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Occasionally i adjust levels, contrast and the likes but usually i don't do postwork. Mainly because i'm just not good enough at it. When viewing other people's renders i sometimes wonder if this or that was rendered or postworked. Just technical curiosity, i don't judge by it.
Postwork can be quite a powerful tool, so why not use it to make your renders better. If i ever find the time to learn how to do it properly, i'll definitely use it.
Postwork is your friend! Its the fun part too.
It's nice when I get an image I consider decent enough without it, but otherwise, I postwork as much as I want.
At the end of the day I'm not gonna lose any sleep if someone didn't like my work because i used post work, hell I'm not going to lose sleep if they don't like my work at all really. I have a list of more important things to worry about
1.that everything on my DVR will disappear
2. have a booger and no one will tell me
3.SNAILS!
4.Keebler elves stealing my cat.
5.Not being able to finish a sent
6.My cat being an informant for the FBI
7.Are we ever going to have a repeat of the disaster of new coke vs. old coke.
8.Combing up SARS
I have used Photoshop for years. But I am far from an expert. DAZ and 3D art has made me start really learning more. A lot of artists in this community and others, have been very helpful in helping me understand how to do certain things in post. That and YouTube. Anytime I see an effect that I like, I start researching how to do it. From there it is just a matter of experimentation.
I do appreciate good composition and expert lighting regardless of post work, but I do think that you can make a tremendous difference in the finished product by doing post work.
To post or not to post? That is the question. My answer is: it depends on what the image is for. The type of pictures I like to look at for pleasure are usually the ones that started life as a 3D render, but the artist painted over it and manipulated it so much it looks like a painitng. Post work away and do what you want to get the picture out of your head.
If the image is for a contest and post work is not allowed, then no. If the image is a promo for a vendor product then you really cannot do anything that misreperesents the product being sold.
If the image is in the LuxRender thread and it would take 10 hours to resolve a few fireflys, or get the desired brightness to your figure's eyes, or add a small shadow to someone's foot, but it would only take you 10 minutes in postwork, then you get to decide how you want to spend your time, but I'm doing the postwork.
interesting thread. Personally I don't care for post unless the image is rendered with that purpose in mind, which is why i use unbiased renderers most of the time. To me, using an unbiased renderer and then post defeats the main purpose of using an unbiased renderer. Why would I let a render bake for 24 hrs only to post work oit afterwards, I could have used a biased on and be done a whole lot quicker. i also don't consider sharpening or contrast adjustment as postwork..
I disagree with this also, the technique can be just as much of a part of the art as the visual itself. If i am working with clay, the clay often defines the form, same with any other medium. i get quite a bit of satisfaction out of getting the scene set up just right , the lights, the materials, the poses before the render instead of postwork9ing it afterwards.
i am a one way or another way kinda guy, if someone is good at digital painting like iskol for example, I love seeing the final image because i know that it will be quite different from the original rendered image, but just seeing some painted hair on a realistic looking render doesn't do it for me.
i also view anything I postwork to mimic what i would see in reality as my perspective, not actual fact. I can stare at how the sun gleams off the skin of a girl at the beach all day long and attempt to reproduce it, but if using an unbiased renderer which bases it's lighting off real world calculations, i will get much closer than what I think it should look like. Granted there are still variables that i still control like the shaders, but still closer than doing from scratch.
I distinctly remember the set of touch-up "paints" in my black and white photography film class. I did not use an SLR at first, as I only had a parallax viewfinder type. After the lenses, settings, red/cyan/yellow/polarizing filters, bracketings, film development and then "render" or exposure on the enlarger, perhaps with some more filters, and so on, the photo was dried and then scrutinitized for tiny blebs of accidental burnout or dodgings. Go through all of that and find an real eyelash fell on the nose of the photographed subject! Touch up paint to the rescue! It was never suggested this was being untrue to photography but was a part of the suite of tecniques necessary to produce a satisfying image.
Burnout and dodging were used by the fingers or some tool to interrupt the beam of light passing through the negative to the paper. This would permit a faded image more detail, or blur out too much, but it could create mood. Even the paper choice made a difference. Just about all of these old photog techniques have been replicated in "photoshopping". I liked the old photo development, but photoshopping doesn't smell bad, doesn't keep people out of the bathroom, and is very flexible and amusing with all the filters available. Even a mediocre image can be jazzed up. I guess that's at the core of the controversy.
My philosphy is that post-work is a tool to be used. If it makes your art look the way you want it to, then use it. If you achieve the result you want without it, don't use it. Notice i didn't say better as that is subjective, but achieving the image you have in your mind of how it should look is what this is all about.
Now that said, I am not really ggod at post-work yet, but it is something I am working on improving.
Yep, just like everything else, there is good and bad. But I have successfully enhanced realistic looking hair by painting. Not from scratch mind you, still rendered the hair, I just touched it up a good bit in post. No one ever noticed I was there :) In a realistic render you shouldn't see the postwork/painting. If so it's a fail... But there are success stories too.
So do I. I spend a lot of time setting up the scene and tweaking to my hearts content. postwork shouldn't take away from that at all.(but I understand when applied wrong it certainly does)
I have absolutely no problem with people using postwork. A lot of really good images would probably be impossible without it.
For myself, I don't do a lot. I'm lazy, and most of my pictures are for my own reference. I'll sometimes render in layers, or mix things to adjust lighting, and of course cloning out poke through or awkward bends. But anything more complicated... I'm not really good at, and for my purposes, it isn't a priority.
That and I kinda like the challenge of seeing how much I can do "in camera" too.
And I'm one of those women who doesn't care to wear makeup. I've never seen the need for the "war paint", myself, unless it's on stage to help the people in the back row see that yes, I do have eyes.
Ahhh...
This old debate,
to me post-work is a misnomer. It's just a continuation of the work that I started in pencil, then continued in software, often through multiple stages. I'll paint texures, and do all sorts of prep work in paintshop before I even start rendering, so why suddenly stop working when the renderer finishes.
Even when I used to use a film camera I would do my own development and darkroom work. I even learned airbrushing techniques to add to my range of options. Todays photo processing apps are just extensions of that.
That's not to say you shouldn't try to get the best render that you can out of your software, you should, but you can always find a way to make it better. If you want. Try it just for fun.
A couple of examples I put on DA.
http://fav.me/d577l5d
http://fav.me/d570w26
I will add; when it comes to unbiased rendering, the point is often to get that 'done in a single shot' feel. In that case postwork can appear a little like cheating.
Always take into consideration though that the best looking cinematography you've seen from a real camera has been mercilessly processed to get it looking that good.
Personally, I'm a post work junkie. My little Photoshop addiction is what got me into using 3D software in the first place. Sure, I'm impressed by a perfect render and the skill it takes but for me as a post work junkie seeing good post work is equally impressive.
Wow, this thread grew very, very quickly and I'm sure Gedd knew it would! The Luxus Discussion thread, which initiated this topic, and another thread about biased vs. unbiased render engines, seemed to me to be about showing the rendering capabilities of various render engines, so any entries I made on those threads does not contain postwork (except I cheated and dimmed some overly bright eyeballs instead of re-render). I thought that postwork might influence the showing off of that particular render engine's results. This, and only this, is the reason I thought postwork was a no-no.
Personally, I am all for postwork. As it was said, the end-goal is a nice, artistic render to share, demonstrate, or tell a story. All tools at your disposal need to be used if that is what it takes for your final display. For example, Lundqvist (spelled wrong, I know) renders characters in DS then goes to Photoshop to add clothing, hair, backgrounds, or anything else necessary to make some really fantastic images. Are we supposed to discount that as 3d art? Nope. The image I submitted that started this discussion had no postwork except for the eye issue I mentioned. I do not consider it a finished piece because I would like to tweak a few things in post, such as a bit more light on his face, deepening the shadows in the corners of the room, etc. And don't get me started on the black clothing, which has no definition to it at all.
Gedd, thanks for bringing this age-old debate back into the light. Everyone has an idea of what is really art and whether doing this or that is cheating. For Pete's sake, most of the CG community thinks we DAZzies don't count because me didn't model our characters from scratch, even though we spend just as much time creating morphs, dialing in expressions and subtle changes to the model, tweaking textures to have just the right shine, translucency, etc. And then we have to be concerned with the silhouette of the pose, what elements to populate the background with, where to place our lights, and all of the other maddening details we fuss over. So, if after all of that I need to go to Photoshop to get rid of that purple tint on Aiko's nose, or whatever, then I am going to do it, doggone it!
Another 2 cents from Slosh. I think I am up to about $3.98 now.
Oh, holy crap, that is funny stuff. Still laughing. :lol:
:coolsmile:
I don't do it because i don't know how. I hope to learn one of these days.
I don't do it because i don't know how. I hope to learn one of these days.
My advice to you is to first Google for tutorials for whichever image editing software you have before you ever spend a dime on tutorials, books, or videos. There are tons of free resources to help you along the way unless you are trying to find out how to use Corel Painter. For whatever reason, Painter tutorials are harder to find. I guess it's more technique focused and doesn't inspire people to freely share. Anyway, start with basics before you try to do something complicated.
I couldn't imagine doing a render and not post-working it, it's the most enjoyable part.
I think too many people clutch onto the no post-work rule and ignore the fact that no one cares what you render in, or how technically advanced you may want to be, the finished image is what matters and too many people don't take the image to the next stage .. usually it's those who are adamant they don't need to post-work that need the post-work the most.
attached is what my typical render elements look like, and how they look once put together, the base render (beauty) looks pretty lame without the additional tweaking in post
I have seen posts about various reasons post work is not allowed, normally for a contest. I could never understand why that would be an issue. The whole point behind having 2D & 3D programs is to create art...to create your art any way you see fit, with what you have.
If you are showing off a program, I can then understand the need to remove post work, to show what that program can do, however, at the same time, you can show off how that program works with other programs to give you great art...compatibility is important.
If you are showing off a content product, post work actually removes one's view of seeing that product clearly. Not to mention you would not believe how many times I have seen posts of people bordering on tears, thinking they wasted money on a product because they can not get it to look like the one in the promo images. Is such cases the use of post work should be stated clearly so a customer does not think they have been ripped off.
Beyond those two reasons for and against, in all other instances, post work should be up to the individual. There are many reasons why someone would choose to use post work, as has been mentioned in this thread. The biggest reason is TIME. As mentioned with the Lux renders, taking 10 hours only to have to redo the render for whatever reason, post work is a time saver. In other cases you have your render done, things look fine at first and as you inspect the image, you noticed something wrong...render again, sometime more then twice, depending on the problem. I'm sorry, but to jump down a persons throat for fixing a problem that would otherwise take way to much time to keep redoing, my question is "where is your perfect piece of art that you only had to do once and was rendered in no time flat." Not everyone can afford big expensive computers and the latest most expensive programs in order to create art, in fact, most people don't. Most people are either going to school or working or both, so time is a very important factor in their lives. Then you have my situation, one computer, more then one person using it, time share seems to fly out the window and in my case, my son is on the computer most times. So there I am, creating my image, render it, inspect it and guess what, I find a fault. Do I render it again,(takes about an hour on this computer, last computer took four hours, son's gamer computer now dead took 15 min.....get the picture?) or do I dash to the 2D program and fix it? Do you know how many times I have started an image, only to never complete it because I can't use post work for whatever thread I want to post it on....this is the reason I never entered Stonemason's contest, this is the reason I never enter the monthly challenge, in fact, when was the last time I ever posted one of my images at Daz, archived forum or here? It's been so long I can't even remember, but it's been years.
Now I can images all kinds of responses to what I have said...but let me give you something to think about when it comes to dealing with all the various members you come across at this site.
You can suggest I tell my son off when he wants to get on the computer and I could very well do that. However, you do not know me, you do not know what my home life is like, you do not know what would happen if I said such a thing to my son. Now there are two scenarios of what would happen. The first is we fight, he slams things, yells, I get frustrated and eventually shut down the programs and start to watch TV while he happily goes on the computer to play his games. The second scenario is the fight turns physical, one or both of us would end up in the hospital or jail or both or worse.
I am one person and there are how many members at this site? Every one of those members is a real person, with a real life, with a real desire to learn graphic art. Who here has the right to tell them how they should do their art, what programs, what methods? Who here has the right to restrict another person's creative talent? The only thing any member of this site should be doing, while learning, expanding and developing their own skill, is helping others do the same.
Wow, Stonemason's image is gorgeous. That is the type of image that inspired me to start using 3D software and buying models.
Are we living the same life? LOL. I have a 32 bit 4 GIG Vista that I am having to share with my son. I'm thinking about getting a new computer but until that happy day I must composite as DAZ shuts down out of memory if I attempt to Genesis models or as you say someone wants to game. Fiber mesh hair is also so not happening on my computer. Maybe, one day....
My advice to you is to first Google for tutorials for whichever image editing software you have before you ever spend a dime on tutorials, books, or videos. There are tons of free resources to help you along the way unless you are trying to find out how to use Corel Painter. For whatever reason, Painter tutorials are harder to find. I guess it's more technique focused and doesn't inspire people to freely share. Anyway, start with basics before you try to do something complicated.
Thanks, that's good advice. I currently have gimp installed. I'll have to see what tutorials are available.
Stonemason, that is a wonderful image, I have always loved your artwork and your products, the images others made for your challenge are amazing and really showoff your products. If my son ever gets his head out of gamer mode and gets an income (wishful thinking at the moment...lol) there are several of your products I plan to buy, though I would love the entire store, along with Flink many fields and meadows over at Renderosity.
Pixel8ted....You're right about Stonemasons image, it is wonderful, I aspire to his level. As to having the same life, no doubt many are like us when it comes to needing better computers and not having to share time on them...lol I can't do the fiber mesh hair either, even with my son's computer as the graphics card did not meet requirements. His computer is a quad core gaming computer, very powerful compared to a standard dual core. We are pretty sure it 's the graphics card that caused it to stop working, taking it to someone to find out exactly what is wrong so we can fix it. When Stonemason put up his contest, I was stuck on a P4 and had to downgrade every program to work with it and still hand problems. However, I seem to be quite lucky when it comes to getting things and while taking the garbage out, spotted a computer on a bench by the bins. Ignored it at first, but on the way back I noticed it said HP on the side and stopped to read it...it's a Hewlett Packard dual core and I thought even if it didn't work, maybe the graphics card could be used in my son's computer. Turns out it did work, and the lady downstairs was the one who put it there. It was password protected so went to talk to her about it and she gave us the password and told us she put it out cause it was old and she bought a new one, so nothing wrong but age and I now have a much better computer and can start creating again.
Not everyone can get as lucky as I do and are stuck on less then ideal computer and less then ideal situations for real life. There are some great people here who are wonderful when it comes to helping others and others still I would like to take a bat to and knock some sense into them. Life is not ideal, but can be manageable when faced with humor and people who are willing to listen when we complain...lol
riftwitch here are some tutorials for Gimp to get you started...
This is an introductory pdf you can download...
http://dmp.osu.edu/Visual_Remix/GIMP tutorial Script.pdf
This is an image manipulation for Gimp
http://docs.gimp.org/en/
This is Gimps onsite list of tutorials and you choose the one's for your level...
http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/
This is a list of tutorials on how to do various things in Gimp...
http://www.tuxradar.com/gimp
Let me know if there is anything else you need for tutorials
This image brings up some questions I've had for a while. I've seen these layers before, and understand some of them of course, but some I've never figured out. Do you or does anyone have a good resource that explains the various layers presented here, how they are produced, what their function is and how they are combined to make a final image?
here's a couple to get started, most of what's out there is render engine specific
http://www.3drender.com/light/compositing/
http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/tutorials/passes_layers.html
Thank you, these are very helpful and they give a good jumping off point for further research :)
Thank you, CalieVee and Stonemason, for posting those links! :)
Yes it was a good image, and it was what inspired this topic post :)
Just for context, my contention was (and this is just my opinion) that even in a case where it has to do with displaying a render engine's capabilities, showing an image with post, while explaining what post was done and why, could be very helpful, both in generating discussions on how it could be done without the post and when post might be the most efficient method for handling a particular situation.
Agreed, thanks much will be a fun read.