Stagnation

I would suggest doing one step at a time. Like what one thing you want to work on improving first. Example, mirrors, or realistic skin /eyes etc Then go from there.
What main thing do you want to focus on first, then maybe people on here can supply you with more helpful links or examples. :)

I do a lot of practicing. I've also spent many hours studying different pieces from artist such as Adiene, Roz, and Eve. :mrgreen: If I see a certain look that really intrigues me (like soft skin, or glowing eyes, or shiny clothes) I experiement until I can figure out how its done.

My renders straight from Poser looks like crap. For me, postwork is what makes everything go from a poser render to a "wow" picture. Experiement, experiment, experiement! Dont be scared to experiment with what photoshop (or whatever program you use) has to offer. Play with all those neat little actions. Play with layers. Duplicate them, change the mode to overlay, soft light, screen, etc.

If theres anything in my DA gallery (nianya.deviantart.com) that interests you, feel free to ask me what I did and I'll try my best to explain (if I remember how I did it). :-D

I guess my biggest thing is...let's take the following picture as an example. http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/58215077/ It looks like crap. Utter and completely garbage. It's very pixelated, the color is completely off (especially on the black girl), and it's just...ick! I don't know how to correct it, either. I've tried changing everything in Poser, but nothing makes it look better. I don't know what settings I should have in Poser rendering except to change something to .01 and to have my lights that are casting shadows set to 1024. Other than that...I haven't a clue!

But it looks okay in Poser. It's when I bring it into Photoshop that the color looks weird and off and everything.

Your stuff is great! I just looked at it, and I was wowed! I want to be able to make my stuff look that good, but I don't know what I need to do to make it look like that. I'm not even talking the special effects--I'm talking look in general.

I love Poser, but GOD I'd wish they'd give a freaking tutorial or guide book or something!

What size or dimensions do you render your images in usually?

Also what file type do you render them as? ( jpg, png, etc)

I usually render them at 4000 pixels at 200 pixels per inch, but on this pictures that takes up too much memory. This one I had to do at 2000 pixels at 72 per inch (which is probably one of the problems with it). And I generally save them as JPG, but this one I save in all formats, and it came out looking bad.

When I render an image, lately Ive been using 1200x1600 pixels most of the time, (before that I was doing 768x1024 and had issues with it being too small to work with)

I render it as a PNG image, then after postwork I save the image as a jpg with very low compression to keep it from becoming too pixely.

jpg images squish your picture and make alot of noise/stray pixels, by lowering the compression it helps to reduce that. I dont really notice the pixels too much in that image you posted though.

Maybe I'm just seeing things, but I swear I see greenish pixels throughout Rosalind's facial features.

As for rendering, I always render small at first so I can make sure everything is fine, then I render large so that I can scale it down in Photoshop and not lose quality. I guess I just need to learn what all of the various saving options mean, again restating the fact that I would love to find a good tutorial on Poser. =/

in both poser as well as Daz you can do a quick, sample render, without saving it to a file I forget what its called in Poser though :(

I always save as pngs then resave as jpg after postwork. Like Nianya said, alot of it is postwork and learning how to use photoshop to enhance your image. The first thing I usually do is duplicate the first layer then set it to multiply then play with opacity til it looks good. Then make a new layer and work on highlights/shadows. It's not easy, don't get too overwhelmed, it takes alot of time to figure out how to raise things to the next level. And I know what you mean about feeling stagnant...I think we all feel that way sometimes, but you'll only get better with practice so keep at it. :)

My final render is often 3000 - 4000 pixels wide. I'll often set my settings at Draft (the 2nd to lowest setting in Firefly) and do multiple test renders to test how lights look and everything else. If I like how the lights look, and the scene in general, then I do the final render with shadows and all. Usually I use the lowest setting in firefly that will do shadows and raytracing. My computer isnt good enough to do anything higher. :sad: I also save as PNG too.

I also render a minimum of 2 times. One render is the whole scene. The other is just the character itself. I'll copy & paste her into the scene render. This way she's on a seperate layer and I can do postwork on her eaiser without having to mess with the background. If she rendered too dark or too bland looking, I can adjust the curves to fix that.

So, I don't need a tutorial on Poser, I need one on Photoshop, which I have...somewhere. LOL.

Thanks for the help, everyone. Keep the advice coming!

Check out the tutorials on Daz3D.com Theres some good ones there for photoshop and postwork stuff. :)

There are some postwork tuts on renderosity too.

unless you're rendering for PRINT you do not have to render any higher than 72 DPI.

i'll contribute more when im not stoned on meds :/