• Aiko 8
• Kinley Hair with dForce for Genesis 3 and 8 Female(s)
• Anime Kitten Hair for Genesis 2 Female(s)
• DAZ Studio Iray HDR Outdoor Environments
• Anime Lingerie Set 2 For Genesis 8 Females
• Anime Lingerie Set 3 For Genesis 8 Females
• Enchanted Forest: Kitsune for V4

Pre and Post-Work Images – Cute Cat Girls, Fantasy Women Pin-Up Art

Showing pre and post-work images are always a bit complicated for me because I render each of my light layers separately, and then compose them in Photoshop. Therefore, my pre-Photoshop images are only single light images. As a result, I will show a sequence of images below that mark the different key stages of my post-work process.

1. Pre-Photoshop Image with a Single Light

First, we show a pre-Photoshop image with just an environment light to the left, compared with the completed image with all lights and post-work to the right.

Left – Pre image with only an Environment light. Right – Completed image with all lights and post-work process.

2. Combine Light Layers in Photoshop

This next image, shows what we get after we combine all light layers in Photoshop.

Cute cat girls pin-up image after we combine all light layers in Photoshop.

3. Main Photoshop Post-Work

Subsequently, we add color filters, adjustment layers, sharpness layers, volumetric lights, and more in Photoshop. This is the meat of our post-work process which we describe in greater detail here.

One common question that I get is how much paint-overs do I do. I only do minor paint-overs for fixing collisions, poke-throughs, or other little render mistakes.

Subsequently, we add color filters, adjustment layers, sharpness layers, volumetric lights, and more in Photoshop.

4. Final Step – Add Detail

In the final step, we add detail using Color Efex Pro 4 from the Nik Collection. You can get the Nik Collection for free from Google, so definitely worth checking it out.

At this stage, I may also add a bit more contrast and color filters.

In the final step, we add detail using Color Efex Pro 4 from the Nik Collection.

If there are more images that you would like to see pre-post images of, feel free to let us know in the comments section below. 🙂

As a result, it is not always clear which part of the finished image comes from the Daz Studio/Poser render and which part comes from the post image manipulation. I have gotten some questions about this as well, so I thought it would be fun to show how my images develop from pre to post to done.

Pre and Post-Work Images – Redhead Warrior Woman Fantasy Art

My Post-Work Process

My post-work process consists of three key steps-

1. Combining all light layers (except for volumatric light).
2. Add filters, actions, effects, and volumetric light.
3. Add detail using Color Efex Pro 4 from the Nik Collection.

I do very limited paint-overs, mainly to fix collisions and poke-through. Most of my post-work involves using layer blends, filters, adjustments, and actions. For a detailed description of my post-work process, please refer to my Step-by-Step Daz Studio Post-Work Tutorial.

I will be using the Fantasy Red Head Warrior Woman image above, to show my pre and post-work progression. I used Legacie Hair, Kadis armor combined with Daemon outfit, and Terradome 3 to create the scene. Larger version in my Daz Gallery.

Left – Pre image with only an Environment light. Right – Completed image with all lights and post-work process.

Based on what we see above, it seems that there is a very great difference between the pre and post-work pictures. However, the left image is only lighted by an Environment Map, whereas the right image has Environment Map, key, fill, two rim lights, a top light, a volumetric light, and outfit lights. Therefore, it is not a very fair comparison.

Step 1 – Combining Light Layers

I combine light layers in Photoshop because it is much faster to experiment with different light intensities and colors. In general, if I can do something better in the scene render, then I do it in the scene render. If I can do it better in post, then I do it in post. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter which is done where, as long as I can get an end result that I am happy with. This article has more on how I combine lights in Photoshop.

Below is the image with all light layers combined except for volumetric and outfit lights, which we add in Step 2. This is perhaps a better comparison because it contains close to comparable lights as the finished image.

All light layers combined except for volumetric light and outfit lights.

Step 2 – Filters, Action, Effects

This is the largest step as we add all our filters, adjustments, and actions, as well as the volumetric and outfit lights. Some operations include adding glow, sharpening, softening, tone readjustments, adding effects, and more.

After doing all this, the image is very close to the completed picture.

Red head warrior woman image after adding Photoshop adjustments, filters, actions, and effects.

Step 3 – Bringing Out Detail

In the final phase, I bring out more details using Color Efex Pro 4 from the Nik Collection. You can get the Nik Collection for free from Google. It has many useful actions for manipulating photos and images, so definitely worth a look.

I also do more light and contrast adjustments as necessary.

Completed Image – Redhead Warrior Woman Fantasy Art

To Post-Work or Not to Post-Work?

There have been some interesting discussions about this in the Daz forums and elsewhere. I am a fan of using whatever tool that will help me create the best end-result.

Before I started with Poser and Daz Studio, I did digital painting. It was a lot of fun, even though I was not very good at it. Later, I started playing with Photoshop in a limited way, to add fantasy backgrounds to photographs. Next, I tried out Poser, Carrara, then Daz Studio, which allowed me to create much better images. Now I mostly use Daz Studio, various DS plugins, Photoshop, and various PS plugins.

I am not a trained artist, so I am very excited when there are tools like Daz Studio and Photoshop that help me create images that I previously could not make.

Below are two more pre and post-work images. The left images only use an Environment Map, because I combine light layers in post.

Pre and Post-Work Images for Red Head Woman in High Boots Pin-Up Art.

Pre and Post-Work images of a White Haired Girl and Her Wolf (Fantasy Art).

Let me know if there are particular images you would like to see pre-post images for, and I will try to post more of these progression image articles.

In this tutorial, we focus on softening effects that we get from camera, lighting, and atmosphere. We achieve these effects partly in Daz Studio and partly in Photoshop. We will use the composition below to illustrate the different effects. The background is Sacelleum of Corlyk, the hair is Sapphire Hair, and the outfit is Novariens Holy for V4.

5 Ways to Create ‘Soft Lighting Effects’ in Daz Studio & Photoshop

1. Depth of Field

One of the easiest ways to soften our Daz Studio image is by adding depth of field effects. This is a camera effect that keeps objects that are in-focus sharp, and blurs everything else based on distance. For example, in the image below we have camera DOF turned on, with the F/Stop parameter set to 32. We set our camera focus point to be between our figure’s eyes. Notice that based on these settings, our figure is sharp whereas the background elements have been blurred-out.

Image with camera depth-of-field turned on. Notice that the figure is sharp whereas the background elements are blurred.

In the next image, we turn off depth-of-field to highlight the differences. Notice that the previous image is much softer because of the blurring effect, however, a lot of the background details (for example on the stone statue) is lost due to this blurring.

Fantasy art image with camera depth-of-field turned off.

One very simple way to properly set camera depth of field in Daz Studio, is to use the framing tool. This great tutorial from Flipmode describes how you can do this.

Note that to get more accurate DOF effects, I add a null point to my scene (Create > New Null), parent it to my figure’s head, and place it right between my figure’s eyes. I can then use this null point as my camera framing point.

2. Mesh Lighs

Another way to soften lighting is to use mesh lights instead of spotlights. Here is a quick and simple way of turning a Daz Studio spotlight into a mesh light.

In the image below, the fantasy girl to the left is illuminated with a point-spotlight, creating very sharp shadows on her body. In contrast, the fantasy girl to the right is illuminated with a mesh light, in the same position, creating softer shadows. The larger we make our mesh light, the softer our shadows will be.

Mesh lights (right) have a softening effect because it creates softer shadows.

If we want to create softer lighting with an IBL or Environment map, we blur our environment map image.

3. Volumetric Lights

A great way to create atmosphere and soften scene lighting is by using volumetric lights. In the real-world, there are dust particles in the air. When light hits those particles, you get scattering effects that can make the light-ray appear visible to us.

Volumetric lighting is a technique used in 3D computer graphics to add lighting effects to a rendered scene. It allows the viewer to see beams of light shining through the environment; seeing sunbeams streaming through an open window is an example of volumetric lighting, also known as crepuscular rays.
~~[Wikipedia]

Fallen Angel Fantasy Art with volumetric light rendered using AoA’s Atmospheric Effects Cameras for DAZ Studio. 3Delight render.

In 3Delight, I can get volumetric light effects by using Age of Armour’s Atmospheric Effects Cameras for DAZ Studio. The Volumetric Camera in this package allows me to select which lights to render atmospheric effects on. It is simple to use, fast, and I like the results that I get. The image above uses AoA’s camera to render the beam of light (from a spotlight) shining on the fallen angel. There is also a Fog Camera in the package that is useful for adding atmosphere to our images. Note that these AoA cameras only work in 3Delight.

In Daz Studio Iray, I get volumetric light effects by using AtmoCam for Iray by Marshian. Because Iray is a physically based renderer, we need to actually model our volume of air with scattering effects. Marshian’s package comes with a large volumetric prop that we use to encapsulate our scene, as well as a set of materials to get different scattering effects and colors. While this simplifies some of the volumetric-light setup for us, it is not as easy to use as AoA’s atmospheric cameras (in 3Delight only).

White Angel, Dark Tentacles, Fantasy Art. Rendered in Daz Studio Iray using Marshian’s AtmoCam for Iray.

Some things to keep in mind while setting up Marshian’s AtmoCam –

• The volumetric prop is only visible in wireframe view.
• To work properly, the volumetric prop needs to encapsulate the entire visible area. It also has to encapsulate all lights that we want to render with the volumetric effect.
• However, our render camera needs to be outside the volumetric prop.
• I find that the easiest way to properly adjust the prop is by using a Top Wireframe view (see below).

Some things to keep in mind while setting up Marshian’s AtmoCam.

We can also create our own volumetric prop and shader by following the procedure outlined here in the Daz Forum.

I usually include at least one volumetric light in my images to get atmosphere and softening effects. In the image below, the fantasy girl to the right has an added volumetric light shining on her face, which helps to soften the overall scene.

Right image has an added volumetric light which helps to soften our scene.

Physically based volumetric lights can be time intensive to render, so I usually stop it before full convergence. I can then remove much of the noise in Photoshop by doing Filter > Noise > Despeckle. I repeat this operation until I get the results that I want.

A cheaper but less accurate way to get light rays in Daz Studio is through the use of props, for example the Simple Godrays props for 3Delight or the Expanded Godrays Iray props for Iray. These will render faster, but because they are just props, the light and shadow patterns may not realistically match the objects in the scene.

Another way to add light rays or fog into our images is to do it in postwork, for example with Photoshop brushes. However, we will need to make sure that our added 2D light rays properly match with the 3D lighting in our scene, which can be a challenge.

This is why my preferred method for adding volumetric light effects in Daz Studio is to render it, either through AoA’s camera (3Delight) or Marshian’s AtmoCam (Iray). This will give us realistic light and shadows according to our scene.

My preferred method for adding light-ray effects in Iray is by using a volumetric prop, for example with AtmoCam for Iray.

4. Glow

I add glow to my images in Photoshop. This earlier tutorial gives a detailed explanation on how I add and control the level of glow in my Daz Studio images.

Right image has added glow effects in Photoshop, which helps to soften our scene lighting.

We can also get glow effects from the Daz Studio Iray renderer by turning on the Bloom Filter.

To do this,

How to turn on the Bloom Filter in Daz Studio Iray to get glow effects.

1. Go to Render Settings > Editor > Filtering.
2. Click on Bloom Filter Enable. This will open up more options for controlling the strength and area of bloom.

Unfortunately, bloom can be expensive to render, thereby making even minor adjustments time intensive and painful. This is why I add glow in Photoshop, where I can quickly and easily control the area and strength of bloom.

5. Soft Light & Gaussian Blur

Finally, we can create a soft and dreamy look in our images by using the Gaussian Blur filter in Photoshop.

How to soften our image using Soft Light and Gaussian Blur in Photoshop.

1. Create a composite snapshot of our current image by doing Ctrl+Shift+Alt+E in Photoshop. This will create a merged image of all our current visible layers.
2. Select our merged layer and change the blending mode to Soft Light.
3. Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur. I usually set blur radius to 80 in the pop-up box. However, this will depend on image size and personal preference. Play around with this value until you find something you are happy with.
4. To further strengthen the softening effect of this layer, we can change our blending mode to Overlay.
5. Finally, we fine tune the strength of our softening effect by changing the opacity of our merged layer.

The image below shows the softening effect that we get from using Gaussian Blur in Photoshop. Note that the technique also increases the contrast of our image, making it appear darker and more saturated. Those are things that we will need to readjust for.

The image to the right has our merged layer blend mode set to Overlay, Gaussian Blur radius set to 50, and opacity set to 100%.

These soft lighting techniques are useful tools for enhancing our Daz Studio images. However, a softer image is not always better because when we soften, we also lose image details. How we choose to soften our image, in what areas, and by how much, will depend on our composition, the mood we are trying to capture, as well as personal style and taste.

Unicorn Princess Fantasy Art with very soft lighting effects.

This tutorial is the first in a series designed to highlight and showcase the powerful abilities of the the Nik Collection, which is a suite of 7 plug-ins that provide an impressive array of photo editing capabilities: from color correction, retouching and creative effects to image sharpening and a wide range of special effects.

While they used to retail for $500 (and worth every penny) the good folks at Google are making it available to everyone free of charge because that’s their way.

Grab a copy here and let’s get started!

How to Transform Your 3D Art into a Charcoal Sketch

1. Using Silver Efex Pro 2 (Nik Collection)

In this installment, we will be using Silver Efex Pro 2 to turn this render of Antfarm’s Walker HD (see below) into a fine art charcoal study. For the duration of this tutorial, Silver Efex Pro 2 will be referred to as SEP2. Brace yourselves; technique is coming…

Basic Daz Studio 3Delight render without any additional lights.

I’ve taken a basic 3DL render without any additional lights, but obviously you can do this with any image (even a photograph) that has the proper value range into the SEP2 suite and run Antique Plate II (preset 36) with the default settings. Since you want it to look like a sketch, you mostly want a high contrast image without much midtones (those values will be lost).

Therefore, if your results aren’t looking like the example, just undo the SEP2 filter and adjust the levels until you get a good balance of lights and darks (in Photoshop). Then restore the filter with Ctrl+F. Rinse, wash, repeat until you get the desired results. Alternatively, you may also adjust contrast and brightness from within the SEP2 interface.

Once you are happy with the results, Right click > Flatten Image.

Image after applying Antique Plate II (preset 36) from the SEP2 suite in Nik Collection tools.

2. Warming Filter and Increasing Contrast

Once you have a solid base, the edges are already fading out just like an unfinished sketch. Notice how the clouds have become abstracted, almost like a doodle and they’re getting lost in all the background noise which is starting to look like paper grain. You could almost stop here, but why not push it a bit further?

Warming layer filter settings in Photoshop.

Create an adjustment layer/photo filter (in Photoshop) and select the Warming Filter(85). Ensure that Preserve Luminosity is ticked, then run the density up to around 88% or so.

Image result after applying the warming adjustment layer described above.

This is way too orange, but have no fear, we’re going to fix that now.

Photoshop layer stack after these operations.

• Copy the SEP2 (background layer) via Ctrl+J.
• Desaturate with Ctrl+shift+U.
• Invert with Ctrl+I.

The end result is shown below. This will be your layer mask, so hit Ctrl+A to select all and then cut it with Ctrl+X

Our image mask after desaturating and inverting our background (original) image.

• Duplicate the Silver Efex Pro 2 (background layer) twice.
• Apply a layer mask to the first one (Layer > Layer Mask > Reveal All).
• Go to the channels tab and then paste the layer mask in the alpha channel with Ctrl+V. Note that visibility of the layer must be on before pasting, then turn it off after.
• Set the layer to Multiply to punch up the shadows.

That’s nice but I want some more color in there, so

Photoshop layer stack after operations to punch up our shadows and add in more color.

• Merge the photo filter onto the other background layer copy. (Right click > Merge Down).
• Set the layer to Linear Light.
• Then Right click > Create Clipping Mask. See how rich those dark values just got?

Our Photoshop layer tab after performing the operations described here.

Still looks a little drab, so let’s duplicate the photo filter layer and reset the mode to Normal, but drop the opacity down to 40%.

Our 3D-art image after adding in a warming filter and punching up the shadows in Photoshop.

3. Add Hatching

To make it look more like a sketch, let’s introduce some hatching. Save what you have so far and then flatten everything (Right click > Flatten Image). Launch SEP2 and use Wet Rocks (preset 23) to get this grainy looking result.

Image result after applying the Wet Rocks (preset 23) from SEP2, in the Nik Collection tool.

Photoshop layer stack after adding Angled Strokes operations.

• Ctrl+L and enter 15/.75/255 to adjust the value range.
• Set the layer to Overlay at 40% opacity.
• Do Filter > Brush Strokes > Angled Strokes. I used 50/15/3 but if you’re doing your own image, just try for something like the image below.

Adjust Filter > Gallery > Angled Strokes until we get something that looks like this. Settings will be different depending on your image.

If you want to add some color, now would be a good time to try Hue/Saturation or even just Alt+Ctrl+L. You can keep messing around with it, but I’m done…

Final result of transforming our 3D-art render into a charcoal sketch using Photoshop and the Nik Collection tools.

Summary

While the Nik Collection was developed for photographers, any Photoshop user can tell you that Photoshop isn’t just for photographs and neither is the Nik Collection In fact, since 3D-art renders are really just simulated photographs, we will enjoy a much higher degree of overlap with the intended purpose than someone using the Nik Collection on colored line-art, for example.

I’ve began this series with a technique of turning a render into a charcoal sketch to underscore the concept that the Nik Collection has a much wider gamut of applications than mere photo editing, so you need not restrict yourself to using these filters only in the ways in which they were intended.

There are applications for the Nik Collection that the developers never even dreamed of!

In future installments, we will be exploring many different uses for the Nik Collection; some will cover the features much like a manual, while others will take it to a completely different level. Please look forward to it!

This article and all of the images within were created by the very talented Alex Ledante. Copyright © Alex Ledante. Check out his gallery here.

Depending on the artist, some things can be more effectively done in post, and some in Daz Studio. We get to decide, which techniques best help us transform what we see in our heads onto paper.

Step-by-Step Daz Studio Iray Post-Work Tutorial

My current Daz Studio Iray post-work process consists of 3 stages:

• Stage 1 – Combine Iray light layers and fix rendering artifacts.
• Stage 2 – Soften, sharpen, glow, color, and contrast.
• Stage 3 – HDR filter. We are currently using Color Efex Pro 4 from the Nik Collection. Available for free here.

All three stages are performed in Photoshop, but depending on the look that I am going for, I sometimes skip Stage 3. We will be using the Pearls image above in our step by step post-work tutorial. My recent images can be found here.

Stage 1 – Combine Lights and Fix Rendering Artifacts

Add in a soft background layer and our 5 Iray rendered light layers.

1. Add a soft image to provide an appropriate background. Here, we used one of the photographs from Lady Kassie’s Oriental background set.
2. We rendered 5 different light layers in Daz Studio Iray – Key, Fill, two Back Lights, and an Environment Map. For the Environment Map, we used the Tropical Ruins HDRi from sIBL Archives. We have Dome turned off, and saved the light layer as a PNG file.
3. We add in our light layers using the process described in How I Combine Iray Lights in Photoshop.
4. The added gray Photo Filter layer on top of our IBL layer is used to darken our IBL image, so that it fits our background and composition. By changing the gray color, we can lighten or darken our IBL layer.
5. If we zoom in on our current image, we will notice that there are certain rendering artifacts. In particular, the Asian woman’s hair collides with her thumb-nail. In addition, there is a missing pearl on the strand around her hand.

The Asian woman’s hair collides with her thumb-nail. In addition, there is a missing pearl on the strand around her hand.
6. We can fix this in post by using the Clone Stamp tool. In general, however, we want to minimize the number and extent of fixes we need to make, as we will get better results by dealing with it in Daz Studio.

Removed collisions and added in a pearl using the Clone Stamp tool.
7. Copy our completed Stage 1 image (shown below) by doing Shift + Ctrl + C (Edit > Copy Merged).
8. Create a new file by doing Ctrl + N, and then Ctrl + V to paste our Stage 1 image into the new file.

Completed Stage 1 image.

Stage 2 – Soften, Sharpen, Glow, Color, and Contrast

1. Right-click on our Stage 1 layer and select Merge Down.
2. Add glow to our image by using the process described here.

After running the Shiba Glow action on our Stage 1 image.

Re-tone or recolor our image by using a Gradient Map adjustment layer, set to Violet, Orange color range.
3. Turn off the Tint layer by clicking on the eye icon to the left of the layer.
4. Select the Glow3 layer. Do Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Gradient Map.
5. Select the Gradient Map layer and pick the Violet,Orange color range in the Adjustments menu (see right).
6. Set the blending mode of our Gradient Map layer to Screen and set opacity to 30%.
    
   We use the gradient map to retone/recolor our image. The Violet,Orange color range works well in in many cases, especially for realistic images. For fantasy pieces, I may use different colors in my gradient map.
7. Create a copy of all our layers by doing Shift + Ctrl + Alt + E (Stamp Visible).
8. Select our new layer, name it Soften, and set blending mode to Soft Light. Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur. Set the radius according to the amount of softening that you want.
9. Open our volumetric light file and paste it after our Soften layer.

Adding two softening operations – Gaussian Blur layer and our Volumetric light.

Select the Levels layer and set the middle value to 0.75 in the Adjustments menu.
10. Select the Soften layer and do Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Levels. This Levels layer will help to increase contrast in our image, so that it doesn’t look so flat. We set the middle value in the Levels adjustments settings to 0.75 (see right).
11. At this point, our image looks rather dark and a bit blurry. Therefore, we want to lighten our image and bring back some detail.

After our softening effects, the image looks rather dark and a bit blurry.

Right-click on the Environment Map layer and pick Duplicate Layer.
12. Open our Environment Map (Tropical Ruins) image. Right-click on the Environment Map layer and pick Duplicate Layer (see right). In the pop-up menu, under Destination > Document, select our current working image (see below).
     
    This will duplicate our Environment Map layer into our working document. We name the layer Lighten.

In Destination > Document, select our current working image file.

This is what our Photoshop layer stack looks like after adding the lighten and sharpen layers.
13. Set the blending mode of the Lighten layer to Screen. This will add the Environment Map light into our image. Adjust opacity to the level that we want. In this case I set it to 60%.
14. Duplicate our new Environment Map layer (this time into the same document, which is the default). Name this new layer Sharpen.
15. Set the blending mode of this new layer to Soft Light and opacity to 100%. Go to Filter > Other > High Pass. Set the radius to 5.0 pixels.
     
    This creates a sharpening layer from our Environment Map to bring back some of our image details. We can further increase sharpening by setting the layer blend mode to Overlay. As usual, we can use the opacity dial to make more minor adjustments.

 
After adding our lighten and and sharpen layers, our image is now brighter and has more detail.


Left – Before; Right – After adding the lighten and sharpen layers.

Add warm tint and a Vignette layer.
16. Turn the visibility of the Tint layer back on by clicking on the check-box to the left. This will give a warm tint to our image. We can control how warm our image is by changing the opacity of this layer.
17. Select the Tint layer and do Layer > New > Layer. This creates a new layer on top of our tint layer.
18. Select our new layer and name it Vignette. Ctrl-A to select the entire layer and do Edit > Fill. In the pop-up menu select Black as our fill color and make sure that opacity is set to 100%.
19. Set the blend mode of our Vignette layer to Multiply and opacity to 30%.
20. Do Layer > Layer Mask > Reveal All. Click on our mask layer to select it.

How to select the Elliptical Marquee Tool.
21. Select the Marquee tool on the left Photoshop toolbar. Right-click on it, and select Elliptical Marquee Tool (see right). Draw an elliptical marquee around the area of our image that we want to emphasize (e.g. her face and pearls). We can also do Edit > Free Transform to rotate and scale our elliptical marquee to get it to the right position, size, and orientation.

Draw an elliptical marquee in the area we want to emphasize. Edit > Free Transform to rotate, scale, and move, our selection.
22. Once we have it in the position that we want, do Edit > Fill > Black. This will create a light area around the part of the image we want to highlight.

Create a light area around the part of the image we want to highlight by using our Vignette layer.
23. Click somewhere else on the screen to deselect our marquee. Do Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur to soften out the edges of our circle.
24. Duplicate our Vignette layer and set blend mode to Soft Light. This finishes our Stage 2 process.
25. As before, Copy our completed Stage 2 image (shown below) by doing Shift + Ctrl + C (Edit > Copy Merged).
26. Create a new file by doing Ctrl + N, and then Ctrl + V to paste our Stage 2 image into the new file.

Our image and layer stack after finishing the Stage 2 process.

Stage 3 – HDR Filter

1. Right-click on our Stage 2 layer and select Merge Down.
2. Click on Color Efex Pro 4 from the Nik Collection (Download for free here).
3. Select Detail Extractor in the Color Efex Pro 4 interface. In this case, I use the default settings (see below) and hit ok.

Use the Detail Extractor in Color Efex 4 from the Nik Collection to bring out more image details.

Our Detail Extractor layer with a mask for the areas we want to emphasize (e.g. face).
4. This adds a new Detail Extractor layer to our image file. We can then set the opacity of that layer to control the level of detail added. In this case, I set the opacity to 30%.
5. In addition, we may only want to add detail on certain parts of the image. To do this, select our Detail Extractor layer and do Layer > Layer Mask > Hide All. Then, paint in the areas where we want more detail.
6. Also note that the Detail Extractor operation will lighten our image. To re-balance the layer so that it better matches the original Stage 2 image, we add a Levels adjustment layer (Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Levels). Make sure to check Use Previous Layer to Create Clipping Mask, so that the Levels adjustment only applies to our Detail Extractor layer.

Make sure to check Use Previous Layer to Create Clipping Mask.
7. Set the middle number in the Levels adjustments menu to 0.9. This finishes our Stage 3 process.

I do not always use the HDR filter. For this composition, I actually prefer the softer image, so I posted the finished Stage 2 image in my Daz Gallery. In fact, this applies to all of the methods outlined above; we only apply them if they help to enhance our image. Experiment with opacity and adjustment settings to get the results that you want.

Hope you enjoyed this step-by-step post-work tutorial.

Asian woman holding pearls final image (with HDR filter).

I use the Piano Bar scene (shown below) to illustrate how I do this. In this scene, there is very strong light coming in from behind the figure through the windows of the building. This light also creates interesting patterns on the table surface of the bar, which makes for a fun lighting environment.

The scene uses Bar Interior by Soulless Empathy and the Sultry Noir Bundle.

How I Add Glow to My Daz Studio Images

How I Add Glow to My Daz Studio Images

1. I start, as usual, by creating my standard light layers in Daz Studio Iray. This includes an IBL (Environment Map), Key, Fill, and two Back lights. Here is a more detailed tutorial on my Iray lighting process.
2. Next, I want to create an outside glow layer using just my Environment Map light (IBL). Therefore, I open my IBL light layer in Photoshop.
3. I right-click on my IBL layer and choose Duplicate Layer. I change the name of my duplicate layer to Glow Base.

My layer stack after adding Brightness/Contrast and Hue/Saturation adjustment layers to my Glow Base layer.
4. I select my Glow Base layer and do Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Brightness/Contrast. I click on Use Previous Layer to Create Clipping Mask so that the adjustment only applies to my Glow Base layer.
5. I also do Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Hue/Saturation (with clipping mask).
6. Now I can control both adjustment layers to properly set my glow base. In general, I want to set Contrast very high so that I enhance the highlights in my original image. By changing Brightness, I can increase or decrease the area of glow.

Make sure to check the Use Legacy option in the Brightness/Contrast adjustments area.

This will allow us to make the brighter areas much brighter and the darker areas much darker, thus clearly separating out our glow spots. Note however, this is not an option we want to generally use because it causes loss of image information. This article has more a comprehensive discussion of the Use Legacy option.


My Glow Base layer with contrast 100, brightness -60, and saturation -100.

Creating my first glow layer (Glow1) from my Glow Base layer.
7. After I am done adjusting my Glow Base layer, I duplicate the combined image by doing Ctrl+Shift+Alt+E. I name the new layer Glow1 and turn off the visibility of the Glow Base layer.
8. I select my Glow1 layer and do Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur. I set my Gaussian blur radius to 10 pixels. I set my Glow1 layer blend mode to Screen. I set my layer opacity to 20%.

My Photoshop layer stack after creating all three glow layers.
9. I duplicate my Glow1 layer and call it Glow2. I do Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and set my Gaussian blur radius to 50 pixels. I set my layer opacity to 30%.
10. I duplicate my Glow2 layer and call it Glow3. I do do Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and set my Gaussian blur radius to 120 pixels. I set my layer opacity to 50%.
11. Now I can control the amount of glow in my image by changing the opacity level of my three glow layers.

Give my glow a warm tint to simulate sunlight.
12. Finally, I want to give my light a warm tint so that it simulates sunlight. To do this, I create a new layer (Layer > New > Layer). I select the new layer and fill it with an orange color (Edit > Fill). I set blend mode to Overlay, opacity to 10%, and name the new layer Tint.

Final image of my IBL/Environment Map light with three layers of glow applied. Glow1 = 50%, Glow2 = 60%, Glow3 = 70%.

The reason why I added glow separately to my IBL layer is so that I can control the level of glow there separately from the rest of my other lights. However, we can also apply glow to all our lights at once. In the image below, I applied my glow technique to the full Piano Bar scene (with all lights present).

Applied the above glow process to all the lights in my Piano Bar scene.

Note that while the front glow is appropriate, the back glow is a bit weak. To add that extra punch to our composition, we want to increase the glow coming in from our IBL layer. Since we have already created a separate glow layer for this, we can simply make a merged copy and paste it into our full scene. Set the blend mode to Screen, and adjust opacity to suit our liking. In this case, I set opacity to 50%.

Added extra glow for the IBL light layer.

In my final tutorial of this series, I will cover the postwork steps I generally use in Photoshop when working with skin.  As with using Octane, this isn’t a recipe, and some tweaking is required depending on the render I am working on.  That being said, I do routinely use these steps as a starting place with nearly all my renders.

They are also quite rudimentary – I only started learning Photoshop shortly after learning Daz Studio – so less than a year.  Therefore, this will be a tutorial mainly aimed at beginners.

Daz Studio Octane Postwork Tutorial for Beginners

Step by Step Photoshop Postwork Process

To start off with – you can download the original 4k render here.

You can also download the .duf file for the Daz scene. You will need to own Olympia 7 and Olympia 7 HD Add-On (if you don’t, go buy her, she’s fantastic).  I tweak my skin textures on almost every new render, so this scene includes a newer skin texture from the one included with the previous Octane skin tutorial.

Go ahead and open the original render file in Photoshop (if you use Gimp, almost all of the following can still be applied)

1. Duplicate the Background layer – right click layer > duplicate layer > OK

Duplicate the ‘background’ layer – right click layer > duplicate layer > OK
2. From the main menus select image > auto tone. Then repeat with image > auto colour.  Select Edit from the main menu and fade auto colour to 80%

After applying Image > Auto Tone and Image > Auto Color in Step 2.
3. Create a new fill/adjustment layer using the circular icon underneath the layers, and select colour balance. With the new window that opens choose the shadows tone and adjust the yellow/blue slider towards the blue by no more than 10.  Repeat by setting the midtones towards cyan by 10, and the hightlights towards yellow by 10.

In step 3, create a new Color Balance adjustment layer. Then set Color Balance adjustments according to the image on the right.
4. Create a new merged layer (shift+ctrl+alt+e) – this will copy all of the layers and merge them into a new layer, thus preserving the original layers if you need to return to them (this is called a non-destructive workflow). Your layers tab should now look like this:
   

   Our layer stack after creating a new merged layer (shift+ctrl+alt+e).

   With the newly created layer selected, select image > adjustments > brightness/contrast.  Set the brightness to -70 and the contrast to +70, then OK.  Now select image > adjustments > hue/saturation and set the saturation to -40.

   Select filter > blur > gaussian blur, and set the radius to 8.

   Finally select the blending mode (drop down menu at top of layer window) to screen, and set its opacity to 50%.


Setting the Blending Mode (drop down menu at top of layer window) to screen.
5. Create a new fill/adjustment layer like in step 3 but this time select a photo filter layer. Set the filter to cooling filter (lbb) and adjust the density to 10%

Our new Photo Filter adjustment layer settings.
6. The final step is to create a new merged layer (shift+ctrl+alt+e) like in step 4.  Perform a final auto-tone like in step 2.

Final result of our Photoshop postwork process to the right compared to our original Octane rendered image to the left.

Summary

I hope you have found this series of Octane tutorials useful, and they have encouraged you to try the octane demo.  Octane is a very different beast compared with iRay, and it can be a daunting prospect when you first open it up and see the node based system. 

However, you can get pretty good results by using the auto-convert texture tool or using pre-built shaders from the library. To get the most out of it though, you really need to overcome your fears and dive into the nodes – where with time you will be rewarded with a plethora of ways to enhance your renders.  And did I say, it is really, really fast!

This article and all of the images within were created by the very talented Brian Sains. Copyright © Brian Sains. Check out his gallery here.