Quote - UNLESS you want to try and lasoo select different parts of the image and repaste them all down as different layers

Or render separate elements that can be selected separately in Photoshop. I did separate renders of the diver and the creature, but not for coloring purposes. For the final image, I did a radial gradient layer and applied a blur, centering on the tunnel entrance, to simulate distance on the cave, but didn't want it to affect the main figures (I manually added a distant blur to the creature's neck).

Color corrections usually only need to be applied globally on a Poser render. It's possible to select and paint individual elements, but that's not usually necessary. I'd rather fix an isolated color issue in Poser so that all the lights and shadows act on that element appropriately. I'm all for letting Poser do the bulk of the work. Poser has its limits or sometimes takes more effort to achieve a result than can be done in other programs. Photoshop, and other image editors, excel on fixing the color on images. Image editors are less useful in lighting an image and general light arrangement for 3D graphics are best addressed in the 3D programs.

I'd imagine that most people prefer the second image over the first. All I did was add contrast with an "S" curve and similarly beefed up the red and blue channels. I don't know if that can readily be done in Poser. Even if it could, the process would be change settings, render, and repeating till the right result is achieved. In Photoshop, I alter the curve and the result is nearly instantaneous, so I can do a lot more experimentation in a shorter time than I can with Poser.

In the end, methodology doesn't matter as much as results. The quality of any image relies on the image itself and not the tools used to create it.
 
Methodolgy discussions are still useful because there's always something to learn from them. That's why I'll often read something from bagginsbill. He knows a whole lot more about this stuff than I do. If there's a faster way in Poser to achieve the results I got in the second image entirely within Poser, I'm all for learning it. I rather doubt, even applying gamma correction in Poser, that the results would be as good as what could be done in Photoshop. It would probably be less flat than the first image. I wouldn't want to spend a lot of time getting Poser a little better and then essentially doing as much work in Photoshop as before.

My visual indexes of Poser content are at http://www.sharecg.com/pf/rgagnon