Getting over some important stuff...
Just to avoid any further questions, I just want to get over some important stuff, some technical for the geeks, and some just out of the blue as I want to get it written down.
I will just write it down in a Q/A style, so it is a bit easier to follow.
Q: What viewer do you use to access SecondLife ?
Currently I am using the viewer BlackDragon. You can find more information on the following URL https://niranv-sl.blogspot.com/
The reason why I use this viewer is very simple:
Photographs
I was pointed to the viewer by a friend of mine, and I was pleased with the way it uses my system to give me a decent view on the world.
And also it allows me to create the best possible pictures.
Please note that the viewer is not like any other standard viewer, which are most of the time embellished, enhanced copies of the official secondlife viewer, but is a complete revisited environment.
So the first time you will use it, you will have to learn it, because everything changes.
Q: What hardware do you use ?
First of all, no laptop, but a nice table top tower system. No brand, just a combination of some stuff which I think give me the best result for the moment.
In fact the basic information you can find in the below images:
And as my internet connection, well, I am using a Mobile Network router that I dedicated to SecondLife only, which is giving me decent speed:
Q: Size and format of pictures ?
I usually take my pictures in the biggest size possible, based on my hardware, the location and the activity around me.
This is because what may work at one place, will not always work somewhere else.
In general I do take pictures between 4K (3840x2160) and 12K (11520x6480), and the simple reason for this is that he quality of your endresult will be better because of the down-scaling you do to a more usual size like 1920x1080.
And as you can see, the ratio I mainly use for my pictures is 4:3 in landscape, or 3:4 in portrait. It is rare that I publish in 16:9 ratio.
BTW Black Dragon is as far as I know the only viewer allowing that size of pictures.
The picture format I use is JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) to grab the snapshot, although the endresult is published as PNG (Portable Network Graphics).
The reason I use JPEG, which a lot of people despise in a way, is that JPEG is better suited for graphical photographs with a multitude of colours and large size in resolutions compared to PNG.
But using JPEG also means that you need to be careful when working with the pictures. Saving your file again will create a loss in quality.
Q: The software I am using ?
When processing my snapshots taken in SecondLife, I use as raw image processing program RawTherapee (https://rawtherapee.com/). This allows me to easily create copies of my original files, while not touching these.
And to work on the pictures themselves, I use GiMP (https://www.gimp.org/).
But OK, I don't modify anything on the result, except size and picture ratio.
To be honest, in my point of view, if you can't make the picture to be good when you take it, it won't become better by messing with it.
