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How do photographers make their pictures so crisp!?


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I’ve been wanting to try photography a bit more in SL. However, I don’t really want to buy a subscription for photoshop right now due to money.

I’ve toyed with firestorm’s filters and some free online editors, but they never come out as clear and detailed like the ones I see on Instagram.
 

At most I get my pic to look mostly clear with a nice soft blend .

Any advice?

thanks!

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Give Gimp a whirl, it comes with a bunch of filters nowadays (courtesy of G'MIC), it's free and pretty darn good. I use it each time i need to edit an image and I have had some good results with Gimp and its filters.
Download at https://www.gimp.org/downloads/
BTW, Another way to make things crisp is to take the pic at a very high resolution (larger than your screen) and work with that. 

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3 hours ago, JPG0809 said:

I’ve been wanting to try photography a bit more in SL. However, I don’t really want to buy a subscription for photoshop right now due to money.

I’ve toyed with firestorm’s filters and some free online editors, but they never come out as clear and detailed like the ones I see on Instagram.
 

At most I get my pic to look mostly clear with a nice soft blend .

Any advice?

thanks!

Most of the photographers that take extraordinary screenshots -- as in the top SL magazines -- take them at VERY high resolutions, like 10,000 pixels wide and then resize. They also have top of the line computers and graphics cards. Certainly filters and adjustments come into play sometimes, but they start with stellar shots to begin with.    

 

So you might want to try and take your screenshots larger if you can. Unfortunately size is limited by the power of your computer.   You can see the difference easily even if you cannot take shots larger.  If you normally take them at 1600 wide for example, take one at 800 and then compare the difference.  

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Avoid Photoshop unless you really, really will make use of all the features and do not mind spending a small fortune on them.

Like @Fritigern Gothly said, Gimp is free and well worth using. Personally I use Affinity which is basically very much like Photoshop and is gaining a good user base thanks to the "pay forever" model Adobe moved to.

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Hello, so this is what I do and it may help you, I hope at least. 

I play a lot with my "Preferences menu" like for example activating shadows and everything, you may have seen it. 

I also play with the atmosphere like changing the colors of the ambience, etc., this may help you to get the mood you want to show. 

I do use Photoshop CS5 to change the curves and add mask and all of that, I don't know if I can give it to download it, but here you go, if you need help with the install just DM me on Instagram (ManuelAngel2004.SL) https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=19DqnB88H4LxawVjWaOOH3_ybvvn-fEn1 <— the link of the download (Google Drive).

Forgot to mention that you can do most of things in other apps like for example, PicsArt, OrangeTeal, etc. 

Hope that helped. 😁👍🏻 

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Quote

Most of the photographers that take extraordinary screenshots -- as in the top SL magazines -- take them at VERY high resolutions, like 10,000 pixels wide and then resize. They also have top of the line computers and graphics cards. Certainly filters and adjustments come into play sometimes, but they start with stellar shots to begin with.

Which viewer do you use to get 10000 pixels wide snapshots, Firestorm doesn't allow more than 6200 pixels. 

Edited by Laurent Bechir
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2 hours ago, Laurent Bechir said:

Which viewer do you use to get 10000 pixels wide snapshots, Firestorm doesn't allow more than 6200 pixels. 

I don't but people have mentioned it here on the forums. I would guess Black Dragon maybe?   I take mine at 5000. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Black Dragon will take 12k images. But with anything over 4k you get a warning... and the viewer may crash... MAY is operative. I suspect it depends a lot on your computer as to whether it will or won't crash. Try it.

GIMP is almost Photoshop... maybe 75%. For hobbyists it works well. Plus it can use most PS brushes and plugins.

There is also Paint.net, free. Windows has a couple of paint programs built in.

Look at Top 8 “best” free Photoshop alternatives that are actually GOOD.

Adobe does some odd pricing. PS is US$21/month for an annual subscription. But, you can get PS and Lightroom CC and Classic for $10/month annual subscription. If all one does is crop and apply filters then Lightroom is enough. It is pretty strong on its own.

Then there is Photoshop Elements 2020. The the home user's version of PS. One time cost $70. There are always some deals around and there are student versions too.

The advantage that Photoshop has over most other image editors is the huge user base. You can always get help. 

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Also important to remember that not all SL photographers have a computer that will take those super sharp photos. For a long while (maybe nine years ago?) I couldn't take a photo with shadows. Shadows were new then and I think first on Kirsten's viewer. Berry could take shadows. I could not.[ Insert memory of big sad face here. ] So it is also important to remember that lighting and composition and interesting location and great poses  ALL add up to good photos. It's all relative. 

 

There was a machinima contest long ago and one of the films was about the Wright Brothers.  It was very "flat" in look.  I have no idea if that was a plan or a necessity of the filmmaker because of their computer -- but either way it was an excellent film and I voted for it near the top of my guess list.  I think she (I think it was a she) won third or something like that. So you don't NEED a super computer to do a good job -- and certainly not to enjoy yourself.   

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Your screen resolution is a setting in your computer.

Your screen will have an ideal setting. Mine is 1920x1080 at 60Hz. You can Google you screen's specs and get the value. My controls to set the graphics card to this value are in my NVIDIA control panel. The panel also lists the ideal values for your monitor... well if it is reasonably new monitor. 

The viewer sends data to the graphics card to be rendered on the screen. The viewer has no idea what is happening on the screen.

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 5/21/2020 at 6:05 PM, Laurent Bechir said:

Which viewer do you use to get 10000 pixels wide snapshots, Firestorm doesn't allow more than 6200 pixels. 

All you have to do is  add snapshot profiles and you are done.

WDsXaNF.png

Those who are interested should follow my instructions step by step.

Locate your Client install directory.

Open file  "/skins/default/xui/en/panel_snapshot_local.xml"

Locate the following original code:

    <combo_box
     follows="left|top|right"
     height="20"
     label="Resolution"
     layout="topleft"
     left_delta="0"
     name="local_size_combo"
     right="-5"
     top_pad="5">
        <combo_box.item
         label="Current Window"
         name="CurrentWindow"
         value="[i0,i0]" />
        <combo_box.item
         label="320x240"
         name="320x240"
         value="[i320,i240]" />
        <combo_box.item
         label="640x480"
         name="640x480"
         value="[i640,i480]" />
        <combo_box.item
         label="800x600"
         name="800x600"
         value="[i800,i600]" />
        <combo_box.item
         label="1024x768"
         name="1024x768"
         value="[i1024,i768]" />
        <combo_box.item
         label="1280x1024"
         name="1280x1024"
         value="[i1280,i1024]" />
        <combo_box.item
         label="1600x1200"
         name="1600x1200"
         value="[i1600,i1200]" />
        <combo_box.item
         label="Custom"
         name="Custom"
         value="[i-1,i-1]" />
    </combo_box>

 

Modify to this:

    <combo_box
     follows="left|top|right"
     height="20"
     label="Resolution"
     layout="topleft"
     left_delta="0"
     name="local_size_combo"
     right="-5"
     top_pad="5">
        <combo_box.item
         name="Current Window"
         label="CurrentWindow"
         value="[i0,i0]" />
        <combo_box.item
         name="320x240"
         label="320x240 (VGA)"
         value="[i320,i240]" />
        <combo_box.item
         name="640x480"
         label="640x480 (SD)"
         value="[i640,i480]" />
        <combo_box.item
         name="960×540"
         label="960×540 (qHD)"
         value="[i960,i540]" />
        <combo_box.item
         name="1280×720"
         label="1280×720 (HD)"
         value="[i1280,i720]" />
        <combo_box.item
         name="1366×768"
         label="1366×768 (WXGA)"
         value="[i1366,i768]" />
        <combo_box.item
         name="1600x900"
         label="1600×900 (HD+)"
         value="[i1600,i900]" />
        <combo_box.item
         name="3800x2400"
         label="1920 × 1080: Full HD"
         value="[i1920,i1080]" />
        <combo_box.item
         name="2048x1080"
         label="2048 × 1080: 2K (QHD)"
         value="[i2048,i1080]" />
        <combo_box.item
         name="3840x2160"
         label="3840 x 2160: 4K (UHD)"
         value="[i3840,i2160]" />
        <combo_box.item
         name="4096x2160"
         label="4096 × 2160: 4K (UHD)"
         value="[i4096,i2160]" />
        <combo_box.item
         name="7680x4320"
         label="7680 × 4320: 8K (UHD)"
         value="[i7680,i4320]" />
        <combo_box.item
         name="15360x8640"
         label="15360 x 8640: 16K (UHD)"
         value="[i15360,i8640]" />
        <combo_box.item
         label="Custom"
         name="Custom"
         value="[i-1,i-1]" />
    </combo_box>

Save and close your text editor.

Now log in Second Life, teleport to a non crowded area if you want to try 8k or 16k, select the profile you prefer and take a snapshot.

------------

(Do not change anything else except from the code exactly as shown above, i am not going to offer tech support.)

Edited by Nick0678
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