Photography question -- Lines when using shadows

[squashy Beeswing]

I really want to play more with shadows and DOF, but whenever i try i end up with 2 thin criss-cross lines on each snapshot as if the picture had been cut into quarters.  I've heard this is a common 'bug' or flaw but how do i fix it? 

I apologise if this has been brought up before.  I'm using Firestorm Viewer and have a Nvidia 460 graphics card.  Thanks.

Eta:  i already tried turning off 'high res snapshots' in the Advanced menu, so i don't think it's that.

[Dora Gustafson]

It happens when you use high resolution snapshots
Try not to do that:smileyhappy:

Edit: Sorry I didn't read your last comment
If it isn't that I don't know what it is...

[Paola Tauber]

They are a SL bug, affecting all viewers when you take a snapshot at resolution higher than your current screen. Exodus viewer devs said they are going to fix it in the next release of their viewer, and LL is aware of the issue and will work on it at some point in the future. There's a jira about this: https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SH-2378 . In the meanwhile, here's a handy tutorial by Elysium Elide on how to get rid of them in post-processing using PS5 or earlier versions, which should work with Gimp too:

. This way you should be able to take snapshots at higher res than your screen size, with DoF, shadows and antialiasing, and make the lines disappear with a little editing. Hope it helps. :*

[squashy Beeswing]

Thank you so much, Paola.  I do hope LL hurry up and get it fixed soon.  In the meantime i'll take a look at Exodus. 

[Paola Tauber]

You are welcome Squashy. Beware that the current release of Exodus is still plagued by the issue, so you will still need to edit those pesky lines out in post processing or take snapshots at your screen resolution, not higher.

 

But by all means give Exodus a go if you are into photography. It has replaced Kirsten as my photography viewer of choice: plenty of options (some you may have to get used to), some interesting innovations and overall very stable on my system even for day to day use.

[paperwork]

Heya squashy...

Disable antialising... the lines will more then likely never come back. If you need really high resoultion pics... enable Hi-res snapshots.

 

Take care

 

[Charolotte Caxton]

That's pretty much counterproductive, don't you think?

[Harlow Heslop]

Unfortunately the lines are a glitch and difficult to get rid of, and most people taking photos WANT high res snapshots.  My suggestion is look up tutorials on how to remove them.  If you have editing programs you can find some amazing tutorials on youtube on how to remove/edit the lines.  

I personally use the smudge tool in CS3 Adobe Photoshop to remove my lines.  You can find another great tutorial that covers a few versions of photoshop here:

I hope that at least helps!  If you don't have PS or can't afford it check out Gimp! It's free!  

And if you don't care too much about high res, shoot no larger than your screen size resolution! 

Best of luck! <3 

[Karma Avedon]

Thank you Paola for staying on top of this the way you have, both in here and with the Jira . I would imagine that Exodus will fix the issue first. At that point Exodus will like be my primary viewer. I hope the issue is solved soon, all of the "fixes" i have seen so far (turn off High Rez, turn off antialiasing, Photoshop) all result ina poorer quality of image.

[Paola Tauber]

oh you're very welcome Karma!

<3

[Marianne Little]

Oooh! I just came across this tutorial on the other forum I visit. It does not solve the line problem, but it is a much quicker fix than using clone and smudge to try and clean it up.

I hope I can put in this video tutorial....

 

[Charolotte Caxton]

Um, Marianne, that's the same tutorial that is linked in this thread, that's why I directed you to it

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Art-Music-and-Photography/Photography-question-Lines-when-using-shadows/m-p/1402225#M2514

[Marianne Little]

Hehehe. I know I was a dizzyhead, but I didn't know I was so bad? Worst is, I think I read the link too... Or did I? 

Ugh, well it is linked enough now! 

[Charolotte Caxton]

Hahaha, I think the paint fumes are getting to you, oh well, every great artist has a little crazy in them

Besides, you saved us the extra step of following a link, you embedded!

[paperwork]

Heya everyone,

The issue at hand is how the viewer's Snapshot function processes anti-ailasing sampling and image rendering. Essentially there appears to be a delay between the time sampling updates are sent to the video card's frame buffer and when the picture image is finally rendered and 'packaged' into an image file. This causes the image frame to be drawn in offset quarter sections. 

By disabling the anti-aliasing feature, this process is effectively eliminated.

As there is often a need for images that have a greater resolution than the user's current viewer screen, then by enabling High-res Snapshots both the desired larger resolution images are achieved AND the benefits of 2X sampling is obtained. This all occurs outside of the normal anti-aliasing data processing, and thereby no "black lines" should be found.

In this way there is no need for post-processing techniques to edit out the lines.

I hope that helps.

[Charolotte Caxton]

I'll try it out, but my thinking is that disabling anti aliasing will give you jagged edges, and at high resolution, or any resolution, this would be undesirable. Am I missing something?

[paperwork]

When working with digital photograhpy in SL, I find it helpful when planning workflow, to start at the end and decide how the image will be presented to the audience. From there, then in what way it might need editing/modifcation/adjustment between the moment of capture it till it reaches that audience.

I will give some examples to help illustrate how it is possible to work with the challenge these "black lines," for two diffrenent, and common, workflow situations.

1. The image will be caputered at the same resolution it will be presented and/or litlle or no image editing is required.

If this is the case, then an very usul approach is to utilize a screen capture program. Set the anti-aliasing to the highest levels possible along with all the other graphics settings preferred, set shot, close the UI (control + atl + F1) and capture the screen. This is also very useful in situations where the computer is able to generate Depth of Field and/or Shadows and yet the Snapshot feature inside the viewer will not produce/record them (common with AMD/ATI graphics cards).

Ths is an excellent article in freeware Screen Capture programs:

http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-screen-capture-utility.htm.

2. The image will be shown at high resolutions (Full HD for example) and it will require image editing/process work.

Here what needed is the cleanest possible base image to work with, and one that is also hopefully LARGER than the final output.

First let's get the larger image by enabling High-res Snapshots. This will allow you to take images that are up to 6016 x 6016. This is an incredibly large image and very helpful for even print work. This link shows how to use this feature:

https://www.google.com/url?url=http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Taking_snapshots/Old%23Turn_on_the_High-res_snapshots_option&rct=j&q=second+life+%22high-res+snapshots%22&usg=AFQjCNHFFb5_kNQ5FHDnH8mlJvDt3EjILw&sa=X&ei=2oJRT4O4OYOgOuL3sKUK&ved=0CDAQygQwAQ

Now, the issue of jaggy lines in final output. If the final output is LESS than the orginal image capture size, then when you lower the resolution of the image for final output your are performing anti-aliasing. Your graphics program will resize the image and preform a smoothing operation (resampling) in the process. In Photoshop, the options for Resampling the image are found in the image size menu (control + alt + I). Most image processing applications have similar features. Having this very large base file to wrok with, will make is very easy for the program to produce excellent results.

To ENABLE anti-ailaing AND High-res Snapshots will likely produce images that are completely indisiquishable in this situation.

In all, most SL photography is often for used in world or on photosharing sites like Flickr. For any inworld work, it is unlikely that users will notice if anti-aliasing is used or not. In the case of Flickr, images are most often veiwed 'in-stream' at about 500 pixels per side (max - see: http://www.flickr.com/help/photos/). Again, in this case, even if you upload higher resolution images to your Flickr stream, the website will resize (and more than likely - resample) the images for your stream page. Users can only see higher resolutions if they specifically request so.

I hope that helps.

 

[Charolotte Caxton]

Thank you, William, for  the very informative post. It makes a lot of sense as to the whys and hows of wanting high res vs antialiasing etc for me. Thank you.

[Tharci]

I have 2 computers.

A computer equipped with an nVidia GTS250 card, which HAS NO LINE GRADE and higher resolution using the official viewer.

And the other computer, I got recently and I equipped with a Nvidia GTX660 card, I'm disappointed with the picture quality. Besides appearing a black stripe at the highest resolution, I have to limit usage to 4000 × 2142, the aliasing is evident even with AA16x. It's unfortunate and I do not know what to do, I'll stick with my old computer and have more quality in photography. The GTX 660 is without doubt more than GTS250, the shop staff said it PROBLEM game oO Can someone tell me something?