I'm still using Poser 6 :) Nothing wrong with that version at all.

Unfortunately there really is no shortcut to learning lighting. I will tell you that lighting in Poser 6 and up is infinitely easier to learn than it was in Poser 5.  Basically you can get a very nice lighting set up with between 1 and 5 lights total.  The gurus like Bagginsbill can do it with 1 light. I find that I can't get a good looking light set up with anything less than 5 usually. Sometimes all are infinite lights, other times it's a blend between infinite, spot and point lights.... point lights if I'm using candles or a brazier.  

Here is a link to some bookmarked threads on lighting.

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2734086

I think some of the RDNA ones are broken.  But if you tack on the thread number found at the end of a broken link to this new string, it will get you to the thread.

http://www.runtimedna.com/forum/showthread.php?p=

I'm proud to say that while I never understood lighting in Poser 5, that I managed to finally understand it in Poser 6 and now I make my own lights for my renders.  

Nerd's volumetric lighting tutorial in the turorial area here (and in the bookmarked thread) is fabulous!

Oh... and Poser 6 and up can only display a total of 8 lights at one time. Those 8 lights include lights that you have in the scene but have turned off.  

If you have more than 8 lights in the scene IE: lights made for Poser 5 that have 30 lights, the lights will still render fine, but the scene will preview very dark.  Not to mention it takes forever to render all of the shadow maps, so I tend to stick with lights made for Poser 6 or make my own.

"It is good to see ourselves as others see us. Try as we may, we are never
able to know ourselves fully as we are, especially the evil side of us.
This we can do only if we are not angry with our critics but will take in good
heart whatever they might have to say." - Ghandi