I am really stumped and need help badly.  After a 45 minute render in P7 last night, the results were less than stellar, and I dumped it...but wish I had kept it to show.  I was just playing with lighting and used the IBL (?) lights on a portrait of V4.  There were harsh gray lines around the mouth, the shoulders faded to a very bright white while the neck was splotches of different colors...gray being the primary.

I also used the P4 render engine on the same model and everthing was so washed out and bright white that you couldn't even see the features of the face.

What gives?   I'll be the first to admit I have problems with lighting, no matter what program...but this seems too extreme, even for me.

I, too, have had problems with P7 crashing... and very long render times.  I did notice that the recommendations for RAM for P7 is 3-4 gigs...so that may have much to do with those problems.  I have 1 gig...but will be adding 2 more as soon as I can.

Any help on lighting would be appreciated...and if it would help, I 'll redo the render I was doing last night to show what happens.

Don't know where you got that RAM info from but the book says 512 Meg.
I have 2 Gig and P7 ticks along nicely for me.

As for lights, you can't just pick a light set and expect a good result, use them as a base if you must but it's really better to experiment and set up your own lighting!

Sure I use light sets sometimes but usually tweak them to suit!
Good luck!!

Quote - I was just playing with lighting and used the IBL (?) lights on a portrait of V4.  There were harsh gray lines around the mouth, the shoulders faded to a very bright white while the neck was splotches of different colors...gray being the primary.

That sounds like a problem with your lighting setup, though I'm not sure what, exactly, from your description.

With IBL lights, keep the intensity of the main light at 45-65%, and don't have AO (ambient occlusion) set on the lights. I'd recommend using two lights in addition to an IBL light - a spot or point light to add some highlight and shadow, and, for portraits, a specular-only light (that is, in the material settings for the light, set the diffuse colour to black, the specular to white and turn the intensity up).

If you want to use AO, set it up on the materials instead - this uses less memory when you render as you'll only use it where it's needed.