Nyte’N'Day Poster Contest Hints & Tips (written by Lizbeth Saenz)

1.) Showcase the clothing, not just yourself. The whole reason for this photo contest is to promote the clothing in the store, so sometimes the simplest of poses will do. Busy backgrounds tend to be distracting as well, so when in doubt; take something out. ;D Avoid poses or backgrounds that take away from the clothing. Anything that has you bending, squatting, laying; it just takes away from the clothing, not a good idea.

2.) Standing poses/pictures would be preferred. If you have seen any of the posters in the store, you will see they are bigger length wise, so obviously a laying down position will not work as well as a standing up one does. After you’re done taking your pics, resize it to a 256X512 and if it fits, yay! If not, consider another pose or picture. **Note: The resizing was only meant to check if your picture is suitable for the poster, leave it in it’s original size so Nyte can crop it to her liking. Bigger IS better.

3.) Enable the “High Resolution Snapshot” in the Advanced menu. This will help with giving you a better quality in your pictures with higher resolution. It’ll be much nicer, cleaner and crisp! If your advanced menu is not enabled, hold control+alt+D(that’s the letter D, not delete), at the same time to enable it. The “Advanced” Menu will now appear next to the “Help”. **Note: This feature will only work if you use the “snapshot to disk”(control +`) method, which is my preferred method for taking pictures.

4.) Use the Environment Editor to your advantage. World -> Environment Editor -> Advanced Sky -> Lighting Tab
Play around with it a little bit and find a sky that you like for your pic. Most of the time, if you raise the Scene Gamma all the way to the right, it’ll get rid of all those unsightly shadows and wrinkles we tend to get. For more detailed sky/light editing, take a look at this post by GoGo: http://juicybomb.typepad.com/blog/2008/09/gogos-lighting.html

5.) Windlight is mean to our prims. SO, we have to adjust accordingly. Nyte works each an every time to make her clothing work with windlight but it still can be very tricky. If you find your skirt attachments or any other kind, are slightly off in color, tint it! Often adding a gray tint to the prim will get the color looking as close as possible the the original clothing piece.

6.) If you have a graphics card, use it! The whole point to having a good graphics card is to get a better experience in your computer usage, everything looks crisper, more vivid and just plain nice! If you go into your preferences (control +P) and go under your graphics tab, you’ll see all sorts of settings. Play with them and if it helps make things around you and you look better, awesome But if that’s not doing anything for you, read on….. Go into the “Hardware” options, there you will find “Filtering” and “Antialiasing”. Honestly, I have no clue what these do but what I DO know is that it’ll give your avatar a much smoother appearance and less jagged. Some computers cannot handle having these options enabled, to those I suggest just doing it while taking pictures and disabling and relogging once you’re done. If you’re lucky enough to have a good computer, leave it on and you’ll be happy to see how much prettier your avatar and your surroundings will be. Even if you can only do a 2X antialiasing, it’s something but as I’ve said before; bigger is better! So if you can crank that sucker up, do it!! You will notice your computer slow down considerably, no worries, just disable when you’re done taking pics. You can always revert to your original settings by clicking the “Recommend Settings” button. Also, remember to have your “Nearby and Local Lights” on, rather than “Sun and moon only”, trust me, you’ll love me for it.

Phew! I wasn’t planning on writing this much so I’ll just go ahead and end it right there before I bore you all to death. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to ask them here or contact me inworld: Lizbeth Saenz. Good luck to all you lovely ladies! :D

For more detailed info, look at Torley Linden’s entry in Wiki about snapshots!
wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/User:Torley_Linden/Snapshot_tips