Yep, I do all those things and more. The image above is, if i remember correctly, 15 layers. My machine can't handle big scenes eitherm so i stick to one person scenes and close ups. lol! Rendering with bump maps and shadows will also kill my machine, so I developed this trick to get things done. Now I feel guilty if I do only one render. ;) Good contrast land good composition are most important. Don't do all these painful steps below if your image isn't good to start with, it will not make it "better." These steps are just polish. These are my own lights, 3 in all. One is the blue "moon" backlight. the lower left light is the "campfire" light from below. Because the orange and blue are near opposites, they give a "pop" to your subject. My fake SSS, is the "moon" light. To get it properly on the face and feet, I render nude no hair, with bumps and shadows on. Always save in the highest resolution (final image size) with alpha channel. First render: nude, no hair, with bumps and cast shadows. 2nd render: nude, no hair, with bumps and cast shadows. New higher res eyes (not DAZ eyes) 3rd render: clothes with bumps and shadows 4th render: clothes with bends turned off, or spiral turned off, or fix JPs in the joint editor so you can fix bad bends in post. 5th render: necklace doesn't cast a good shadow, render just the necklace with alpha channel. Renders 5-15: Multiple hairstyles renders, some reposed a few times, each with shadows on, then with shadows off. And if needed, turn body parts on and off if hair intersects body in any places. Hair textures must match, and material setting for each hair must also match. Turning off "cast shadows" on hair is often a good idea, Render 16: Byrce sky with my poser colors roughly in the same position as I had them in poser. I rendered larger with some leeway around the edges so I could correctly align the image in post. Renders adjusted fill lighting: sometimes I change the lighting many many ways and render in separate layers. It could go like this: Backlight, fill 1, fill 2, spot light, fake SS light, bounce lights, etc. In post I get control how the lights will layer on the image instead of trusting Poser to do it for me Make sense? Plus with photoshop, I can set some lights to "lighten" "overlay" "soften" "darken" "color dodge" etc. Generally, I always do 8-12% color dodge on the final image because it gets rid of the "scanned print look." Some times I add noise if there is much "computer gradiant look." Okay, now I'm armed with separated elements to recomposite in photoshop. I build each layer with separated elements. Then I just adjust what get included where and how it gets included. For the hair, some of the layers are "lighten". You can still see the "Wild and Messy" hairstyle, but because there are other styles, it makes the image less boring if you already know what WAM hair looks like. I will often change the alpha channel, and sometimes run filters on a layer's image. What is done in each layer changes by the project, so you need experiment to see what works best your image. I've been using photoshop for over a decade, have worked in photography both taking pictures and developing them, and have more than enough of photoretouching and color balancing for anal model agencies, so some of my pain tolerance if from my work history. lol! ;) bB