I like this challenge, one of Strawberry Singh's Monday memes/challenges. We're talking windlight settings this week.
You can feel sorry for me if you want, because I can't take pictures in Firestorm. It
crashes me every darn time I push up my graphics settings and try to take a snapshot. I use the Second Life official viewer because - for my
Mac laptop at least - it's the most reliable viewer with the least lag
and crashing. Messing with windlight settings in the official viewer is a drag, but it's better than crashing.
In my photos above, the only change is the windlight settings. Typically I do more post processing with layers and colors, but these close-to-raw pics show the windlight settings as they appear in world. The big one on the left is one I made and named Friar, because I made it for
my friend Friar's pic when I blogged him for another meme. I made color adjustments to his photo ultimately because Redgrave men's skins can be kind of orange. Then from top to bottom on the right are Annan Adored's Light Explosion (moody sky and sharp contrasts), Gogo's Davos Midday (very soft shadows and a lovely sky color), and Berry's Sapphire (awesome in the studio, shadows somewhere between the sharp and soft shadows of the other two). To view a larger version of this photo to see better what I mean, go to
my Flickr photo.
Meme instructions: Answer the following questions about windlight
settings and share some that you’ve created yourself. Don’t forget to
leave a link to your post in Berry's comments (and mine if you like).
- Do you use windlight while taking pictures? If not, why not? Oh yeah, of course I do! I experiment all the time with windlight settings. I've practically forgotten what Second Life looked like pre-windlight.
- When taking a closeup snapshot for a profile picture, which windlight preset do you use most often? Since I don't have all those wonderful Firestorm settings, I've downloaded several kind peoples' settings and made a few of my own. The settings I use most often are probably Strawberry Singh's Sapphire or Amethyst settings, or Gogo's Davos Midday setting.
- Which windlight presets do you use for full body portraits? Hmm... I still do a lot of experimenting with various settings in a photo shoot and choose the pic that works the best for the particular shot. I love Annan Adore's Dusty and Light Explosion settings if I'm in a sim setting. Against a backdrop my favorites are probably the ones I downloaded from Berry.
- If you do landscape photography, which windlights do you use for that most often? I find that the windlight settings that work best on my avatar's face are not necessarily great for objects. While the face needs a relatively flat lighting, objects benefit from stronger contrasts. When I take a picture of a room or outdoor setting I love Chic Aeon's Places windlight settings. Sand and Pathfinder are particular favorites.
- Do you have any tricks or tips that you could share for using windlight effectively? Well, once I find settings I like, I use them a lot, changing the east/west position for shots. I do play with settings and when I really like one I've changed a lot, I save it as one of my own.
- Have you created any windlights that you would be willing to share with us? I'd be happy to share mine if anyone wanted them AND if I had a clue how to do it! If someone wants to teach me, I'm all yours.
Speaking of sharing, thank you Berry for sharing
your latest windlight settings! I'll be downloading and experimenting with them as soon as I finish this post. Annan Adored's settings have a link from Berry's page, so I'll just add a link to
Gogo's JuicyBomb.com settings.
Credits:
Tee*fy Aurora Nightdress Sky (at the Arcade Gacha Event)
LeLutka Hair- SEIKO hair - AuburnHaze (New Release)
League Dipped Feather Earring Silver
Slink Mesh Hands (av)
Glam Affair - Cleo - America - 06 F
Beetlebones Mesh Lashes V.01 (Dainty brown)
Mayfly - Liquid Light Mesh Eye (Summer Shore, w3)
