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Not really. There are ways to minimize loss. I forget off hand because I don't use them a lot. I have notes somewhere around here :D
To me working with canvases is sort of like shooting in RAW, it gives you more information and a better base to start with. I will do post work in either 8 bit or 16 bit depending on what I'm doing to the image. I often combine my renders with photographs. If they are my own photographs I can work in 16 bit because I shoot RAW, but if they are from some place like pixbay they are already in 8 bit. Also not all my filters and actions work in 16 bit..
I really like to render my light group canvases as it allows more control over the light and I love being able to mask an area off if I don't like the light on that part of it. You can also sometimes get really cool looks by using layer modes on different light areas. If you go to my art studio thread,, I think 's linked in my signature, I post all before and after post work renders. On page 18 the unicorn image shows all the light canvases I rendered. I usually put these light canvases in screen layer mode, but putting the backlight canvas in lighten cast the whole back of the gorge in pink hues, which I really liked for that image. That would have been a pain an the rear to try and get just the back lit area in those hues without that canvas.
I also like to use nodes if I know there is something that I don't like the way it rendered, I'll do another render of just that item by selecting it in a node for that canvas. It will render as a ping image all alone with all the shadows and light it should have, but now I can slap it over the top of the image ni post and edit it all by itself.
Anyway that's the main reason I use canvases, I like using them in post. :)
Also if you haven't already seen it here is a link to shebashake's blog and an article about how he combines his light canvases in PS that you might find interesting.
https://thinkdrawart.com/how-i-combine-daz-studio-lights-in-photoshop
Thanks to you both for the additional information. Yes, I use all kinds of postwork methods like that to try and adjust lighting, spot renders to fix areas that I've either changed or are pixelly, and I don't think anyone in this community has more saved Curve presets than I do. :) Haha, funny you mention Shibashake, I was just looking at his tutorials yesterday and wanted to experiment with light passes - which is what led to all this frustration. :D
I do have one more question which will pretty much determine whether I keep messing with canvases for the time being. Can you tell me how to set up the nodes so that a render results in two images: a image with one spotlight lighting the scene and one with ONLY the environmental lighting. For the life of me, I cannot get it to do both of those at once, it always renders according to what the environment mode drop-down is set to, which always results in either both dome and scene or just the dome.
Thanks in advance. :)
The beauty canvas will do exactly what you see in the preview, and doesn't need any nodes. In the drop down menu where it says "type" choose "Environment Lighting" you don't need any nodes it will render with nothing but your environmental lighting/ hdri on it. You add another canvas and choose "Light Group" for the type then you create a node in the node Lists area, choose just the lighting that you want to be on that canvas - you do this by clicking the box with the three little dots to the right of your node in the list and a new box will pop up with everything in the scene. BTW I usually name both my canvas and my node by the light group I am choosing so that I can keep them together and not accidently get them mixed up. After you create your node you go back up to where you named you canvas and choose the type and pick the node that goes with that canvas from the node dropdown. I render a beauty canvas, an environment canvas and all my light canvases in one render. It puts them all into the same folder. I hope this is clear, I'm better at showing then telling. :)
Side notes: If you do use a node on your beauty canvas it will render ONLY what is selected in the node, this is helpful if you want to work on that item separate from the rest of the scene. Be sure to have the "alpha" box check marked under where you select your canvas type if you do this - as this is what seems to put your image on a clear background instead of a gray one. You can only render one beauty canvas in each render so if you want to do this you have to do another render. You can have multiple light canvases in each render, so if you had a spotlight and a back light you can do them on their own canvases all in the same render. Also if you have an emissive light - don't pick emissive as your type, just treat it like another light group....
Thank you again, I was using Beauty canvases for the individual light one when I should have been using Light Group. I actually wrote a popular tutorial on Canvases, but I always end up either forgetting what I wrote about or needing to do something that I didn't have to learn to write the tutorial. ;) I'm sure I'll have a problem with some other canvas type in the future, but for now I'll keep experimenting with them. Much appreciated!