Thanks, all... sounds like there really aren't any great tutorials. Google wasn't much help either.

I've had decent results with darker hairs - dark brown, black. Light brown, blonde, most reds... not so much. And the hair is usually much more realistic at the scalp than in long locks. Curls, well....

I've definitely seen promo renders for hair where I wouldn't be satisfied, myself. But OTOH, I do see some promo renders that indicate I could be getting better results if I knew better what I was doing. And sometimes, an artist gets a far better render than you would have thought would be possible with a given product. I can't believe that's all postwork.

As far as vendor promos, see DigiCalimero's WildHair (which, admittedly, I don't own). A better example, since I own both the hair and the textures: Firebirdz's 5 Muses for Clio. Most of those renders are incredible... you can tell it's not a photo, but it's very good. From the same vendor, see also In Love Again for Sapphire Fox. Absolutely amazing stuff....

Not quite at that level, but I'd also rate some (tho not all) of Breeze's Dream Collection (e.g. Olessa) promo renders very high.. much better than what I'm usually achieving, at any rate. Certainly, quite a bit of plus3D's promo work.

I don't think I've got the patience for strand-based hair (and am already feeling burdened by render times)... and I have to admit I'm still pretty skeptical about it. Could you show some realistic examples, svdl?

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Hardware: AMD Ryzen 9 3900X/MSI MAG570 Tomahawk X570/Zotac Geforce GTX 1650 Super 4GB/32GB OLOy RAM

Software: Windows 10 Professional/Poser Pro 11/Photoshop/Postworkshop 3