What do you use?

[JezzebellWest]

Hey all! I've recently decided to jump in to the photography scene. I'm a beginner, so I figured I'd see what many of you talented people of the community have been using.

I personally use Photoshop. With no special brushes as of yet.

So what do you use? Any certain brushes or techniques?

 

(Tell me if this needs to be moved.. Not honestly sure.)

[Tamara Artis]

Nice topic, I wish there are more like this

Personally I also use Photoshop and SAI. As for brushes... it depends of what I need, in PS I have added tons of them but use only few... My basic hair brush has three dots and I can do everything with that. For tiny hairs I use one px brush - basic one. 

And for SAI I have followed some tips on Deviantart that explain how to adjust your brushes to get what you need, I also use it for hairs and some painting, what I like about it is that it mixes the colors right there on your canvas, it kinda looks like real life painting! 

I'm not sure what techniques are you interested in? Mine is picky technique lol

[Buttacwup Float]

I use Picmonkey almost exclusively. It is a little more point and click and I am not very good with PS. It gets the job done. I do occasionally use gimp for very specific ideas/effects.

[Klytyna]

Photography in SL, there's basically TWO things you can use, the viewers built in 'snapshot feature with 'save to disk' option, or you can run a third party screenshot capture thing, but that wont remove all your huds automatically like the snapshot feature.

 

 

What you appear to be asking is what 2d image butchery software do people use AFTER they take a picture for gratuitous abuse with Layerz(tm), Brushz(tm) and Tubez(tm). These days that's going to be Adumby Photosnop, or Corhell Paint or Gimp for most people, as thats pretty much the whole market.

There's still a few of us old die hard Paint Shop Pro 7 users around though, even if we don't indulge in image abuse and 2d butchery that much (who needs to, seriously).
 

[Talligurl]

I use Gimp, and some other simple free programs designed to do the one thing I do with pictures, turn them into paintings or at least images that look like paintings. My RL budget does not allow me to invest money into software to play around in SL. 

 

[Chase01]

I use Photoshop for my post work. I do have tons of specialized brushes and other things but a majority of it I don't use all the time. In your post you didn't mention if you were new or experienced with Photoshop so this may not necessarily apply to you but for anyone else newer to that platform I wouldn't worry too much about bushes and all that other stuff. I will generally get what I need when I do have a need. The more resources you have ultimately makes it that much harder to keep track of what you do have. That is just my personal opinion though.

There are tons of other programs out there to do post work but PS is going to give you a lot more control over the end result.

I'd also like to say that I agree with Tamara. I wish there were more threads like this!

 

[JezzebellWest]

I'm glad to see that there are some likeminded people here. I'm still more of a beginner/hobbyist when it comes to PS, so.. I don't use special brushes myself, because most of the time I focus on the SL filters and do touch ups with PS, with the occasional art project. I'm still practicing though, so.

[Nikolai Warden]

Lately, given the advent of mesh avatars and clothing, post processing is minimal for me, and more often is limited to cropping, resizing and adding a bit of a frame. If someone wants a fantasy or heavily edited effect to a portrait, I use GIMP and for more gimmicks with fancy frames and the like, I will occasionally use picmonkey. Photokey8Pro is good if I am photographing a subject in front of a green screen and wish to effortlessly remove the subject and add to a background.  I have two graphics settings I use when taking photos in SL, one for landscapes and one for portraits, and I find using the appropriate settings and choosing a good windlight is all that is necesssary. Before fussing about with post processing, explore poses and camera angles and take your time to set up a shot, and you will find very little, if any editing is necessary after the fact.

[SAULGOODiE]

Just wanted to drop this into the pot for all you artists/photographers 

Google Nik Collection has been free since last year, it's a great collection of free Photo Editing tools for quick color adjusting, film effects, and much more. Not nearly as versatile as Adobe programs, or even free programs such as GIMP, HOWEVER the great thing about these tools is there is little-to-no learning curve. It's almost criminal how easy it is to apply simple adjustments. If you're just looking for minor photo adjustments as opposed to full-on editing, it might be worth looking into. 

I personally use a combination of Photoshop and various Nik processes for my photos.