I hate the term "photo"realism.  What does it mean?  I've seen an untouched 3D render that was realistic as a photo?  Let's stop talking about photorealism.  Realism on the other hand can mean a lot of things.  A figure standing in front of a spot light without shadows isn't realistic no matter how good it's skin looks.  

And adding art into the mix can be explosive.

There was an art exhibit here a few days ago that has wreaked quite a bit of havoc.  One artist took a book from another artist and smeared every page with food and put it up as an art installation.  The book was a massive book of Icelandic flora with hand painted pictures of every plant of the country (yes there are more the 5).  The artist who defiled the book said that since it only contained detailed paintings of actual plants it wasn't a work of art.  He, however, had turned it into art by smearing it with food.

So here we have a guy who has spent years and years painting plants and flowers in great detail and another one who spent less then an hour smearing it with food.  Which one is the artist?

I don't really care.  I'm just saying that I want my renders to look pretty realistic before I smear them with food in Photoshop.

 Vestmann's Gallery