Poser's lights look to me to be like the kind of light you get from a clear light bulb. How would one go about making it look like a the light from a frosted or 'soft white' light bulb instead.

Note to BB: I was looking through old threads tonight and ran across the one where you said you'd made a script that would translate IES lights to Poser. I'm still interested in that idea. Do you have the light shaders that you made from the experiment to play with?????

I'm not BB, but I believe if you increase the "Shadow Blur Radius" you'll go in the direction you are wanting. This is found in the "Properties" panel of the Parameter Dials window.

also use light-emitting object.  if it's same size as actual bulb, you get IDL artifacts when IDL IC enabled and IDL samples low.  if it's much larger than bulb, then less artifacts (allows quicker render).

Well I was kind of hoping for some math wizardy to apply to a Poser light. I prefer using Poser lights rather than emitter objects, which to me are a pain. I've only done one successful image of late that had a light emitter in it. Generally I don't like how light emitters reflect in the figure's eyes.

emitters and poser directional lites are handled by BB's standard set-up: reflect node simulates specular from diffuse source, whilst blinn node does specular for directional lite source. these are added via colour math node.  BB described set-up in "SSS Eyes best technique Poser" thread.

Thanx Nancy, I know these things. I was hoping for some advice on some math wizardry applied to a Poser's light to make it appear to be an equivalent to a soft white light bulb instead. Or catch BB's attention to an old thread I re-read a few nights ago where he had created a script to convert IES info into light settings for Poser. I prefer Poser's directional lights. I'm not as wild about emitters as others seem to be. (You can't control an emitter object like you can a good old fashioned spot light). I hate that there seems to be a bug in IBL lights. I noticed it in Poser Pro 2012 and its still in Poser 10. It seems to have something to do with GC and an image connected to the IBL. It's an annoying bug because sometimes I like how an IBL looks in a render. And the reason I like IBL over a glowing Envsphere is the IBL gives me contrast control. I guess I'll have to dig up the link to that thread and haul it to the top and maybe grab BB's attention.

IES won't do what you want.  IES makes a spot light throw a pattern but it's still get the character of a dimensionless point in space.

You need area lights. (Direct lighting objects that also have a non-zero dimension to them.) We don't have them.