Here, I describe the light combination process. In particular, I talk about adjusting light intensities, tinting, and more. Again, I start with the simple Princess of the East image. This image uses the NeoIndia Outfit and Hair Bundle as well as the Mandgadfor ruins in the background.

In the Princess of the East image, I have the following light layers:

• An IBL light layer using Barcelona Rooftops from sIBL Archives.
• A Key, Back, and Fill layer, following the three-point light system.
• A volumetric spotlight layer.

How I Combine My Iray Lights in Photoshop

Step 1 – Control IBL layer intensity

1. I open all light layers in Photoshop.
2. I go to the IBL light file.
3. I right click on the IBL layer and select Duplicate Layer. I rename the duplicate layer IBL.

Duplicate my IBL background layer.

Set the layer blend mode to Screen and control the intensity of my IBL through the layer opacity slider.
4. I select the Background layer, then go to Edit > Fill, and choose Black in the pop-up box. This should fill our Background layer with a solid black color.
5. I select the IBL layer, and set the layer blend mode to Screen.
6. Now I can control the intensity of my IBL light by increasing or decreasing the opacity of that layer.
7. If I want to increase the intensity of the light by more than its original, then I simply duplicate the layer.

I can increase the intensity of my IBL light by more than its original by duplicating my IBL light layer.

Step 2 – Add in Key, Back, and Fill lights

1. I copy my Key, Back, and Fill light layers, and paste them into my working file in Step 1.
2. These layers quite often have speckle noise. To remove this, I go to Filter > Noise > Despeckle. I repeat this operation on each layer until most of the noise is removed.
3. I set the blend mode of each of these layers to Screen.
4. I adjust intensity by changing layer opacity or duplicate the layer, if necessary, similar to what we did for the IBL layer in Step 1.

In this case, I want a strong silhouette to the right, so I want a very strong back light. I achieve this by duplicating the Back layer to double its strength. To further emphasize the strong back light, I weaken the Key layer, by setting its opacity to 30%. I leave my Fill at 100% to lighten my entire figure.

Finally, I also create a duplicate IBL layer and set its opacity to 30%. This allows me to lighten everything in the image, including the backdrop.

Final result after adding in my Key, Back, and Fill lights, and adjusting intensities according to the values above.

Step 3 – Toning, Tinting, and Masks

A few other Photoshop operations that come in especially handy for combining my Iray lights include:

1. Changing light tones with the Levels Filter.
2. Tinting lights with Photo Filters.
3. Lighting areas selectively by using masks.

I illustrate these additional operations using my Luthbelli Classic image. Another useful lighting tip that I use here, is to add another Back light on the left-back side of the scene. In this way, I can add light rims on both the left and right sides of my figures.

Useful Photoshop operations for combining my Daz Studio Iray lights.

1. Changing light tones with the Levels Filter

I use the same process described above to combine my Iray light layers and control their intensities. In this image, I set my IBL opacity to 50%. When I add in my Key light, I find that it is adding too much light to my figure. In particular, I want there to be greater contrast between the left and right sides of the girl’s face.

Too much illumination added by my Key light, so there is not enough contrast in my pin-up girl’s face.

To change this,

1. I select my Key layer, and then add a Levels adjustment layer by going to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Levels. I make sure to check “Use Previous Layer to Create Clipping Mask” in the pop-up window, so that my Levels adjustment only applies to my Key light.
2. I reduce the level of mid-tones in my Key light (0.70), and increase the level of highlights (201). This article has a detailed description of the Levels adjustment filter in Photoshop.
3. I add my second back light to get a rim on the left side of my figures.
4. The final result is that there is greater contrast between the left and right sides of my pin-up girl’s face.

Changing light tones using the Photoshop Levels Filter

2. Tinting lights with Photo Filters

To make things more interesting, I add my main back light to the image, and tint it blue so that I get a blue rim around the right of my figures.

Tint my Back light blue by using the Photo Filter adjustment layer.

1. I do this by going to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Photo Filter. Again, I check “Use Previous Layer to Create Clipping Mask” in the pop-up window, so that my Photo Filter adjustment only applies to my main Back light.
2. I set my Photo Filter to Cooling Filter (82), which is a blue color. I then adjust intensity until I get the right level of blue for my Back light, which in this case is at 83%.

I add my main back light to the image, and tint it blue so that I get a blue rim around the right of my figures.

3. Lighting areas selectively by using masks

Blue highlights that I want to remove are marked by the red circles.

Unfortunately, I do not like some of the blue highlights in my current image. In particular, I do not like the sharp highlight on the body of the motorcycle and the blue on my girl’s headdress. To remove these unwanted highlights, I can mask them out.

Masking out certain blue highlights and masking in only the eye areas of my fill light.

1. For the headdress highlights, I just want to remove the blue color. Therefore, I mask out the area in my blue Photo Filter adjustment layer. I do this by selecting the mask layer on my Photo Filter and then painting the area black.
2. For the motorcycle body, I want to totally remove the highlight. To do this, I go to my Back light layer and do Layer > Layer Mask > Reveal All. This creates a layer mask for my Back light. I select my layer mask and paint the area I want to remove black.
3. I add in my Fill light, but I only mask in the eyes area to brighten my pin-up girl’s eyes. To do this, I go to my Fill layer and do Layer > Layer Mask > Hide All. Then, I select my mask layer and only paint the eye area of my figure white.

Finally, I create a layer with all of my lights combined by doing Ctrl-Alt-Shift-E. I set the layer blend mode to Screen and name the layer All. This allows me to brighten all of my lights. In this image, I set the opacity of my All layer to 50%.

And just like that, we are done! In the next tutorials of this series I will discuss my post-work techniques including adding glow, softening effects, creating contrast, and more.

Final image with all my Iray lights combined including IBL, Key, Back, Back2, Fill, and All.

I use three main classes of lights in all my Iray scenes-

1. An image based light (IBL). This is a HDR image that I use in Render Settings > Environment > Environment Map.
2. Three mesh lights arranged according to the three-point light system.
3. One or more volumetric lights for softening effects and atmosphere.

Then, I may add point-lights or emissive surfaces based on composition.

How I Light My Daz Studio Iray Scenes

We will use the image above to illustrate the different classes of lights and why we use them, in this tutorial. The outfit and hair used in the image are from the NeoIndia Outfit and Hair Bundle by Arki and Shox-Design. The ruins in the backdrop is Mandgadfor by powerage.

1. Image Based Light (IBL)

I usually use a HDR image for this to provide my scene with –

• Realistic ambient lighting.
• Realistic reflections.
• Realistic background that is consistent with both lighting and reflections.

This beginner Iray tutorial has more on how I use a HDR image in Daz Studio Iray.

How well our IBL illuminates the scene will depend in large part on the HDR image we are using. In particular, what range of values it supports. The higher the range, the better the results.

I think about it this way … sunlight is a very strong light source, and its value should be many many times greater than anything else in the scene. Using a regular JPG image that only supports 255 values per pixel, is not going to work well for scene lighting. This is because the difference in range between our very bright sunlight and everything else will be overly compressed. I.e. a lot of light information in our IBL would be lost due to range limits.

A decent JPG can serve as a good enough background, but it will not be sufficient for providing good realistic scene lighting.

Below is our Princess of the East image, with just the IBL turned on. Here, we are using the Barcelona Rooftops HDRI from sIBL Archives. Here is a list of free HDRi sites. Dimension Theory and Orestes Graphics also has some great HDRi’s for Iray.

Scene lighted with just an IBL (Iray Environment Map).

2. Mesh Lights

If we are already using a good HDR image, why do we need to add mesh lights?

I add mesh lights to highlight my main figure(s) and make them stand-out from the rest of the scene. This is especially important in figure based compositions, because the focus of the image is on the main actor(s) in the scene.

I think about it this way … when we go out walking in the streets, the scene around us is very busy. Although we may imagine ourselves to be the center of attention, no single individual stands out from the rest. This is what we get with a HDR image.

In contrast, during a model photo-shoot, lights are added to bring out the figure so that it grabs the viewer’s attention.

1. To highlight my main figure(s), I add three Daz Studio spotlights (Create > New Spotlight).
2. I place my three lights according to the three-point light system (key, fill, back).
3. Then, I convert each of my spotlights into mesh lights by setting the Light Geometry parameter to Rectangle. This will give me softer shadows. For more details on how to convert a spotlight into a mesh light refer to this article.
4. I want my back light to have the sharpest shadows, so I set its size to be the smallest of the three. I want my fill light to have the softest shadows, so it gets the largest rectangle. The key light is somewhere in-between the two.
5. Finally, I select my three lights and add them to a group (Create > New Group), so that I can move them and rotate them together. In this way, I can easily center my three lights around the main figures within my Daz Studio scene.

To bring out my main figure(s), I add three lights according to the three-point light system.

After adding the three mesh lights to my IBL, my figure stands out a lot more from the background, and there is a much stronger silhouette on my figure. If we compare this image and the previous one, with just the IBL, we can clearly see that the lighting is more compelling here and the figure pops from the background.

If you do not want to create a light rig from scratch, the BOSS Pro Light Set for Portraits & Promos has ready-made key, fill, rim lights, and much more.

After adding my three mesh lights to my IBL, my figure stands out a lot more from the background.

3. Volumetric Light

I also like to add at least one volumetric light to my images to provide additional shadows and atmosphere. In this case, I add a spotlight shining onto my figure’s face. I then render it as a volumetric light by using Marshian’s AtmoCam for Iray.

You can also create your own volumetric light. Here are a few ways.

Add a volumetric spotlight shining on our figure’s face. This adds more shadows and atmosphere.

Finally, I re-tone the image some, add a little bit of glow, add some contrast, and I am done!

You will notice that I do not talk much about light intensities in this tutorial. This is because I usually render each light in a separate layer, and later combine them in Photoshop. I control intensity, tint, and more from within Photoshop.

Depending on how I combine these lights, I can create a day-time scene or a sunset scene. I can create a realistic image or a colorful fantasy setting.

By combining lights differently in Photoshop, I can get a day-time or sunset scene; a realistic or a fantasy scene.