Thanks for all the replies, everyone. IDL feels like something I should use simply because it's a novelty within poser for me. Guess I'll just have to experiment and find a set up that I'm comfortable with... I'm totally not adverse to Photoshop postwork, It's a given: if you have the tools, use them. The primary reason IDL is attractive to me is using it for AO clay style renders, in which case I understand that IDL is actually a more "true" solution. Speaking of, I just bought Semidieu's Advanced Render Settings 2 so I'll have some more bells and whistles in in terms of Render passes and such. In the end I'm not so much interested in Photorealism within poser (which seems to be the aim of many of the renders I see here) as I am in a sort of CG style expressionism.

I'm kind of curious about ghonma's set-up, as illustrated above...

Absolutely beautiful renders as always, BB and Moriador! (I see you're using RobotMonster's battered books props in yours, M... Thumbs up on that.)