Hello, all you Attentionistas!
I posted a photo today and started receiving several questions about how I took the shot, how I processed the picture, how I got the look the way it looks in the final photo. I was answering the third question when I had the epiphany, I have access to a blog, put it there instead, you silly girl!
First, let's make clear I am no expert. Nor do I consider myself among the best here in Second Life. I am a real-life semi-pro photographer and have access to some excellent tools for workflow management and photo editing for the work I produce in Second Life. That being said, even if you don't have access to the same tools I use here for creating my art, there are many excellent tools out there to use for little or no expense. So, if you teach yourself the tools you have, and experiment a bit with what you have access to use, your end product will improve.
As a real-life photographer, I have a decent working knowledge of how the depth of field and zoom lenses work, all things you can do in Second Life. What I have been teaching myself is the use of windlights and the ability to create light. A trick I wish I could sometimes do in real life!
I shot this photo in the Secret Garden area of the Mystic Timbers sim. Rachel Swallows and her team do fantastic work, and I love this sim for use in my photography. I used the animations in the hot tub she has there and took candid shots as the animation progressed. In real life, I don't do much studio work, I shot mostly outside in candid situations. Shooting off the animations available in Second Life, is similar in my book.
Here is the original photo. I set the picture up to capture the flowers in the background. I then used the "adjust" in the animation menu of the hot tub to get the correct angle and positioning I wanted. As you can see from the original photo, it isn't all that beautiful. I used the windlight I had that I had modified from Alchemy Immortalis - Fog Lifting and saved as a custom windlight. Basically, it pushes up the ambient haze a bit. I worked with the depth of field settings to just blur the flowers and background. Slide these settings around a bit to see how you like the look. I also couldn't find a water windlight look I wanted, so I cut down the angle of the shot to only show a sliver of water. I took the photos, 24 in total and the imported them into my workflow management software Lightroom.
Here is the same photo after some initial editing in LightRoom. Lightroom let me go through the 24 photos I shot and select the ones I wanted to work with, narrowing it down to one for final for editing and publication. If you don't use a workflow program like Apple Photos, I suggest you do. Besides keeping the original unedited "film negative" of your photo, so you can start all over again after you mess up an edit, which trust me, I have done, you can see all your pictures for old shoots group as you like them. I use Lightroom I do most of my editing. I cropped the image down to a better composition of the subject and set the color, so the skin tone looked better, more realistic. I also popped the saturation up a bit to bring up the flowers and increased the blue luminosity to pop my eye color a bit.
At this point, I transferred it to Photoshop. In Photoshop I set the longest side to 6000 pixels, the Flickr picture maximum. If it goes in Flickr larger, Flickr uses some ungodly compression software that makes noticeable artifacts on your photos, which in my view completely sucks. And yes, my crops are uneven. Which means, they not 5X7, or 4X6 or 2048 on a side for Second Life. Trust me, magazine editors hate it. I slid in my logo and saved it back to Lightroom.
Here is the photo after it came out of Photoshop the first time. I then did some more edits in Lightroom. I have cropped it down a bit more to reduce the tub edge in front. I also use an HDR filter from Aurora which creates more contrast in the shapes of my face and body. I use some presets by Serge Ramelli. This one is "Final Touch" set at 30%. It makes the picture look more realistic, the colors pop, there is a skin-tone contrast, and it seems a bit grittier. I also use a preset in Lightroom that recreates the look of older camera films. I used a preset from Contrastly and selected the preset that mimics the old Fujicolor Natura 1600 film. If you zoom the photo up a bit, you will notice the graininess it creates. It also distorts the colors a bit to make it look like an older, faded picture. I exported it and uploaded it to Flickr.
After a couple hours, I came back to Flickr, looked at the photo and thought the lines around the hair looked a bit odd, see how the blue of the background was bleeding into the hair. So, I opened up Lightroom, transferred it to Photoshop, used the clone tool and fixed the edges, painting the hair out to smooth out the edges. I used a soft brush with minimal transparency to do the work. I then replaced the original I had on Flickr. Here again is the final product. Total time from landing in the Secret Garden to the final product, three hours. I am sure better artists could do it faster.
In the end, it is your own eye that matters. It is the best tool you own. It can see minor, just perceivable irregularities and perception issues. Look at photos critically. Ask questions. Ask for feedback. But most of all, create what you love. I hope this is helpful and helps answer more of your questions.
In the end, it is your own eye that matters. It is the best tool you own. It can see minor, just perceivable irregularities and perception issues. Look at photos critically. Ask questions. Ask for feedback. But most of all, create what you love. I hope this is helpful and helps answer more of your questions.
Thanks for the questions! Love you all - Heather XOXOXO
Morning bath
In the exquisite Secret Garden at Rachel Swallows' Mystic Timbers.
Credits
Hair - Sintiklia - Scarlet
Cleavage - ZHAO-II - Rocket boobs
Eyes - IKON Triumph Eyes - Evening
Lipstick - [LeLuck] Pin Up Makeup Set
Eyeshadow - [LeLuck] Pin Up Makeup Set
Eyebrows - *Sinful Curves* Eyebrows in Refined Brown
Head - Catwa Catya
Body - Maitreya
Skin - Session / Jewel
Shape - Own
Windlight - own pushing up haze a bit
Pose from hot tub adjusted for angle and rotation
Post processing
Lightroom for crop and initial adjustments
Lightroom Preset - Contrastly Film Sim - Fujicolor Natura 1600
Photoshop for size to 6000 pixels the Flickr Maximum
Aurora HDR for contrast "punch" using Serge Ramelli preset "Final Touch" at 30%
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