best portrait lighting?

intrinsicanomaly_262dc77de2

I'm curious what light sets people consider to produce the most realistic portrait effects?

Richard Haseltine

Are you in DS, using Iray (which is the default)? Are you aiming for a studio-shot effect, or something more natural?

JonnyRay

This is going to be a personal preference type of question as well as what people are used to using. For Iray, my go-to lighting for simple portraits is Colm Jackson's PRO-Studio HDR Lighting System. I happen to like the first volume the best although I have all 3.

For the longest time, I just got very quick and efficient at creating a standard 3-light rig that is common among portrait photography. The tutorial linked in my signature is a bit dated, but the concepts are still applicable to any system that lets you create your own lights.

shootybear

I'm going to give you a somewhat different thought about this as a newbie myself (4 months). A) Read JonnyRay's tutorials. They're good and quite accessible. Read them all as the way light interacts with a characters's skin affects how you want to light the character (which a few of the others talk about). B) *If you have the money* go and search on portrait and find something on sale (50% off or more - there are always sales), buy it and use it. In my opinion using even a mediocre is better than nothing. Or roll your own with JonnyRay's tutorial for free other than your time. PS people also seem to like the B.O.S.S Pro set (https://www.daz3d.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=boss pro light set)

intrinsicanomaly_262dc77de2

Jonny- I probably will only be able to get one system for now, can you fill me in a bit on the difference between the 3 and why you prefer the first?