OK. I very much appreciate the input, because it gives me some specific things to try when I adjust the settings in my renders. I feel that lowering the complexity of the items in many of my pictures is not really an option, because the pictures are illustrations for stories I am writing. I think that the production renders will have to be used for character portraits like my first posting, and for my general illustrations I'll be stuck with draft-level renders. The picture posted earlier, for example, is of two college girls who just got busted for plagiarism and are waiting to talk to their professor. To give an idea of what I am trying to do with my work, I posted another picture with this message from another story I am working on, where my main character gets arrested for smoking pot. Once again, this is a render using Complex Global lighting (true globals) at draft resolution and the police officers are a Judy and a Don figure with clothing I got from Phil C. Edward -EC-