There are plenty of photoreal Poser and DAZ Studio renders around. I am talking about real photoreal, not the many Reality/LuxRender renders you see around with melted butter looking hair and skin so glossy that it looks like PVC plastic.

I wasn't talking about Poser/DAZ Studio "photoreal" (with quotes), I was talking about GCSociety (without quotes) photoreal.

If this is the best DAZ/Poser photoreal image you've seen you should browse around more. That's all I meant. Are you telling us you haven't even seen MEC4D's latest iRay renders. Her Maya iRay 2015 test render alone is a great photoreal piece, so is her Luis iRay 2015.
In the end it depends on the skill of the artist.

Maya Iray 2015

Maya Iray 2015

Maya Iray 2015

It certainly down to the skill of the artist which is why individual renders do not say a great deal about the figure other than what is possible by a skillful artist.  It also does help to have a top class rig such as MEC4D's so that you can generate such renders in a reasonable time.  I doubt I could create a render like that, no matter what figure or computer I used to create it.

On the other side of the coin, with Iray and Victoria 7, it is easier to get there. Yes, some skill is required, but, for photorealistic, less than with 3Delight or Firefly. 

That depends so much on where you skills and experience lie, what render engine the materials were built for, and if you were after photorealistic in the first place.

 

 

I use Poser 13 on Windows 11 - For Scene set up I use a Geekcom A5 -  Ryzen 9 5900HX, with 64 gig ram and 3 TB  storage, mini PC with final rendering done on normal sized desktop using an AMD Ryzen Threadipper 1950X CPU, Corsair Hydro H100i CPU cooler, 3XS EVGA GTX 1080i SC with 11g Ram, 4 X 16gig Corsair DDR4 Ram and a Corsair RM 100 PSU .   The desktop is in a remote location with rendering done via Queue Manager which gives me a clearer desktop and quieter computer room.