Quote - didn't you say you were using an infinite at 270% in addition to your IBL  in your outdoor images?

Yes, what of it. That was because I was trying to simulate what is called "over exposing" on a camera, by about 1 and 1/2 stops. (Roughly a factor of 2.8 more than a normal exposure)

I was not doing it to force my render into a range of illumination that looked "less wrong". Rather I was doing that because I was simulating a render in broad daylight, which means directional light is about 7 to 8 times brighter than the ambient light. Since my ambient light was on average at a level of about 40%, that lead to a "sun" intensity of 270%, 40% * 7.

This not art - it is physics. I'm just using the information I know about how light works, particularly in photography. When rendering to simulate a photograph, you must create the same conditions. When rendering for arbitrary art reasons, you can do otherwise, but I was doing aviation photorealism on a bright, sunny day.

And, just so you know, if I did not have gamma correction turned on, that would have totally blown out my render. Not only does GC brighten dark things, it also darkens bright things. Bet you didn't know that.

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Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)