Is there a way to make my Catalog images clearer?

[Laylienna]

Hiya Again. So many questions! Anyway, I need to know how to make my catalog images clearer. I sharpened it in Gimp, I've done the recommended size, I've also gone smaller, and 1024X1024. How do people get there images so clear? Am I doing something wrong? Please help. :) Thanks!

 

-> Take a look at the blurr. 

https://marketplace.secondlife.com/stores/138012

 

~Willow

[Rolig Loon]

What blur?  Those images look fine to me.  Do not try to upload 1204 x 1024 textures, BTW.  512x512 is quite detailed enough.

[Peggy Paperdoll]

What I see in the images is that it's very obvious that you sharpened the images.......in fact it looks like you used the "unsharp mask" filter instead of the "sharpen" filter.  The sharpen filter, in my experience, is not a good filter to use to clean up an image (it really just intensifies any flaw or blurriness in an image).  It may be that the images were saved in a lossy format somewhere along the line from taking the shot and your final uploaded image.  When you take the picture in SL, save it to your hard drive (not inventory).  You are given options for the format to save the image to......choose a lossless format such as BMP (for Windows machines), PNG, or TGA.  Never save to JPEG.  Then, as you, edit your image in GIMP never save to any format other than the format you want to upload to or GIMP's native format XCF (which is the best way to save incase you need to edit the image later).  Do all your "clean-up" before you size the image for upload (especially if you are increasing the image size due to cropping)  I always work at the original size and I only resize or crop at the final stage just before saving to my choice of upload format (TGA is my first choice and PNG is my second........never do I upload anything at JPEG).

I found that using the "Hue/Saturation"  and "Brightness/Contrast" filters do a good job of "cleaning up" an image.  Just make the changes in very small increments.  Sometimes selective sharpening will help but most of the time it does not (at least that's been my experience).