I'm sure we've all wondered at one point or another how to get rid of those stupid jagged edges around our snapshots, yes? I know I did when I first started taking Second Life pictures. My photos always ended up with these ridiculous jagged lines that looked completely un-anti-aliased (is that even a word?) when I opened them in Photoshop. This always added hours of work for me because I just couldn't STAND having those jagged edges in my snaps! Well... I'm about to teach you a way to minimize them, if not eliminate them completely.

An example of the jaggedness (you might need to click the picture for a larger view to see):

As you can see (when you click on the picture) the jagged edges in the left picture are pretty pronounced... where as the picture on the right, the only jaggeds you have to deal with are due to the avatar mesh (which is a WHOLE other tutorial in itself - we'll get to that later). These edges can make extreme close-ups pretty trying, not to mention annoying.

Welcome to the newest tutorial! Aren't you excited! I know I am. Hee.

Last week, we discussed how to properly remove a green screen from a Second Life snapshot, leaving you with only an avatar and a blank background, free and clear to do whatever you please. Today, we'll be discussing what to do with that blank background, as well as how to create drop shadows for your images. What's a picture without an intereting background, right? Right, then!

A couple of things you'll need before we move on in this tutorial:

1. A snapshot, cleaned up of green screen, ready to have a background put into position. You may download the one I'll be working on (as well as the other files used in this tutorial) here if you'd like to follow along.

2. Photoshop or GIMP (a free alternative to Photoshop - downloadable here).

3. Imagination! Your background can be anything you want it to be. It is up to you to make it that way! I will simply be showing you some basic attack tactics. :)