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I'm all for a bit of postwork. Although, I will say I'm not the sort to, say, add something out of whole cloth in post. It's mostly minor tweaks. Even when I make things look painty it's still doesn't alter the general form of the image.
This is not a decision with any sort of moral underpinning. I just don't think I'm good enough to actually add in things and end up with something that looks cohesive. In the past I have dabbled with things like trying to partially paint in some hair and always found that the juxtaposition made the hair look extra painted and the rest extra cg-y.
On the other hand simple things like defocusing everything a hair can make things look less like perfectly crisp cg when I'm going for photorealism. And heavily denoising can make a whole image blend together and look more toony, even when some of the textures used were more mentioned for a realistic look (it meaning I don't have to render as long is a nice bonus too)
"I gotta say, that I LOVE what you do with your postwork. That vintage Frazetta like style, its sometimes hard to tell if it's a render or if it's a painting."
Thank you very much! Sometimes I wonder if it's worth it though because it is an extremely random and frustrating process. I experiment with about 80 custom Photoshop Curves I've created over the years to find one or two that work, then a lot of careful color correction using masks, and sometimes NIK tools if it happens to look good with the rendered lighting. I would make so much more art if I could find a dependable and repeatable method of getting the results I sometimes do.
Varies -
- quite a few of my renders are for just for fun forum challenges, which often specify whether post work is allowed.
- if purely for myself, I am likely to do post work. I am not good at it, but doesn’t stop me.
- should also say that I rarely go for realism unless a rule specifies it. I prefer stylized figures and renders.
...one artsts I liked who do a tonne of post were AlphaChannel and Lundqvist, the latter who can be found on DA.
[had to wait until I got home as the DA phone app for some stupid reason lost my password and I couldn't find the artists I follow.]
Lundqvist's postwork looks good but must be almost all hand painted. I particularly like the fabric folds although in some cases it's the opposite problem of DAZ clothing not having enough folding.
..here is s a pic I used Alien Skin's Exposure X3 on . I cerated my own filter to mimic what a 1960s magazine photo would look like. The original render was done in 3DL .
I feel it actually ,looks more "real" than the original version..
I personally prefer the look of a well lit Iray scene straight out of the renderer, it's what got me to try Studio out this time. So far the only postwork I do on my images is fixing poke-through, I try to get everything else I'm looking for done in-camera. I have seen some fantastic post worked shots though, and I do want to learn to use brushes and such in Photoshop, to help add things to the scene that just flat aren't possible in Studio yet.
I remember the original version when you posted it & this one does look more real, although still like a render or painting. It work be helped immensively getting that 60s magazine look (that sort of Technicolor saturation and flatness) it there were filters that coluld to that Lundqvist's style, although some of his looks too painted and too flat.
I still don't like postwork, but I do it a lot now. My view on PW has changed a bit though. In old Poser days PW was mostley done to fix ugly jont bendings. This became almost obsolete with G8 figures. Now I can focus on givng more WOW-power to my renders. One of my favorite PW actions is: Dublicate your layer in Photoshop. Saturation to zero. Make a very smooth selection of the area of your picture, you want to high light. Make brightness 100% and contrast -100%. Multply the B/W layer. Set layer transperacy to about 20 to 30 %. Done , looks better ;-)
Sickleyield made smoke takeoff props in Fast Fog Iray.
Personally I like the idea to get a "perfect" result just with rendering, but for sure there are reasons to do postwork.
On the other hand I've seen really old "renders" which were almost photorealistic, but I'm not sure if there are more than ten pixels from the original left in these pics.
To call this a render seems a little weird to me ....., but everyone to his taste :)
...as to the latter a single filter would not be able to get that appearance without affecting other elements of the scene. I admire the work he puts in to his images. He used to post here a long time ago.
3DL in Daz is incapable of the same photo real look of Iray, Octane, or other PBR render engines, though it can come pretty close. However, I feel outside of professional commercial and cinema production work, photo real is not the "be all and end all". Look at Pixar, none of their characters or even world settings are exactly "photo real" and they are very successful.
That scene above took just over 10 min to render instead of hours and hours on the CPU in Iray as at the time I only had a 1 GB GPU card (totally useless for Iray).
With a new GPU card (12 GB) I am reworking the scene for Iray just for a comparison. One issue with the Iray version I did years ago was all the surfaces looked flat without texture detail. This is because it uses different values for bump and displacement which were not translated over in the conversion from 3DL so I will have to manually figure those out each surface since all setting elements (save for the girls who I redid from scratch for 3DL) use 3DL materials.
Here is the non filtered version of the same scene.
When I need post work, I failed to set up the scene correctly in the first place. I go back and rectify it. This takes longer than post work but helps master the program. Post work is not evil as such, it depends what the artist is after and the final result is what counts. Since I'm a silly purist and many filters can be made directly in Bryce and "bolted" to the camera, I'm not good at post work.
I do rarely any postwork. For two reasons:
A: I want to learn how to make a good render. I dont want to learn how to photoshop mistakes.
B: Im a photoshop noob.
My girlfriend is a photographer and she is verry annoyed by the fact that there are a lot of people who call themselves photographer but they are in fact photoshop experts. With enough skill you can make any crapy photo look decent or even good.
She says (and i agree) a good photo needs little to no postwork. It comes good, straight out of the camera.
I have a similar opinion on renders.
Sure there are exceptions like you use penny 8 in classic pinup scene and you throw a vintage filter over it. It can enhance a render or give it a little bit extra but in general I like my renders with as minimum post work as possible.
If you open your render in photoshop for anything different then resizing i consider this postwork.
Although I have experiement with Ron's water brush on one Dolphin scene, I don't do any postwork on my Iray render scenes. But doesn't mean I won't experiment with different methods in the future. I try to keep DS Iray and Photoshop seperate, and will keep thoughts to myself, I had a thread last week pertaining to similar topic, thread was closed
I've only recently begun to dabble into Photoshop for more than simple resizing. There are some effects that can't be done in render, but I'm not really good enough in Postwork to achieve those effects.
Generally, I try to achieve as much as possible in a render, but working on a comic has changed my priorities a bit. I just have a limited time to set up things, make sure the render looks good, and make the posing communicate the character's feelings. So I no longer have the luxury of several weekends to try out things for a render solution. So, some things end up in postwork because of that.
EDIT: just wanted to add... part of the fascination with "trying of achieving it within the render" is seeing just how far you can push things in the render engines. And that "wow" effect when it works out (or "woe"!)... and I feel quite happy that I have tackled that obstacle.
Tools for the Job. The result is what matters.
The way I see it is "You are making art", so whatever it takes to achieve the look you want is what it takes.
Being a "purist" and being proud that something is a pure render with no post work makes not a single lick of sense to me. The render is just one step in the process to create a final piece of art. It is never intended to be the art itself.
This is especially true with D/S because most of the products in the store are made by separate individual PA's and every one of us has different ideas of what looks good for a product, and quite often they never really match up well in a single scene. Therefore getting a shot to look good will not really work. Unless you want to go out and edit every material setting to get the specific feel YOU are looking for. I don't know about you, but that is way too much work for me.
We are working with digital art, so in the end people only care that the picture looks good, no one really cares what programs you used to get that look. Therefore, a render is just the first step in the process of making art
Here is my base render...it is a pretty good render on its own, but could be so much better before I call it art worthy.
Here is the same picture with a bunch of post work to make it more like how I envision it should look
and for kicks I was playing with a filter to give it an oil paint look after.....and I really liked that look ;)
100% of my renders go into post process, I use Daz for commercial illustration and Comic/Webcomic work.
I don't use the in Daz filters and Add-ons for cartoony or npr, because to date, none have come close to a usable finished product. (that does not stop me from buying them in hope)
I wish I could do 100% finished in Daz, but for NPR and Iray, it's just not gonna happen at the moment.
This is an example of my goal artwise.
using different layers with transparency is something people should take away from this. It's a tool to multiply your work when you want to take it up a notch.
Why do multiple render passes of a single camera?
Manipulate your base image for the effect that you want. Use the modified/filtered layer as your additional render pass. Or use the layer as a way to simply change the feeling of the product, like the soft focus that some pinup work is known for. Layers are really good tools.
The more you do the post render work, the better. Black and white for noir isn't just taking your color render to grayscale. The illusion of a dim smoky room is best done in strong light, high contrast. Save the render time you'd need to process a dim lighting setup, invest time in every other part of the process.
I save render time by using light that I don't want and dialing the render product down to what I need.
Also,I love dialing down the perfection of the 3d background... Or dialing it up in the case of imperfect solutions. If realism is the goal, then straight render product shouldn't be the pinnacle of achievement. It's only a step.
When photography was a chemical reaction done in dark rooms, artists still manipulated their work to achieve the image in their mind's eye.
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I really haven't reached the point with my renders where I feel compelled to spend the time to try and perfect them in some way through postwork. I think that ultimately, regardless of whether one chooses to achieve a certain result through pure rendering or through postwork, depends mostly on the what the individual is trying to achieve. A commercial artist (and I know there are a few hereabouts) is obviously going to need to satisfy their clients' demands while choosing the quickest way to achieve that. There may be hobbyists that enjoy showing their work and who also set high standards for themselves as a consequence. Personally, although I occasionally do post a render, more often than not my intent is to illustrate a point in a discussion or sometimes tell a story or just for fun. I'm usually not submitting them for peer review. My point is, I really don't care that much whether they are liked on the basis of either technical or artistic merit. I guess what I'm saying is that I'm really not all that serious about this stuff. Its just a pastime. For myself, I don't do much postwork and I see postwork as something that someone would do if they wished to create something extraordinary. For now, at least, I'm quite content to be ordinary. Perhaps if I live long enough, that might change. Ask me again later.
I thought the purpose of this thread was that the OP to learn about people's prefernce, not imply things about perceived "purists" of one type or the other... ?
I use either CameraBag, Topaz or Nik. Typically on a dup layer, and blend that with the original. Otherwise a poke-through here or there, add a logo layer, or sometimes a little more "color" to the eyes. That's about it...but I do it almost everytime.
I thought the purpose of this thread was that the OP to learn about people's prefernce, not imply things about perceived "purists" of one type or the other... ?
Say one thing contrary to the purists so they can hurry up and lock this thread. lol
Oh, I think its not really a purist versus purist thing...Since plenty of purists are criticzing non purists. its the typical artist arguement we see in the forums where people try to define what is and is not art, what qualified in the gallery based on their perceptions, and how something is or is not art based on narrow qualifications which seems to align with their specific artistic 3d preference. Inevitably threads like this get locked.
Threads get locked when convo gets heated, when too many people break the ToS in their arguments or if the convo goes round and round in ever repeating circles or when too many people try getting the thread locked by mentioning getting it locked.
I am a fan of postwork and prework aand in the middle work, whatever it takes to get the result I am trying for, which can vary from image to image.
To postwork or to just render? My first attempt at postwork was to add a leash to a scene where the dog was running and its walker was losing a shoe. The leash somehow disappeared, I was very disappointed but posted it anyway. I have done very successful renders witohout any postwork and that is usually my preference, but a lot of that is due to:
1) lack of time after finalizing the render, - need to post for a contest (seldom) or need it for an RP game I am either running or in
2) lack of patience - sometimes after I finalize a render I am just done with the scene and want no more to do with it.
3) lack of skill - I do not have Photoshop - ended up getting too pricey, but I do have GIMP and Painter. I just don't necessarily have the skills needed to modify my render to a better version of what I produced in Studio.
4) or simply I am tired and put it aside then forget about it.
With all of that said, I have done some minor postwork on some renders to get my vision across but those are few and far between. As I indicated, my lack of postwork is often due to my own shortcomings in the area of patience and time. I do enjoy seeing what others have done and I do envy the results that others achieve. I just wish that some of them would indicate how much (or what) was postwork or pure render.
For corrections, Photoshop Heal brush is wizardry. I mean, seriously.
I use that whenever trying to get clipping or fitting right is taking forever; 1 minute with a Heal brush beats 15 test renders and several hours of swearing at Studio.