How does your avatar look today ?

[Saravendi]

10 hours ago, Catrie said:

I’m not sure exactly what I love 💕 about this photo... maybe everything! That dress... OMG! The wrap, fur? Wow 😮! The tonal quality, the snow ❄️... love it 🥰 

can you post credits? Or pvt email me through the forum.

~ Sara

[BelindaN]

^^^^^^^^^^The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe...........That's what it looks like.

[Orwar]

5 hours ago, Saravendi said:

So... there was obvious pent up photographic tech just waiting in the wings to ooze out into the forum! Great stuff. But,  I seriously didnt know 1/2 of what you guys are talking about?

q: what viewers are you all using?

q: ctrl 0-8?

am I missing something? Why wouldn’t you simply frame your image and screen shoot it. You basically get what you see Except no play with DOF. If I want that effect, I blur my background in PS... 1-make a duplicate layer, (cntrl J), 2- apply glossian blur, 3- mask the subject and 4- erase the area masked in my duplicate blurred layer... lol!  However, I wound love to understand more..., just email me within this forum. 

   A: Firestorm.
   A: Ctrl-0 and Ctrl-8 are used to zoom. If you look at Angelina's example you'll notice the first picture appears compressed and warped; this is called a 'fisheye' effect. Here's an extreme example of what it would look like if you stood at the base of the Eiffel tower and could see the whole thing. I don't know if you can get quite that high an FOV in SL. 

   As for what you can do with Photoshop or other photo editors (personally I use Gimp) - I always fix my seams, the neck seam between my mesh heads and mesh bodies is the primary one, but sometimes I wear HD ears and because the bump maps are different they require quite a lot of work to blend with my face's skin. Then there's fixing clipping - again, ears with certain hairs (I've re-built ears essentially from scrap using the facial skin as my palette with some hairstyles and a reference photo for shape and size), shoulders in any pose where your upper arms are held too high (the joint will 'implode' - again, I've rebuilt shoulders from scrap to deal with such. I do have a photo comparing before and after -somewhere- but, uh, I've got 'a few' photos and folders to go through to find it!), hair alphas messing with clothes (either fill out the hair if that makes sense, or repair the clothing behind it. Always try to avoid this if possible because doing a good job of it can take a lot of time and effort - and the whole point of doing it is that no one SHOULD notice that it has been tampered with). Skirts clipping with legs, likewise, I've had to rebuild entire thighs in some cases. 
   Then there's the focus blurring and personally I hate working with Firestorm's DoF sliders, so for portraits I do just the same as you do - however, sometimes you've got more than two visible depths in your shot, luckily I prefer doing portraits and generally don't have to worry about it, but there have been shots where I've had to work with 3 or even 4 masks, layers and blur settings.

   I also like to play around with contrasts, highlights, shading, toning, saturation, and so forth - I like to get a fairly bright picture out of SL to work with, as it's easier to pick out details that needs to be edited before I bring it down to 'my' pallet. If you look at my portfolio you'll find that the vast majority of the shots have a low saturation, a pale highlight and a dark tone - that's just a style that I enjoy working with and it reflects me well as a person, the pictures I put up in my SL home look like they fit in very well with the aesthetics I've gone with. Others prefer brightness and pastels and plump, soft shades for their subjects, and you can just as easily achieve those effects. Also, unless you're comfortable working in a world quite literately turned on its side, it's the best way to deal with mirrors (the only other option - as far as I know at least - being to use SL water with a mirror water WL) - such as this:

   This was achieved by taking the shot with a green-screen in the mirror's frame, and the wall being invisible from the other side - I lit the scene, took my shot, moved my camera view to the other side of the wall and took a second shot, which then was cut into the mirror frame. 
   Another thing that I like to play around with is making 'old timey photos', and the in-world photo filters may be decent enough but I want more than just sepia. Like this shot, which has been stained, dirtied, received a very sharp noise, faded edges and instead of a full sepia it retains some of the original colour (the green cravat and leaves for example) - not for the sake of trying to recreate a realistic 19thC photography (although if that's something you wanted, I'd highly suggest photo editing instead of using the sepia filter in-world), but to create a picture which is inspired by it and lends elements from it, but is sort of its own thing.

   But in the end, it's up to you how little or much you want to edit. Whatever appeals to you, go for it!

[Catrie]

25 minutes ago, Saravendi said:

I’m not sure exactly what I love 💕 about this photo... maybe everything! That dress... OMG! The wrap, fur? Wow 😮! The tonal quality, the snow ❄️... love it 🥰 

can you post credits? Or pvt email me through the forum.

~ Sara

Thanks so much!!  I'm happy you love it!!  I'm really loving gowns with flexi skirts, as I love trying to capture the movement of the dresses.  I don't use poses a lot, I use my AO, so I can try to capture the flowiness of the dresses

Here are my credits.

Hair: eXxEsS – Cinnamon
Dress: Azul – Sophie
Boots: Blueberry – Celia
Fur Stole: T.Whore – Sexy Fur Stole – White
Jewelry: EarthStones- Snowfall Necklace, Circlet and Tiara
Makeup: AlaskaMetro – “Noelle” makeup palette
Taken At: Footprints in the Snow

Edited December 21, 2018 by Catrie

[Kia Kiyori]

Whoops - forgot to put the info in the other thread

Hair: TRUTH ~ Aislin

Jacket: Blueberry ~ Kimi

Skin: Colivati Beauty ~ Tanya (LeLutka)

Body: Maitreya Lara

Edited December 21, 2018 by AnyaJurelle

[Gareth Kanarik]

[Sagadin]

28 minutes ago, AnyaJurelle said:

Whoops - forgot to put the info in the other thread

Hair: TRUTH ~ Aislin

Jacket: Blueberry ~ Kimi

Skin: Colivati Beauty ~ Tanya (LeLutka)

Body: Maitreya Lara

Wow! what an amazing photo!

[Sagadin]

You've all just turned it up to 11!

Here's me with a cold butt.

 

[Kia Kiyori]

17 minutes ago, Sagadin said:

You've all just turned it up to 11!

Here's me with a cold butt.

 

Yeah 'butt' you've got a ciggy to help keep you warm  Love this pic!

[Panteleeva]

enjoy mr shower

[Claireschen Hesten]

thinking about putting up some festive decorations

[Scylla Rhiadra]

Ok, so I've been using Myra Wildmist's suggested settings for DoF for a while now. (In fact, I have them saved on a notecard along with other steps to setting up a shot). I have two related questions I'll throw out there to anyone working with the FS Phototools settings.

1) Suppose you want to simulate using an 85mm lens for a "close-up." So, you set View Angle to 0.497, FoV to 28.5, Foc Length to 85, and f-number to a value between 1.4 and 16 (I usually use 9). BUT you want to get in closer with the shot.

Ignoring for a moment any other factors, is it a more accurate simulation of the lens to use the mouse wheel / camera tools slider to move in closer, and NOT change the View Angle? Or should I Ctrl + 0 to get in tighter to produce a more realistic simulation of the lens? AND IF I DO THE LATTER, do I also reset FoV, Foc Length, and f-number?

2) I understand the theoretical difference between FoV, Foc Length, and f-number, as well as the function of the Circle of Confusion setting. In practice, however, playing with all of these seems to produce exactly the same effect: increasing or reducing the amount of blur in the out-of-focus areas.

Is there an actual, real, discernible difference between these when it comes to fiddling with the DoF for the pic????? Cuz I'm darned if I can see any.

Thanks, O Photo Gurus!

[Laika Ravikumar]

[Laika Ravikumar]

[Alyona Su]

At my perch readying for the big snowball fight.

Snow-Bazooka locked-and-loaded...

...on the lookout for any and all Lindens, with @Patch Linden at the top of my list because I don't see any SLRR tracks on the SSP regions being built.

[Kia Kiyori]

46 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Ok, so I've been using Myra Wildmist's suggested settings for DoF for a while now. (In fact, I have them saved on a notecard along with other steps to setting up a shot). I have two related questions I'll throw out there to anyone working with the FS Phototools settings.

1) Suppose you want to simulate using an 85mm lens for a "close-up." So, you set View Angle to 0.497, FoV to 28.5, Foc Length to 85, and f-number to a value between 1.4 and 16 (I usually use 9). BUT you want to get in closer with the shot. I don't use a lot of numbers. It makes my head hurt. And I don't worry about simulating anything except getting some realistic blur happening in the background. Whatever point you want to focus on so you have blur in your background, all you need to worry about is getting your camera closer to the object you want to snap, than the background is to the object - if that makes sense?

Then I crank graphics up to ultra and go into phototools > DoF/Glow tab, tick 'Enable Depth of Field (DoF), then tick 'Show the Current FOV of Viewer Screen' (then look down to the very bottom right of your screen to note the number it's showing you - make sure to untick the 'Show current FOV' box up top again so you don't go to all the hard work of setting up a shot only to have the FOV number displaying in the snapshot, ruining your pic).

Type that number in the FOV box below, then simply click your cursor inside the number field of the 'f-number' box for it to take effect.

With me so far?

Ok. Take a look through the camera to see what your background looks like. Not happy with it? Fiddle with the Foc Length slider and the CoC slider but be careful if you move the f-number slider too far to the left if you're going to move the Foc Length and CoC sliders to the right, or you could find yourself crashing, but it will help to increase the camera resolution by 3 x once you're happy with the blur you see through the camera.

Final note: it helps to exaggerate what you see through the camera because then it usually comes out just right in the final photo, even though it will look horribly overdone through the lens.

Ignoring for a moment any other factors, is it a more accurate simulation of the lens to use the mouse wheel / camera tools slider to move in closer, and NOT change the View Angle? Or should I Ctrl + 0 to get in tighter to produce a more realistic simulation of the lens? AND IF I DO THE LATTER, do I also reset FoV, Foc Length, and f-number?

I only use ctrl 0 and ctrl 8, no mouse wheelies. I don't reset anything until after I've taken a pic.

2) I understand the theoretical difference between FoV, Foc Length, and f-number, as well as the function of the Circle of Confusion setting. In practice, however, playing with all of these seems to produce exactly the same effect: increasing or reducing the amount of blur in the out-of-focus areas. I've no idea. I'm no theorist. If I like what I see after I've fiddled as mentioned above, then I take a pic. Just have a play with the controls. It's the best way to learn how to use the FS Phototools at your disposal. I think they're pretty dang brilliant, myself (don't tell Whirly, please - she'll get a big head).

Is there an actual, real, discernible difference between these when it comes to fiddling with the DoF for the pic????? Cuz I'm darned if I can see any. As mentioned, just have a play with the controls. It's the best way to learn what things do and the effects they create. I've shared what I do - it's pretty simple and basic - and please believe me when I tell you I'm no distant relative of Einstein's.

Thanks, O Photo Gurus!

Hope that helps some

[Coby Foden]

56 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Ok, so I've been using Myra Wildmist's suggested settings for DoF for a while now. (In fact, I have them saved on a notecard along with other steps to setting up a shot). I have two related questions I'll throw out there to anyone working with the FS Phototools settings.

1) Suppose you want to simulate using an 85mm lens for a "close-up." So, you set View Angle to 0.497, FoV to 28.5, Foc Length to 85, and f-number to a value between 1.4 and 16 (I usually use 9). BUT you want to get in closer with the shot.

Ignoring for a moment any other factors, is it a more accurate simulation of the lens to use the mouse wheel / camera tools slider to move in closer, and NOT change the View Angle? Or should I Ctrl + 0 to get in tighter to produce a more realistic simulation of the lens? AND IF I DO THE LATTER, do I also reset FoV, Foc Length, and f-number?

2) I understand the theoretical difference between FoV, Foc Length, and f-number, as well as the function of the Circle of Confusion setting. In practice, however, playing with all of these seems to produce exactly the same effect: increasing or reducing the amount of blur in the out-of-focus areas.

Is there an actual, real, discernible difference between these when it comes to fiddling with the DoF for the pic????? Cuz I'm darned if I can see any.

Thanks, O Photo Gurus!

• Ctrl+0/Ctrl+8/Ctrl+9 will change the view angle
- - these are equivalent to the zoom feature in real camera, i.e. real camera lens length

• Mouse wheel scrolling changes the camera distance from the subject (works exactly the same way as the Alt+cam feature)
- - it does not change any of the DoF settings (view angle, FOV, f-number, Foc Length)

• f-number works like in real camera

• Foc Length tells what lens length to simulate for the depth of field (DoF) effect
- - bigger numbers produce narrower depth of field (NOTE: this is not the same as real camera lens length it's just a simulation for the DoF effect)

[Talligurl]

There has been some talk her e of late about gowns, and wedding dresses, which got me to wondering if I could still fit into mine,  so I got it out tried it on and of course had to go  visit the church I got married in. This isn't exactly how I looked,  since the shape, skin, head and hair are all different than on the day of the event.

[TatianaNikolay]

This is from last night when my sister popped on when I was in my photo work space. 

[BelindaN]

5 minutes ago, Talligurl said:

There has been some talk her e of late about gowns, and wedding dresses, which got me to wondering if I could still fit into mine,  so I got it out tried it on and of course had to go  visit the church I got married in. This isn't exactly how I looked,  since the shape, skin, head and hair are all different than on the day of the event.

Stop that right now...........I can't shake off the urge for a wedding gown. I just don't want to get married, although I know a guy who would tomorrow!!!!!

[BelindaN]

So this is me and my forum friend, @Laika Ravikumar at Franks yesterday. I only managed one photo...........This is how you avoid being hit on.................

Franks is OK, a but laggy, but most Avis seem to just stand around. Maybe the air is buzzing with IMs...............

I go straight on the dance floor when I get there..........

 

[ForrestChild]

[Kia Kiyori]

@Talligurl It's a gorgeous gown and a lovely photo, Talli!

[Sagadin]

Pure Windlight and Firestorm lighting,  otherwise cropped only! It's nice when it all comes together inworld... 

[Orwar]

   So this... Started with Cat suggesting I do a Christmas shot. And uh... Well, things happened. My creative process is occasionally a bit awkward and quite thoroughly twisted.