to your DoF and I do believe you would have a very bad looking background........and a not so good looking foreground either. 

Use your monitor's native resolution for the best possible SL photograph.