kurashi

Quick Tip: Settings for windlight

Today I’d to write about snapshots. I hinted already in the ‘light with photoshop’ (here) quick-tip that the settings in your windlight are important to get a good basis for a screenshot. A screenshot which you can just cut and upload to your blog or to work with it in photoshop for easier time retouching.

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The Preparation

* Shortcuts to active the advanced menu

Ctrl + Alt + D
or: Ctrl + Alt + Shift + D

 * Advanced Menu > marking: high-res snapshot.

In addition I also had marked: quiet snapshot to disk. This step doesn’t change anything in the picture quality but it disables the screenshot-animation and sound. Now you can create screenshots quietly and discreetly - that might be useful if you shoot on locations. And you can make a secret screenshot of your friends whithout them noticing it. Make them a little happy surprise to send them later your retouched photo later! That can be fun ;).

What does it mean by ‘high-res snapshot’?
It doubles the pixel size of the snapshots saved to disk. More quality for your snapshot.

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The Windlight Setting

Notice: You don’t need to turn off your facelight. I know there are around some nc’s where ppl tell you, that you have to turn it off - that it’s not necessary. In all the following screenshots I wear my facelight with it on.

Screenshot: The difference between the default setting and the setting for photography:

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Info about main preferences > Graphic tab

Activate: Bump mapping and shiny + basic shaders
You can also just mark ‘bump mapping and shiny’ without the basic shaders.

Lighting Detail > Nearby local lights (!)

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Advanced sky editor > world > environment settings > environment  editor > advanced sky editor

Click ‘new’ and than change the settings the same or close to mine. Don’t forget to save your new settings at the end.

The setting (click here for all 3 tabs).

The most important value in this setting is the gamma. The difference in the gamma is just noticed from cero to around four - all above doesn’t change much for your eyes.

More gamma removes the shadows and hard borders in your screenshot.

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Additional play in the Graphic Tab Setting (main preferences)

Activate > Bump mapping and shiny + basic shaders + atmospheric shaders (!) but now your face is to shiny and bright - overexposed! Oh no!

Change to ‘sun and moon only’ for the lighting details!

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At last the comparison between the possibilities of this windlight setting ..

It’s up to you which shader you will learn to love for your later workflow.
Personally I just love using the basic shaders.

Quick Tip: Remove Edges

Edges will be found in almost every screenshot you have done.  They can be a result of poses, prim parts or low graphic settings - whatever, sometimes they are there. And you will be surprised  how easily they can be removed. And how fast - 5 seconds? 3 seconds? And yes, you will love this tool! <3

1. open your image (work file for this tutorial, here)
2. duplicate your image layer
3. menu - filter - liquify

The liquify tool window

1st Icon > forward warp tool.

4. Choose a ‘right-sized’ brush (35 px > if you try it with my screenshot file).

(Screenshot, full-view picture).

5. Use the tool for the red marked parts in the image.

Move carefully with your forward warp tool brush, pushing the edges from the outside to inside or in other direction - that’s absolutely up to you! Feel free to experiment with this tool to get a better feeling when using it.

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6. Your result should be similar to this..

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More tips & tricks, here.

Quick Tip: How to use stock images?

Hello there,

‘cause this is always a current topic and so many people don’t know how to handle it right. It’s also about contents you can spot in so many SL Magazines and Flickr sites as well and which are not used in the right way. I want to clarify here and set an end to this half-knowledge and greyzone.

One of the most favourite stocksites might be DA (deviantart.com). This is the main site I would like to talk about today. If you take a picture from there, please do so but make sure you pick it from the right category - STOCK photography (resources & stock images). All other images are not allowed for retouching purpose since there are full copyrights applied.

If you found a nice stock-picture and you want to save it to your harddrive you should:

a) read the rules and be aware of the obligations you have to take care of (e.g. copyright & common creatives.. )

b) create a folder with the creator’s name or name the file in the end of the creator - with this information you can retrace the original with all related infos (e.g. name of the file, URL, format, date, creator..).

c) Creative Commons / Copyrights and obligations:

An example:

‘Any art you make using my stock may be used outside DA as long as it’s non-commercial.’
Great, you will be allowed to use it on your flickr-account! You can save the image without any doubts as long as you don’t sell it and you don’t make profit out of it.

‘Credit me (put a link in your deviation, or whatever, to my account - xxxx-Stock )’.
Yes, you have to credit back - even if you are not a DA-member! Remember, be fair.

‘Dont claim my stocks as yours’.
Same here, make a comment in your discribtion that you used stock images for your retouched work.

‘For outside permisson please contact me first’.
Yes, you have to contact the creator. If you cannot find an email adress somewhere on the profile site or journal you should create yourself a free DA account to get in touch with the stock creators.

It is so easy… Do play nice! If you do, you can call yourself a professional ‘(sl) photographer/ -retoucher’ who is not to proud to share credits of the used resources! Be responsible-minded in your workflow - always. Don’t go with this unsaid acceptance of ‘not crediting’. The copyright and creative commons are always owned by the creator himsef. Always keep this in mind.

Briefly said: read the rules and act according to them.
I wish you best creative moments!

Nedeko

More infos about copyrights and creative commons:
creativecommons.org/about/what-is-cc
creativecommons.org/about/licenses