The importance of post editing

[Mortze]

Hello,

I'd like to talk to you about the importance of post editing in 3D art, in my most humble and modest opinion.
Sure, not everyone has the time, or the will, to make the best of the pictures you render for you games, or for just the art you produce.
And, sure, not everyone knows how to do it.

Little parenthesis; let me just say that this post isn't, in any way, a critic on any art from fellow artists, either posted on this forum or anywhere else. It's just that I felt the need to comunicate to whomever is interested my conclusions about post editing.

Here's an example of something I just did minutes ago.



On the left, a pic of our most belove deviant redhead, rendered in DAZ3D with Iray engine. Two lights, one warmer but softer in front of her, and a second, brighter and colder, on her right. It looked good after rendering. I was satisfied.
But never be satisfied without trying to edit it, even if only for a minute or 2.
(I use Photoshop but I believe there are plenty of other software out there)

Put your picture in Photoshop (for example) and play around with it. Here, on the right is the final result. Well, I got from satisfied with the render to just Yeah... What seemed a cool render looks now, to me, rather bland.

I did nothing fancy, just a few minutes in Photoshop. Played with levels and brightness to bring more light, contrast and vibrance to add more colour. Sharpened it slightly too.
There is no step by step technique here. It's your subjective taste that will dictate what feel and mood you want to imprint on your picture.

The render took me 1h40. The post editing less than 5 minutes.
It's possible to obtain the same result in DAZ3d but trial and error, render after render, but, in my most humble opinion, you will gain precious time and enjoyment by learning a few basic tricks in post editing.

And there are tons and tons lot more tutorials out there for post editing.

Sure, for games this will add a lot more work. If your game has 1000+ pics would you post edit each one of them? Well, in my case, yes and no. I've done it, a lot. Brighten a midtone level +20 for each of the 100+ pics of a particular scene. Lots of time. But I think it's worth it.

More so if you do renders for just one picture. And it's fun to learn and practice post editing no?

I am no master, not at all, of Photoshop, but, as always, feel free to ask your questions here on the forum and I, and lots of great fellow artists will surelly help you out. Just try to find a few tutorials on youtube or other sites first. Not that we don't want to help you but the guys that make those tutorials are, in most cases, professionals. And know better. Better than me, at least.

Cheers!

[HeyChief]

And a lot of us like all the time you take on the projects. Thank you HeyChief

[GDS]

Sure, for games this will add a lot more work. If your game has 1000+ pics would you post edit each one of them? Well, in my case, yes and no. I've done it, a lot. Brighten a midtone level +20 for each of the 100+ pics of a particular scene. Lots of time. But I think it's worth it.

I agreed Pos editing is a good thing, sometime I do it too,
But on a high scale it is crazy

What I do is : "PRE-Editing" Images before Render, so the images got out with a higher quality, On DAZ3D:

• Edit a lot of things on the "Surfaces" TAB
  
• Photoshop the skin textures, SSS Surfaces, and color
  
• Use the Uber-environment, AoA Light settings,add colors and shadows to the light so it will match you edited SSS.

Here an example of how adding the right light can change your results:
LEFT: DAZ default lighting
MIDDLE: Custom lighting
RIGHT: Custom lighting After "PRE editing" and right position of the lights I DID NOT USE PHOTOSHOP OR ANY KIND OF EDITING!

All 3 images were Rendered with the same Render Setting,
The first took 40s, the others took about 30m, on a old machine




Again the only difference on those 2 is default lightning versus Custom light.
As you can see: no matter how pale you make a Person on DAZ, as long you don't put the right Light they will always look the same color and plastic

But unfortunately most tutorials to make this are from 4 years ago on daz < 4.5, Now most people don't post tutorial and just sell pre-made scenes on the daz store. Which is useless for people with 1000s of renders.

Just like Mortze said: I'm far from telling anyone what to do, And im not criticizing the work of anyone;
I just wanna show that with PRE-editing, POS-Work and full control of the software(DAZ3D) you can do wonders.
No matter if you bought the hair from DAZ for U$50 or got for free on ShareCG, it will look wonderful if you give your time and learn, or it will look awful if you don't really know what you are doing.

[Asmodai]

What I do is : "PRE-Editing" Images before Render, so the images got out with a higher quality, On DAZ3D:

• Edit a lot of things on the "Surfaces" TAB
  
• Photoshop the skin textures, SSS Surfaces, and color
  
• Use the Uber-environment, AoA Light settings,add colors and shadows to the light so it will match you edited SSS.

Here an example of how adding the right light can change your results:
LEFT: DAZ default lighting
MIDDLE: Custom lighting
RIGHT: Custom lighting After "PRE editing" and right position of the lights I DID NOT USE PHOTOSHOP OR ANY KIND OF EDITING!

Would you please elaborate on what exactly you tweaked to make the renders after the first one look so much better, without any post work?

[GDS]

What I do is : "PRE-Editing" Images before Render, so the images got out with a higher quality, On DAZ3D:

• Edit a lot of things on the "Surfaces" TAB
  
• Photoshop the skin textures, SSS Surfaces, and color
  
• Use the Uber-environment, AoA Light settings,add colors and shadows to the light so it will match you edited SSS.

Here an example of how adding the right light can change your results:
LEFT: DAZ default lighting
MIDDLE: Custom lighting
RIGHT: Custom lighting After "PRE editing" and right position of the lights I DID NOT USE PHOTOSHOP OR ANY KIND OF EDITING!

Would you please elaborate on what exactly you tweaked to make the renders after the first one look so much better, without any post work?

The only difference on those images is the lighting settings, you need to tweak and edit then until you have the desired result

On the DAZ shop they have some premade lightning setting, they are good to know how lighting works,

[Mik]

I've been working with Daz3d/iray for a few weeks, but I think iray has a lot of adjusters you
can turn to get certain results and atm I'm just talking about the standard isometric lights.

I have not even started to take a look a uberenvironment lighting or light emitting panes,
surfaces or whatever....

And each render took me some minutes to judge the lighting, and sometimes iray seems
not to work out like real lighting (of course not, it is a software which simulates it ).
Except the unwanted reflections which work always perfectly.

So if you have enough experience to estimate the result and want to go for the perfect
render it is for sure useful to do it the iray way.

But I think (seeing the results Mortze got with "photoshopping") and considering the
necessary time for both methods, I will give post editing a try (at least for me atm).