"Depth" camera setting


Maybe you noticed that tiny setting and wondered what it was, what you could do with that? Maybe you just thought it was useless when you tried... Maybe you never even noticed it!


In the cam settings, just above the filters, at least in Black Dragon, you can see the two types : Color and Depth... If you tried the Depth you probably thought you can't do nothing with this, it's not like a black and white shot or anything, it looks like this : 



Now I don't pretend I understand everything about photography, Second Life or Black Dragon, but I'm thinking it's related to the depth of field, maybe just the image illustrating what is more complicated and used to intensify it or diminish it in your settings.

If you take very high resolution photos, though, you will notice that the DoF is very hard to control as you have to crank it up higher than you can see on the screen to have an effect on your actual shot... It can seem nice and then your body has this weird halo or some part is not as blurred as you wish it was... It's a pain. 

But if you make a depth shot, you can select parts of your photo by color (magic wand in photoshop and in gimp, at least), use it as a template to grab that area on your shot and you can adjust the blur just the way you need it! (The green background used here is really transparent)




That way you can control how blurred you really want what, instead of just giving up because it's the best you can do with internal settings...! 

You also get to learn a little how they measure the distance with the cam... I didn't think the arm would be at a different distance than the rest of the body, although it's pretty logical, since it's behind her! 

Also, let's say that the program makes a mistake, or you want to switch the effect to make something appear closer (Here it's the grass through the front plants) You can always cut away a piece of the image and use different sections differently...

You can cut this photo into the two next ones to apply the right amount of blur for each section. Much easier than cutting straight on the photo! 






I hope you have fun with your next photos, if you have more tricks regarding this function, tell us in the comment section!!! 


Sher

xx






Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

cam -VS- zoom

Image
  This is my favorite tip EVER! It comes from Xavier , an amazing RL and SL photographer who you might know inworld. (He also introduced me to Sunny's!)  This little trick gave me so much control over my photos and made it way more fun to do some shots that looked much better, so easily:  Learn to play with both your camera distance and the zoom! Obviously if you use the Camera controls, maybe you already do...  But if you are like me, always camming with Alt and mouse, you might not have a perfect understanding on the difference between the distance and zoom or how to do each one. Distance is pretty simple, you move closer, you move away... But when doing this, just like your eyes, the camera will distort your image, as the perspective changes with a different point of view. That's what happens when you want to do a beautiful closeup and you have such a different face you rather back away! See the nose is much bigger and the shoulders look very narrow. It looks like...
Read more

Fix for SL alpha glitches!!!

Image
  It happened to all of us... The perfect expression, perfect angle, the light hits beautifully on your avatar.... And the gorgeous bangs hide your lashes!!!! Not cause they're behind it, but because of the alpha surrounding the hair, glitching on cam like only SL can do!!!  Now I don't claim to own the best tip or even a tip that might work every single time... But I did use this technique to fix hair glitches fairly easily and even switch only one foot's position out of two (before they could be positioned separately) (...or before I knew they could??) and it does the trick pretty well so I want to share it with you!!!  This will seem too easy, but you need to plan ahead a little... So when you go to take your wonderful shot and notice this nasty alpha glitch, still take it! And then Re-Take, without hair! How can this help, you say? Well you can use the bald version as a corrective layer to your photo! put one above the other and erase slightly until you get the desire...
Read more

Sunny's Photo Studio

Image
  Here I want to introduce you to one of the most magical places in Second Life, and I'm not talking fantasy sceneries and castles with wizards... I mean the richest photo studio that I have ever come accross! I am sure you have heard about Sunny's here and there, and now you will finally know what the hype is all about! First, a word from Sunny... "Sunny's Photo Studio, serving SL and the blogger community of SL since 2013. Offering a unique studio, filled with over 3000 backdrops and with a ever expanding number of poses for your photographic needs.  Male, Female, Couples, Family, Kids, Friends, and Groups poses "OH MY". You name it, we have it. There is many scenes for the romantics, those who display their inner geek, and for you to create your fantasy image.  Come explore and capture a moment in time. Post them on our flickr for everyone to enjoy. For exclusive access join our inworld group . Thanks for making Sunny's part of how you save and display...
Read more