The above image is taken at REZ, but the lighting in the image has been adapted to make the various elements in the photo more striking. This effect is achieved by taking two snapshots with the East Angle of the sun at opposite ends, and then merging the two images together in Photoshop.

This is the base shot, taken directly from Second Life. However, several elements in the image are in shade, which doesn’t really create a photo which is eye-catching. So the next step is to move the sun by 180 degrees (or thereabouts) and take another snapshot. To move the sun, go to the Environment Editor (World > Environment Settings > Environment Editor)

Move the East Angle slider so the sun is behind your view, and the foreground objects now look lighter.You’ll also need to freeze other parts of the image, such as the sky, water and flexiprims.

Freezing the sky

1. Go to World > Environment Settings > Environment Editor.
2. Click Advanced Sky.
3. Click Clouds tab.
4. Click the ‘Lock buttons next to both Cloud Scroll X and Cloud Scroll Y.
5. Also uncheck Draw Classic Clouds as you can’t control their movement..

Freezing the water

You can’t completely stop the movement of the water, but this is close enough.

1. Go to World > Environment Settings > Environment Editor.
2. Click Advanced Water.
3. Click Image tab.
4. Set all Big Wave Direction and Little Wave Direction X-Y sliders to 0.oo

Freezing flexiprims

1. Enable Advanced menu.
2. Disable Advanced > Rendering > Features > Flexible Objects. Flexi objects will stop moving.

Other things can be frozen in the Advanced menu, such as toggling Advanced menu > Rendering > Animate Textures.

Take your second image, and then open them both in Photoshop. Set your layers so the first image sits on top of your second, and then set the layers in the drop down menu:

By selecting the Hard Light option, you created a merged image which takes the harsher lightings and combines them together to create the image which formed the base of my snapshot at REZ!

Have a play around with the settings to see various types of effects, for example in the following photograph I used the Lighten layer function to bring out the temples of Purgatorio.

Combining these two images gives the following effect:

Give your snapshots a more striking look by using Photoshop’s layers!

Tags: layers, photography, photoshop, Prad Prathivi, snapshot, Tutorial

One of my favourite things about this snapshot is that there’s actually 3 avatars in the above photograph. One of them was a freenis wearing noob who was badly hitting on the two girls in some obscure European language, if I recall correctly..

Anyways – how did I make them vanish? Not through the magic of photoshop I’m afraid – it’s much more simple than that. You can make any prim or even avatar disappear from within the SL client! It’s easy to do, and can remove any annoying elements which can ruin the prospect of a nice SL snapshot for you – no more having to wait for that blingtardette to disappear, or spending hours removing some horrid hot-pink prims in photoshop!

Hiding prims and avatars in the Client:

1. Make sure the Advanced menu is activated. You can do this by holding down Ctrl + Alt + D.
2. Select Advanced > Character > Character Tests  > Allow Select Avatar
3. Click Advanced > Rendering > Hide Selected
4. Start removing those annoying prims/avatars by holding down Shift and clicking on them. You can also hide avatar attachments!

Clicked the wrong avatar/prim? Just click the same spot again while holding down shift and it’ll reappear!

So next time you’re planning the perfect shot and SuperFreenisMan turns up to try and rock your pixels, simply make his vanish and take your dream shot!

Tags: disappear, Hide, photography, Prad Prathivi, snapshot, Tutorial, Vanish