What is your process for rendering? Blender? Post-work & Photoshop? Something else?
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I’m trying always to do nothing to my renders. I have no photoshop. And it’s always a challenge to do anything in Daz3d. The only thing I do as postwork is to add a little bit of movement blur if it’s appropriate. Btw. you learn a lot about daz with this way ;-)
Not sure if you know, but there is a free program I've been using for years that is almost identical to PS called Gimp. I prefer it over PS.
Sure ;-). But just try it without. It’s a lot of fun and adventurous. AAAAAND you LEARN Daz.
As I said, I try to avoid postwork.
First I render.
Then I'll clean up the result in Photoshop with spot renders and the clone stamp tool.
Often I use the transform function to adjust the biceps, triceps, and other muscles that may look unrealistic in certain poses.
Then I'll add effects such as lens flares, godrays, mist, etc.
Agreed. i avoid postwork also when I can. i get way more satisfaction setting up the surfaces in the scenes to react to the light as close to reality as I can. I see these users that spend days in photoshop "painting" over renders for a totally postworked look and that is fine and takes talent to do it well, but I am not into that kind of artwork or imagery. I'd love it if the gallery was split into postwork and none so I could only view the raw renders only. I hate when I see a cool effect and ask how it was done only to find out it was postwork and not 3D.
These days for anything other than a quick "test" render, I'll always render to an Iray canvas, even if it's just the beauty one, because there's more image data there to work with once I import it into GIMP. Then I'll typically run a light noise reduction filter, maybe adjust the exposure and white balance settings and resize to the final size (I alway render about 50% larger than I want my final render to be, downsampling also reduces any remaining Iray noise).
I have zero 2D art skills so no painting or effects other than just cleaning up some bits that I don't want to have to re-render for. If I suddenly find a poke through, I may use the Smudge function to blend it out, but that's about it.
I'm a firm believer that art is art, regardless of the tools we use. That said, my background in Photoshop before getting into DS and 3D was creating product images for my electronics employer, and later cleaning up my own photography, from scanned slides. I'm very much a novice at creative postwork, though I've dipped a toe a few times since getting hooked on this hobby.
I do all my rendering in DS, have yet to get comfortable with canvases, and the bulk of my "postwork" consists of layering the original image with any spot renders to fix something or other, and adding my signature.
I do, however, think nothing of modifying and creating my own textures in Photoshop before I render the final image.
Book covers can easily run the gamut of very realistic to highly stylized. A lot of what you decide will depend on your target market for the book. But do be aware, this isn't push-button art. There is a lot to learn, and it's addicting! If you get started with 3D art, you may well find yourself with no time left over to write. It's pretty much one or the other. Just ask @Knittingmommy!
Thanks, guys!
I render mostly using Iray, and typically try to do everything in DS/Iray, with minimal post work (in Gimp). Sometimes more post processing is needed, but that is usually only for composite images (where one image grades into another) where I just can't get the lighting "perfect" in Iray, or to add a simple background. I do almost always use Gimp to adjust levels just a bit, and maybe add a little unsharp mask to help things pop a little, but that's usually it.
For novel covers you will no doubt need a bit of post work ito add title, author, etc. If you have Photoshop/Illustrator they will do the trick. If you don't have them, for free you can use the Gimp and Inkscape (Gimp as a replacement for Photoshop, and Inkscape as a replacement for Illustrator). I've put the finishing touches on many illustrations for print using Gimp and Inkscape (not typically DAZ output, more technical illustrations/maps type of work), there is no need to get Photoshop and Illustrator unless you really need/want to.
I have also used Blender/Cycles and Carrara for 3D reconstructions af archaeological sites. I started with Carrara, but have moved to Blender for this type of work. They are great for using original content, or content made for them (Carrara can use DAZ figures up to Genesis 2 naitively (i.e. no importing), so Carrara might be an easier option for using your own created content and DAZ content). If your using primarily just DAZ content for your book covers, I would suggest sticking with DAZ Studio and Iray (or 3Delight) to create your work because this would keep the learning curve and workflow rather modest (exporting to render in another software will add additional step/work to get the shaders set up properly).
If your interested, I usually give a bit of insight to my work process in the description associated with the images in my galleries (links below).
You might find this thread useful: https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/57390/book-covers#latest
Personally, my workflow is DAZ Studio for renders, and then Photoshop if needed. When I was starting out with rendering, I tried to get the best results by just rendering, but while I still try to get really good images rendered, I also do postwork if needed. I'm mostly doing images for a webcomic, so my workflow might not apply to you.
Hi, just an advice from a newbie to another. If you looked at promo art and say to yourself, thats so nice, and your goal is aligned to that end result, then yes, you need to be really good at PS.
With a goal of creating book covers, I do think there will be a lot of postwork involved. I like to render with transparent backgrounds and layer things in PS. If one does not have Photoshop and has little to no experience with a particular graphics program, GIMP is a powerful alternative to PS. (I've tried GIMP and couldn't get the hang of it because I'm so used to the way PS does things.)
(Saving the render in PNG or TIF will preserve the transparent background. I prefer using PNG as it's a lossless compression format. I don't believe DS saves TIF with any compression and the files are much larger.)
I started out with 3Delight but I always struggled with the lighting. I now use Iray which I find has much easier to control lighting. I rarely do post work but when I do I use Corel Photo Paint.
Cheers,
Alex.
Doesn't work properly if you're using DOF, though, as I recently had to find out.
Odd. It worked just fine for me with this image, (created for this month's new user challenge, where the CVs create images to be critiqued by the new users.) I did, however, add the already blurred background to the Environment tab in the end, because matching the DOF in PS was a pain.
I also did that in the end, it worked fine when I added the image via Environments.
Attached to this post is the same image with the background left transparent and the sky added later in Photoshop. Note the white "aura" around the cherry blossoms, and more subtely around the gate. Somehow the DOF blurring isn't handled correctly when using transparency.