How Much Post-Editing After Rendering?
mwokee
Posts: 1,275
in The Commons
When I poke around the site and look at the best of the best images, I can't but help think there is no way that is the final image after rendering. So I'm wondering how much Photoshopping is really going on. Not that it's wrong, just wondering if I have a long way to go in setting up my renders or if editing is a necessary evil.
Thanks
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As much as you need. There really isn't a rule. I am heavily into postwork myself these days. I have even created masks in DAZ Studio to help me. For example a mask just for postwork on a figure's skin, and then another mask for say the building in the same scene, etc., each one gets a separate treatment.
The best way is to read articles on postwork or videos on Youtube. Or purchase some of Dreamlight's video tutorials, if you can stomach his teaching method.
Then you have users like mysef that stay away from post work as much as possible depending on the type of image needed. For me it's all about the setup before rendering since I usually only use unbiasd renderers. If I am going for realism, I would rather set up the camera, lighting and surfaces correctly first than attempt to fake it with post work after.
Don't get me wrong, I admire a few users that rely very heavily on postwork and create some amazing images for the style they are into, it's just not what I am into.
If I view a really amazingly realistic image in a gallery and they state no postwork, I am more impressed than if they did use it.
It really varies. I usually don't use postwork on my product images except to add text (occasionally for brightness/contrast). My images also don't look nearly as awesome as the ones you'll see from some other artists, and I know that. A lot of artists add atmosphere or lighting effects that way (it's faster than rendering godrays in any engine). We are not allowed to use postwork that fundamentally changes the appearance of a product (e.g. makes a shirt look metallic when it only comes in cotton) but use of it to improve lighting or atmosphere on a non-lighting product is very common.
If the final image is the result of no postwork, some postwork or a total repaint, as long as the image looks good to you, that is all that matters. If you're making the image for a client, then the client is all that matters. Those are my rules, you decide what are yours.
If you're merely doing it for the challenge of seeing how much you can do without the assistance of postwork, that's totally cool. Sometimes people do illustrations where they only use Daz Studio figures, maybe some clothing and buildings to get the poses, lighting and perspective, and then paint in the rest. It can be as much or as little as you want. There is no right or wrong.
The other thing I go by is having fun doing it, or getting paid well if it's not. Sometimes you have to strike a balance between those two. I've turned down clients where no amount of money was going to be worth it and occasionally have the best of all worlds where I got paid AND had fun. LOL.
Whatever your reasons, try to enjoy what you do when you can. Good luck on the journey.
I often use postwork to nudge tone mapping and highlight details. Sometimes I do more to get special effects, like a somewhat drawn look or whatnot. And then, more rarely, I insert stuff completely, like lens flares or whatnot, as post work.
I don't get bonus points for refusing to use postwork, so it's just another tool.
I allways feel bad doing postwork on the rendered picture. Feels like cheating. Hate doing that. So the less, the better.
Sometimes it is hard to tell which images have been postworked. I've seen images in the gallery that were outstanding and state no postwork while other didn't do anything for me, but were postworked out the whazoo and not neccessarily in a good way. It is a personal preference for each individual artist just how much postwork they wll have in their renders and why type. For some, they just need postwork to tweak the image, others do a lot of postwork.
I don't do a lot of postwork in my renders, but that is more from a lack of skills than any desire to do it all inside DAZ. Currently, though, most of my renders are all inside DAZ with no postwork. I just learned how to successfully use layers in GIMP. Yes, I know that is a basic skill, but it took me awhile to figure out what I was doing wrong before I could actually get it right. So, a few of my just posted renders have some minimal postwork. As my skills get better, I will probably do more postwork. Of course, you won't see any of my current renders up on the top banner, either. I may never get there. As my skills in both DAZ and GIMP improve, I will probably add more postwork to my images. It is a tool and nothing more. What you do with it is what counts. Just have fun producing what you can with whatever your skillset is and try to improve until you can get what you see in your mind's eye.
Most of my renders are not or very lightly postworked, for two simple reasons. For one I don't have much of an idea and even less practise of what is possible in postwork. The second is that I'm still new to DS and now have the plan to learn this first and the go on to learning about really doing good postwork. What I did learn already about postwork is that it is a lot of detailed work to make it look good.
In the end it is all about creating the art of your own vision. Rendering is simply one step in that process. Do whatever it takes to get the final image that you have.
There is no such thing as cheating when it comes to making your art (well...unless you take someone elses art and infringe their copyrights..blah blah blah...but for your own original art, all is good)
(as a PA, I have to say that the promo artwork has very minimal post work.....but I am not talking promo art, I am talking art art)
Professional CG artists don't have this notion of "purity" about their renders. Rendering is just one stage in completing an image or animation according to your artistic vision. That being said, well done postwork won't necessarily call attention to itself if the intended result is photorealism. Outside of the DAZ/Poser microcosm, your audience will judge your work on its own merits, not whether postwork was used.
Take a cue from photography. Sure, the best photographers will make an effort to "get it right" in the camera, but they know that tools like Photoshop can take their images to a higher level. Get your render "right," but don't be ashamed to enhance it with the tools and skills that can fulfill your artistic vision.
I used to be very anti-postwork but have recently changed my tune for stuff like special effects. I remember trying to use liquid, fire, etc props that took forever compared to a clever use of brushes. Saves a lot of time, actually.
I love post work. To me the render is just the canvas.
If you are creating art, then postwork can be a part in the process and often times is. These are tools and skills at your disposal to create and enhance compelling images. Most people viewing it don't really care on the steps to get there, the finished image is judged on its own merit, and usually within 1-2 seconds.
But if it is promos for a product, then postwork should be kept to a minimum. it should be "what you see is what you get" (wysiwyg) using the software listed.
I used to be heavy on no post work, especially with Reality + Luxrender, but there are things DAZ studio cannot do. Or even higher end ones, at least not easily. Fire breathing dragon and magic/sorcery are some obvious ones that are really hard to do within a scene. I'm working on a scene where I am adding point lights with the colors I want for e.g. fire, a spell, etc. and will then mask out parts of the scene and try to add the effects in post. Another obvious but overlooked one is a vignette for the corners of the scene. And e.g. particles in the air, bullets, laser beams, saliva and blood dripping out of a dinosaur's mouth... And e.g. Fantasy usually has a surreal look to it that often needs to be enhanced in post. So in some respects the genre you are targeting can dictate if you need to use post work. I have also been incorporating 3D into 2D music album cover and traycard artwork, in which case there is no final scene -- I'm rendering something I am going to insert into a layer in Photoshop (or layers, or...). So what your project is can also dictate what you need to do.
Here's one for you -- do you consider IBLs with shadow catch planes of real world places or sci-fi places e.g. post-apocalyptic warehouse cheating? It’s not post work, but if you rendered the scene with alpha and then inserted a background in post… It blurs the line. Ditto for using a background (environment tab) for the render.
If you want to set a specific goal to do as little postwork as possible to improve your 3D skills then go for it. But you can set different goals (e.g. a dragon and a sorcerer battling it out) and use whatever tools you need to pull it off. If you are good enough, you could just use Painter or Photoshop. You could use DAZ Studio for a “storyboard” reference. You could use it as a starting point and then with the right masks, etc. flesh it out. Not sure if that counts as post anymore though since the final render is just art of the workflow for the project.
I guess the bottom line is ask yourself what your goal is and then use the tools/workflow necessary to get you there.
Another consideration is render times. For example, volumetrics can result in horrendously long render times. If it takes weeks to render an image because of that, could that time have been better spent adding the desired effect in post? Which brings us back to what your goal is.
I guess what I am trying to say is make sure you have a reason for aiming for as little post work as possible. Challenging yourself, forcing yourself to learn more about e.g. lighting – those are all good reasons. But if you are doing it just because you feel you have to then you should ask yourself if you are holding yourself back as an artist with that viewpoint.
Post work in professional studios is referred to as compositing usually and is a basic part of the work flow. There isn't a professional studio out there that does not do compositing with their images, and that includes 'photo real.' It would be the equivalent to telling Hollywood that they should only make movies with what comes out of the camera, no adjusting. Doing images with no compositing is a good exercise to expand one's skill set using the render engine and associated tools but it is restricting oneself for no good reason otherwise.
Compositing is an artform in itself. Most larger studios have different people for doing the various tasks, modeling, lighting, scene construction, and compositing. One of the main reasons that people stay away from compositing is really that they don't have the skill set. I have yet to meet someone who is skilled in compositing that doesn't do compositing.
There are times when compositing is not appropriate, such as when a vendor is creating an object to sell, then they may have an image or two that have been composited but the bulk of the images need to be done in a non composited (non post worked) scenario so that people looking to buy the product know what to expect.
I probably should have been more detailed in my original post, as least in the context of what I wanted to learn. When I look at the really good images, they look very real and I am not figuring out how to do that with my renders. I consider myself an "Expert Amateur" with Photoshop and know a lot of tricks even though I wouldn't compare myself to a profesiional graphic artist.
So it appears I still have much to learn with creating renders as opposed to getting what I want with editing after the render. I purchased some tutorials but they weren't very helpful. I'm a part-part-time professional photographer and know how to light a scene and the tutorials (that I've seen) don't go beyond common sense.
In that case, scene layout and lighting are huge factors. Since IRay is an unbiased renderer, you may want to actually check out some photography tutorials. Another thing you can try is just doing some sumple scense with one or two lights at most. Or if your renderer of choice has a sun and sky use that (e.g. if you have Reality then Luxrender will adjust the lighting based on the angle of the sun so you can fo afternoon, sunsets, etc. and the shadows will refelct the time of day).
I do what I need to in post. I tend to follow a few photography rules for rendering and post such as using a little less light and adjusting that in post which is a mahor time saver then rerendering it again and again. I dont use Photoshop or any other digital painting software atm though. I use Nikon Capture NX 2 with the Nik Color Effects Pro 3 filters.
If you are just starting off, its not a bad idea to try to do some things without postwork just so you can better learn how to achive certain things in DAZ Studio instead. However, dont hesitate to postwork in the end as there is no rule against it.
This is an interesting discussion. It never occured to me that you shouldn't post work. I actually was super excited to find the the 3d modelling programs because I wanted to take my 2d art to a new level. For me, postwork is a given but I am also very used to using photoshop. Now, I try to get as close to the vision in my head as possible before postwork (a. because I need to learn the program and b. because it makes the postwork easier) but I can't imagine not using a tool that is provided to make my art look the way I want it to look.
I just about always adjust levels, and sometimes pop the vibrance or throw an unsharp mask on the render. Troublesome images require going in with the clone tool and getting rid of poke-through or in some cases compositing different versions of the same image (with and without the wig, for example). And most of my images are composites assembled in Photoshop with the background provided from other renders or stock images.
I rarely get particularly arty with postwork, but I've no objection to it. I tend to sniff at the fanatics who refuse to touch it, as if they were a bunch of vegans confronted by a leg of roast lamb. The vegans at least have an excuse. They've become so rarified that eating the lamb would make them sick.
I rarely postwork my renders but I sometimes do. Like a friend of mine once told me it is not always postwork but touch up when there are spots, rendering issues or some other problem tied to the way the render looks. I just postwork a render when it looks really necessary to me...
Greetings,
I started by being against postwork, mostly because I wanted to see how much I could wring out of the renderer. Then I started using compositing, when using 'spot render to file' (which is a life-saver!), and stuff like cigarette and gun smoke. Then I started tweaking color levels, and stuff like that.
Nowadays I'm fine with it in the whole pipeline, but I still think there was a value to eschewing postwork early on, so I could get an understanding of what IS possible in the renderer.
-- Morgan
When it looks done.
I respect that people can get perfect results without post work, but there are also people who can whittle a statue of Lincoln while bouncing on a pogo stick too... I'd just prefer to use a grinder and some chisels... But unless someone is paying me to make a render only using the render engine, I'm gonna use whatever method I need to to make it look the way I want it too... They are all tools and resources... If you making a painting does anyone care if you follow a sketch on the canvas, or must you paint your scene flat out from scratch... Will using a smudge stick to blend certain details after most of the paint has dried be bad... Is it bad form to use a dot of acrylic paint to fix a highlight in an eye on an oil painting?... In art you have mixed media pieces... I think people tend to get too wrapped up in the image being like a photo... Click the shutter, click the render button, one shot no backsies... I get that in photography, especially in contests, nature photos or news imagery... But unless you are rendering for a contest, a promo or to prove a point... Is it really that big a deal? I respect that people can do it... But it really makes no difference to me. A long time ago when I was an art handler there was an artist we used to work with... I really liked her paintings, they were photorealistic and had nice imagery... One day we went to her studio to pick up some of her work and I realized she was projecting images of her photos onto the canvas and painting over that... I felt a little disappointed, but then I thought about it... Her photos which she used as a starting point were pretty insightful and on their own, told a story... Her painting over the projection, and she did that well, just gave the image a different style and more of a personal touch... And it was far more work, even if the argument could be made that she lacked the skill to paint without an image to color in, I still felt it was the final image that resulted which told a story and conveyed an emotion... so thats what really mattered.
And if that person says that bouncing on a pogo stick is the only way to carve...they've bounced a few too many times.
There isn't one crrect answer for this. They are all correct or all wrong and it is definitely up to the individual making the art to decide which.
One thing I really like in postwork is some lighting adjustments and sharpening. I found sometimes renders would just come out a little muddy, and I could either adjust it in post or spend 15 hours trying to set up lights better without loosing what qualities I liked.
For me the most important is the final result. If you can't get what you exactly want with the unretouched render then just go on and postwork it until you get the wanted result. Keep in mind that what you do is art and that the only thing you will do is mix 3D and 2D techniques. But the result will be ART!!!
You are so right: To me, too, it's only the result what matters.
I would say that if its a promo for a product then postwork should not be allowed at all for the image. It should be a case of "this is what you can achieve with this product in just Daz Studio (or the listed software) alone". Otherwise it starts to get into the realms of intentionally misleading advertising.
Not doing postwork because you're rendering promotional images for a product? Good reason.
Not doing postwork because possibly silly client says it's bad? Good reason. Client is king, even if silly.
Not doing postwork because silly people on the internet say it's bad? Bad reason.