I'm using Pro and have always had issues with fishnet/mesh/lace textures showing up totally crappy, not looking at all like they do in promo's. Now I've noticed I have a similar problem with eyelashes. They just show up faintly and not terribly detailed, even with good lights and AO and all the settings at their highest in firefly. Is this because of my older graphics card? Or is there something else I'm not catching on to?

I have found that you need a fairly high resolution image for the small details (like eyelashes and thin lines like fidhnet) to show clearly. At smaller image sizes they always look pixelated.

It should not be your graphics card.

What image sizes are you doing.

There are also a couple settings that deal with shading rate and texture filtering that may have an impact.

It's not so much pixelation as just not looking right in general. For example, when I try to use an eyelash inj from a character, it renders looking NOTHING like the thumbnail for the product. I even tried CS-Tweety's super long eyelashes and they come out looking the same as all the rest. And fishnet/mesh/etc just looks flat and strange, especially mats like Tabala's Lace Dreams set.

Have you tried turning off texture filtering in teh Material Room ?

And have you instructed your graphics hardware ( through its control program ) to allow the highest possible settings for 3D ?

( nVidia for example, have a control application which you can launch and then set the various parameters for each 3D application; in this case, Poser ).

Tried turning off texture filtering and not noticing any real difference. Also looked around at the settings in my nvidia control panel but they're already on the highest settings from the looks of it.

For very fine detail set Min shading rate to 0.1 in the render settings.
For laches, I mostly add a bump or small displacement to get them "fatter" or show better.
Takes some getting used to.
Also, reducing the Min shading rate will increase render times. So test a bit to find your optimum settings.
Such a low value it is only realy usefull for close ups, or very detailed work.
But you might need it.

I don't have Pro just P6 and I posted on the forums over a year ago about the same issue. the eyelashes appeared clumpy or sparse or like blurred dots. I was told to use settings of...

Min shade rate 0.2
Pixel Samples to 5
Max Texture size from 1k-4k
Then reload textures after changing the setting and then render.

That did help for me. Now that's with P6, I'm sure those settings are the same with each edition? 

i do not have Pro either, but it works in P7 and P8. ( MSR at 0.1 )
What is your texture size? To get best results it should be square, and;.
4096x4096 for max quality.
But can be 2048x2048 for medium, or 1024x1024 for low.
512x512 for background.
Reduce as distance increases to keep memory load under control. 

I don't think you can change texture size in PP. I did a check in P8 (which likes to crash when I try and render so I don't use it really) and the eyelashes show up MUCH better in there than PP so I'm wondering what the deal is.

No, you can not change texture size inside Poser;
The only thing you can change is the texture size used for the preview.
But that does not change the texture itself.
To change a texture size you'll need a paint application , or ACDSEE, or similar.

For P8, did you install the SR2 already?

Yep. installed sr2. It crashed twice trying to area render a saved scene, haven't really mucked around in it much beyond that and area renders on a basic v4 with some added eyelash mats. As I said, way better lashes in P8 vs PP.

If I recall correctly, for the lash transparency you have to undo the gamma correction PPro applies to all texture maps. Not sure if that is all of the issue you are experiencing, but changing the GC for the lash transparency map to 1.0 in the material room should help.

What are your render settings in the advanced render tab?

I find that changing the "post filter size" to  4 sinc" helps a lot with the fishnet rendering.
i find Poser 8 is a huge imporvement for eyelashes.
cheerio
lululee