[Tutorial] Before - After Postwork


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Post [Tutorial] Before - After Postwork

#1  posfan 16 Jul 2008 20:55

Hey, all!!  

So, the title already states what this thread is for: show comparison pics of your renders before and after postwork and if you want, share your techniques with us!!

Postwork can turn a not so good render into a good/great one and with Postwork you can improve a (very) good render to make it outstanding!!  

Show us your skills!!   Tell us your secrets!!   

 



 
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Post Re: Before - After Postwork

#2  posfan 16 Jul 2008 21:00

So, since I started this topic, I also should start with a pic....

Ravenbelle Von Blackraven (see my gallery)

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Highly postworked to bring out the colors, overall around 30 layers of light/dark overlays, hue/saturation, color dodge/burn, curves.

 



 
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Post Re: Before - After Postwork

#3  Tormie 16 Jul 2008 22:35

Great topic Posfan   !! I'll show soon the postwork of one of my pictures  
 




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Post Re: Before - After Postwork

#4  rayera 17 Jul 2008 02:12

Yes, great topic   unfortunately most of the times I delete the original renders and just keep the final one  
but I'll search to see if I find some, or when I do my next one I'll keep it  
 




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Post Re: Before - After Postwork

#5  rayera 18 Jul 2008 03:24

I found this one, (no cleared the recycle bin) this one was not meant to be a "final work", it's one of the test renders I do trying skin, eyes, lips, hair shaders but because I liked the way she looked, imo I see her somehow sexy and simple, with a self ignored glamor    (how hard is to explain this things with my english   ) and this is what I wanted to enhance, but as it's a very simple render, I decided to keep it simple, so what a I did is created 3 copy layers of the original in gimp ( I use gimp most of the times) and kept the original one just in case, the lower one of the 3 is untouched the mid one I apply a selective Gaussian blur, and clear the areas I want to keep sharp, the upper one I apply a very high Gaussian blur, then use the levels tool to enhance the lights then another gaussian blur, and set to screen, played with the opacities of the layers, combine the layers then final gamma correction, contrast and saturation, all this for creating what I call a subtle glamorous soft blur  
 




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Post Re: Before - After Postwork

#6  rayera 18 Jul 2008 03:40

posfan wrote: [View Post]
So, since I started this topic, I also should start with a pic....

Ravenbelle Von Blackraven (see my gallery)

Highly postworked to bring out the colors, overall around 30 layers of light/dark overlays, hue/saturation, color dodge/burn, curves.


Posfan your enhance here is dramatic, I specially like the power it ads, and the blood, is it hand painted or some brush?, what software do you use? if I may ask  

30 layers!!!     5 layers is too much for me  
 




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Post Re: Before - After Postwork

#7  posfan 18 Jul 2008 14:43

rayera wrote: [View Post]
posfan wrote: [View Post]
[size=14]
Ravenbelle Von Blackraven (see my gallery)
]


Posfan your enhance here is dramatic, I specially like the power it ads, and the blood, is it hand painted or some brush?, what software do you use? if I may ask  

30 layers!!!     5 layers is too much for me  


The blood is handpainted. The outline was a normal red and then I used the color burn tool to darken the edges and other parts.

Reg. software I switch between photoshop 7 and Paint  Shop  Pro 9. I'm better in using PSP, since I haven't found the time to fully master PS. But some things I tend to use in PS since they are easier to do there than in PSP.

The layers are only so much cause I tend to work in parts. Like only the hair, only the red bra, the gloves etc. The hair eg is highly brightened and if I've done a complete layer this way, her face would be almost white and the colors of her outfit would look faded and dull. But I usually merge layers when I'm happy with a result.
 



 
Last edited by posfan on 18 Jul 2008 14:57; edited 1 time in total 
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Post Re: Before - After Postwork

#8  posfan 18 Jul 2008 14:54

rayera wrote: [View Post]
all this for creating what I call a subtle glamorous soft blur  


very nice.    I use a similiar technique, though I also tend to paint over some areas to lighten them.

The only thing I really would do to your pic is enhance her eyecolor (and maybe add a more golden touch to her skin) - but this is only my preference.  
 



 
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Post Re: Before - After Postwork

#9  Whazizname 18 Jul 2008 15:00

Great topic choice Posfan!
 

I look at postwork as a useful; but not entirely nessesary step in the creation of 3D images. I like to get as much done in the originating application (This helps me to learn it's strengths & weaknesses, and also gives me the opportunity to try 'render styles' that I otherwise would not) before I even consider using photoshop, Painter, or any 2D image editor. Because of this thinking; my usual use of photoshop is for repairing 'poke-through', or modifying color, contrast, or gamma levels.

Also due to this thinking, I do not save my photoshop 'actions', and I rarely save custom brushes, or patterns. I have found that by not saving these 'timesavers', I am forced to look at each image as a new and separate artwork.


To create this image, I used:

1 Poser 5 render (almost 'final' quality), to check textures, and lighting before final rendering. I can use this render to help adjust the model's skintone. (see item 1 below.)

1 'final quality' render: in this case I notice a few things that I don't like; so I start planning for the postwork session.
    1.] model's skin tone is too 'orange'.
    2.] dynamic dress has poke-through on model's left hip.
    3.] space between wall and floor. (Oops... I intended to fix that in Poser...)
    4.] camera's 'roll angle' (it seems like a camera angle from the 1960's
          Batman TV series... heheh.
    5.] scene appears 'flat'; depth of field is very low.
    6.] poke-through on hair.


Once in photoshop:

1.) Paste 'pre-final' image to new layer; changed blending mode to 'color'. This will help control the "orangeness" of the skintones.

2.) Selected and filled space between wall & floor. Added a new layer, then airbrushed 'shadows' into the seam between wall & floor, to help add depth to the scene.

3.) Used clone & smudge tools to remove poke-thru from clothing and hair. I then erased the corrected sections from the copied layer.

4.) Used the 'blur tool' to de-focus the wall, chair, and floor behind the model. I used different opacity settings, to simulate different distances from the camera.

5.) Make slight adjustment to hue & saturation of 'background' layer, and slight contrast increase to copied (color) layer.

6.) Created new layer, then used clone tool to add hair highlights from 'pre-final render'. (My previous color corrections, had caused the hair to appear too dark...)

7.) Add signature; skew transform it to match angle of floor/wall seam.

8.) Flatten layers; rotate image -3 degrees. I decided to not crop the rotated image, I'm not sure why; but I kind of like the look.

9.) Slight contrast increase of flattened image.

10.) Saved psd, and jpg versions of flattened image. (I used photoshop's 'save for web' feature for the jpg files.)


{After viewing and considering this image for a few hours, I think that i could re-render the scene, and get a better 'final quality' image. If I do re-render this scene, I will probably attempt to get Poser to add the Depth of Field too; I usually don't like to do this in Poser, because of the large increase in render time; but some times, it is needed.}


 




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Post Re: Before - After Postwork

#10  Whazizname 18 Jul 2008 15:03


I always post the images in the wrong order...
 




 




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Post Re: Before - After Postwork

#11  posfan 18 Jul 2008 21:34

My latest pic: BeachBabe  (see my gallery)

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As one can see, I first needed to touch up some poke thru. Unfortunately the crop top doesn't come with morphs and even with XD fit morphs it makes trouble (due to Posybelle's bodyshape). Hair also hasn't enough morphs, so it partly stucks in the chest on the right side.
Therefore I rendered 4 versions of this pic.
- the one seen above
- one with a fixed top on the right side
- one with a fixed arm on left
- one only with the hair

Postwork:
- Combine all the renders to achieve the correct look
- Setting up 2 layers, one with the dark parts, one with the light parts, set to overlay and different opacity.
- adjusting colors and curves
- merging all layers.
and now comes the paint part (around 70 layers)
- using white to paint the highlights of her body, gaussion blur at 12 applied, setting layer to luminosity, playing with opacity.
- the smaller the pencil size the smaller the gaussian blur
- dark parts were painted with brown and set to multiply
- after all that was done, adding a background
- merging all layers
- use of a special basic enhance action to bring out the colors even more
- adding frame, title and sig

original size is double the size of the one in my gallery.
 



 
Last edited by posfan on 18 Jul 2008 22:40; edited 2 times in total 
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Post Re: Before - After Postwork

#12  Tormie 18 Jul 2008 22:18

Thank you Posfan Whazizname & Rayera       !! I'll add one of mine on my free day at home ...  
 




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Post Re: [Tutorial] Before - After Postwork

#13  posfan 20 Jul 2008 22:40

My latest pic: Winter Kiss (see my gallery)

Actually it's a revised version of an old 2005 render.

Image
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Pretty much the same technique as above mentioned. This just shows one more picture.

First is the original Poser render
Middle one ia taken into PS
 - one layer with dark parts set to overlay
- one layer with light parts set to screen
- adjusted color layer made from screen layer
- adjusted curves layer made from screen layer
- result taken into PSP for overpainting
Last one is the finished overpainted pic
- 15 layers of white painting, with gaussian blur and opacity added, set to luminosity
- 4 layers of white painting, with gaussian blur and opacity added, set to color dodge
- eyes and lips got a saturation boost
- rose makeup added per new color + opacity layer
- hair in the back had some gaps ;therefore on a new underlaying layer the gaps were cloned and filled

Final was put on a wintery background and got a color dodgewith opacity layer on top with some snowflakes
 



 
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Post Re: [Tutorial] Before - After Postwork

#14  The Mighty Zeus 08 Aug 2008 15:17

Well unfortunately I already trashed the original on this one but literally everything but the girl, sword and the dragon is done in post work. The rocks were composited in one layer from a photograph which I modified hue and saturation, contrast and lightness, and color balance on.  The background is completely done in photoshop with a gradient layer, brushes and a flood filter (by Flaming Pear.) The seagull is painted in as well by just a few round brushes and a little artistry. All of the plants are done with various brushes I have as well. The blood was done with simple round brushes and setting the opacity down to 50%. Everything was blended together with a 10 point blur brush set to 14% strength.
The main characters were done in two layers. One layer had most of the figures erased and a drop shadow added to create the ground shadows without having a shadow show up on the upper half of the figures.
 




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Post Re: [Tutorial] Before - After Postwork

#15  Tormie 25 Aug 2008 01:04

Just GREAT, friends   This is turning out as a VERY INTERESTING TOPIC , thank you  
 




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