Snapshot resources

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The following consists of miscellaneous info which often isn't easy to find, but very useful if you take Second Life snapshots, including postcards. Historically, documentation in this area has been sparse, and Residents have provided some great resources, so this is an ongoing endeavor at compiling those in an easy place — please help keep this updated!

A state of snapshots

^ Torley's personal notes on how things've come to be.

Tips 'n' tricks

Video tutorials:

• How to take a snapshot

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• How to send a postcard

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Watch more video tutorials!

More guides:

• Torley Linden's personal guide to high-quality Second Life photography! - Awesomely comprehensive, richly illustrated.

• Vint Falken's tutorials - Vint serves up fabulous slices of knowhow with a specialization in beautiful post-processing of your inworld shots.

Social sites featuring snapshots

• Snapzilla - The original pioneer to really make use of postcards in such a widespread manner, its success has encouraged many Residents to share their inworld memories. As of April 2007, Snapzilla currently boasts over 150,000 pictures and is en route to a "2.0" upgrade.

• SLBuzz - Postcards are part of SLBuzz's community site offerings. It also allows uploading of photos from your hard drive.

• SL Profiles - This page allows you to quickly add Second Life pictures to your profile on this community site.

• Koinup - Koinup, the first social network for all virtual worlds residents. Recently Koinup introduced the chance to send postcards directly from Second Life to members Koinup galleries

• Flickr - The popular photo-sharing service. They recently abolished their NIPSA restrictions in favor of a content filtering system, so Residents can show their SL snapshots in public searches.
  • Via Snapzilla-to-Flickr and SLBuzz-to-Flickr, Residents can crosspost to another service to have their pictures also show up on Flickr, where they can be easily organized.
  • Flickr's Second Life group - The largest. Look inside the discussion area for varied photographic tips 'n' tricks.
  • List of all Second Life Groups on Flickr.com - There are many Second Life-related groups. More keep appearing, so this likely isn't "all" of them — add ones you notice are missing!
  • You can also use Flickr's tools to upload snapshots from your hard drive, and there are a variety of 3rd-party amusements like fd's Flickr toys and Dumpr which you can apply to your images.

• blogHUD - Use this gadget to send send your postcards to the web.

Useful utilities

Add programs you've personally found valuable.

• Picasa (free, Windows and Linux) - Elegant photo organizer. Add your folders to be scanned and perform some light image enhancement while you're at it.

• ReNamer (free, Windows-only) - Batch-renames your files. Great for taking a heap of snapshots named "Snapshot" and turning them into something more descriptive. Also see Torley's review.

• Autostitch (free, Windows-only, Mac and Linux versions planned) - Easy-to-use 2D image stitcher that turn a collection of snapshots into a breathtaking, wide-angle panorama. Also see Torley's tutorial on how to specifically use it with Second Life.

• virtualPhotographer (free, Windows-only) - Incredibly tasty little Photoshop plugin to add extra "pop" to your snapshots. Had a nice collection of presets and can simulate film grain, sepia, bloom, etc.

• GIMP (free, Windows, Mac, and Linux) - The "GNU Image Manipulation Program" is a freely distributed piece of software for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition, and image authoring. It works on many operating systems, in many languages. A lot of Photoshop's features are also available in GIMP, and there's also a GIMPshop, which emulates PS' functionality even closer.

Related resources

You may also be interested in seeing this wiki's compilation of:

• Texture Tools - Image-editing stuff you can use to prettify your pictures. Some overlap with this page.
• Video Tutorials - An assortment of multimedia guides, good for those who enjoy seeing how things actually work inworld.