Quote - Can anyone articulate the things that makes this image stand out? I am having trouble identfying what particular things have been done that makes the image look so much like snapshot as opposed to CGI. Can any of these things be applied to Poser renders?

In my opinion, it's the models, the shading (near perfect SSS simulation), the facial expression, the lighting, the way she's posed, the post fx; it's everything, and how it all came together just perfectly to simulate a photorealistic recreation.  I've seen this style of lighting effect done before many times in many different renderers like Maxwell and MentalRay (flashbulb and/or photometrically accurate flashlight simulations).  It always struck me as an interesting lighting approach that's almost never used well, or often, with the specific intent of creating realism in CG.  Not many people try to duplicate a bad photo, and even fewer actually succeed to this kind of level.

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Tools :  3dsmax 2015, Daz Studio 4.6, PoserPro 2012, Blender v2.74

System: Pentium QuadCore i7, under Win 8, GeForce GTX 780 / 2GB GPU.