How to Post Pictures

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Rayhawk
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How to Post Pictures

Post by Rayhawk » Sat Aug 15, 2009 3:53 pm

This comes up often enough in the regular threads that I thought I'd put a big advice post up here. I may edit this over time if I think of other suggestions to add.

Plastic bricks are tough to photograph, for lots of reasons - the main one being that they have lots of tiny details. So here are cures for your most common photographic woes:

MY PICTURES ARE BLURRY.
  • 6. HOLD YOUR CAMERA STILL.
    If your camera shifts an eighth of an inch when you're photographing a person, no one will notice. An eighth of an inch blur on a minifig face or torso destroys all the details. Your hands are not steady enough to take minifig photos. You need to set your camera on a stable surface, such as a table, a pile of books, or best of all, a camera tripod.

    7. MAKE SURE YOU HAVE ENOUGH LIGHT.
    The less light you have, the longer the camera aperture has to stay open, so the more time the camera has to accidentally move around and blur the crap out of everything.

    8. FLOWER MODE.
    Some cameras have a flower mode. The flower means "still life," and is the mode for adjusting focus for fine details.

    9. CHECK YOUR AUTO-FOCUS REGION.
    If you're using auto-focus, the camera will set its focal length to whatever's in the center of the image. If your image centers on the empty space in between two warriors, the space will be in focus and the warriors will be blurry.

    10. CHECK YOUR DISTANCE.
    Some cameras aren't able to focus on objects that are too close. If you're an inch away from your subject and you can't get focus no matter what you do, you may need to back the camera up a few inches and use the zoom instead.
MY PICTURES ARE GRAINY.
  • 6. MOAR LIGHT.
    Your pictures are grainy because the camera isn't collecting enough light particles. You need moar.

    7. BETTER CAMERA.
    Sometimes this just means you need to buy a better camera. But usually, moar light is the solution to this problem.
MY PICTURES HAVE TOO MUCH GLARE.
  • 6. TURN OFF THE FLASH.
    Shiny plastic is shiny. A bright light from a single source will reflect and create hot spots, and if you're using a flash those hot spots will all be pointed right back at the camera. Unless you're really clever about it, flash photography ruins MOC photos.

    7. MOAR LIGHTS.
    Glare is caused by having too much light reflected from a single point. So instead, get multiple lights and spread your light sources around.

    8. DIFFUSE YOUR LIGHT.
    If you're able, bounce some light off diffuse reflectors (a sheet of white paper works fine), diffuse it through lampshades (for lamps) or window shades (for sunlight).
MY IMAGE FILES WON'T POST TO THE FORUM.
  • 6. MAKE SURE THEY'RE ON THE INTERNET.
    Files hosted on your computer are only visible to people on your computer. If your image url starts with something like "C:\" or "file:\\\" then you fail.

    Do you want to upload an image to the forum? Answer: no you do not. Upload it to an image hosting site; there are plenty to choose from.

    7. MAKE SURE YOU KNOW THE URL.
    An image location can usually be found by right-clicking on an image (if you're on a PC) and selecting "Properties."

    8. FILENAMES MUST END WITH IMAGE EXTENSIONS
    like .jpg, .gif., .png, etc. Some image hosting sites give you urls that end with garbage like "&a=0937" or "?v=0" or other useless junk. The forum's IMG tag only recognizes filenames that end with recognized image extensions.
MY IMAGE FILES NEED IMAGE ADJUSTMENT.
  • 6. DON'T POST GIANT IMAGES.
    Everyone will hate you. If your images must be giant, then post a thumbnail with a link to the giant images instead. 600 pixels is a good maximum dimension.

    7. IF YOU DON'T HAVE PHOTOSHOP, GET GIMP.
    Or some other free-download image editing software. There is no reason you shouldn't have this. Once you do have this, learn to do the following:
    • - image resizing
      - image cropping
      - auto-levels
      - sharpen buttplug
    All of these will come in handy.
BONUS ROUND: Also, here are some lightboxing tips from Quantumsurfer:
Quantumsurfer wrote:I built a lightbox for really cheap.

Here's how I get my pictures clean:
Spoiler
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  • Cardboard box of medium size
  • cut out square holes in every side except bottom and back
  • tape/glue matte white poster board to bottom and back, such that it curves and does not fold in the bottom corner
  • tape thin white cloth, stretched tight, over all holes in box except front
Then, you just get two, preferably three, normal bendy desk lamps and place them all so that the light shines through the white cloth into the box. Two side and one top, in order of necessity. Try to angle the lights such that they eliminate the most shadow cast from the other lights.

Check the micro specifications for your camera. Mine's an older, shittier digital camera so I need to take pictures from 9 or more inches away (of small things like lego and miniatures and such). Your picture will probably come out shitty. Don't worry about it. Load the picture into photoshop or some similar photo editing program, crop it, and adjust the white balance. I use PS, so I'm not sure how to do this in other progs without looking it up. In PS, though, it's Image>Adjustments>Levels. Select the white eyedropper and click in the white space of the photo. You can adjust the sliders/click elsewhere as needed to get the whiteness to explode. This might wash out the figure, so bring up the grays and blacks slightly. Done, professional looking picture, easier than it sounds.
Last edited by Rayhawk on Sun Aug 16, 2009 2:42 am, edited 1 time in total.

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MasterEcabob
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Post by MasterEcabob » Sat Aug 15, 2009 9:52 pm

How about a section on MY PICS ARE ****N HUGE!

I believe the board would benefit greatly from such a section.
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Post by Rayhawk » Sun Aug 16, 2009 2:38 am

Anybody who's inconsiderate enough to post giant image files in the first place, probably isn't bothering to read threads about how to post properly. But I'll add it.

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Warhead
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Post by Warhead » Sun Aug 16, 2009 2:45 am

I post at 800x600 which I feel is enough to see the details but sometimes stretches the text further over to the side so I need to scroll. Should I be using a smaller setting? 640x480? Or are you talking about pics that are SO huge you have to scroll to see them?
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Post by Rayhawk » Sun Aug 16, 2009 3:35 am

The 800 ones don't really bother me so much, since I work on high-res monitors. I worry about other people though.

But really it's the ones up in the 2000 or 3000 pixels that make me wonder what people are thinking.

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Post by Warhead » Sun Aug 16, 2009 3:43 am

Yeah, with a crap 15" monitor it's a bit like "Wow, I can see it brik by brik as I scroll for half a day" maybe they like taking photo's of girls with fat asses? I know I do. :D
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OneEye589
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Post by OneEye589 » Sun Aug 16, 2009 9:56 am

Yea, my computer's a laptop, so anything bigger than 600 is a bit annoying.

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Cpt. Zipps
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Post by Cpt. Zipps » Mon Aug 17, 2009 5:00 pm

Thank you for posting this Rayhawk. I think that you should add


USE A TRIPOD!
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Post by Blitzen » Mon Aug 17, 2009 6:56 pm

He did. I guess you didn't read it.
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lrdofbricks
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Post by lrdofbricks » Mon Aug 17, 2009 7:49 pm

is 800x600 an okay dimension?m i use it becuase it just about fills the screen withought making people scroll over. maximum detail and least hassle.
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Post by muffinman42 » Tue Aug 18, 2009 6:46 am

how i understand it is:

for forum battles the pictures should be smallish since your loading loads of them, for MOCs the pictures should be small enought so that people don't have to scroll.
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birdman
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Post by birdman » Tue Aug 18, 2009 4:01 pm

At the top of this thread should be

Image
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Post by ltobvious » Tue Aug 18, 2009 5:26 pm

The only problem it that there should be another "yes" where the "no" is.

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Post by Elmagnifico » Tue Aug 18, 2009 9:27 pm

and there should be a certain "F" word in front of the second one.
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Post by ltobvious » Tue Aug 18, 2009 9:31 pm

Absolutely. DO IT.

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