Is this what you meant?

Going to try another light as well and see if that makes any difference

Thanx Ladonna,

I did try it set lower but I am going to try again (will post result)

Lights I am using a P8 light set as it was just for testing but in all the images I have tried the last few days have all had different lights.  Could that be it?  Should I try something else with this one?

This is the current one compared to previous Macbook Pro 2.66GHZ with 8GB ram

I did also try various other settings but it seems to have not made much of a difference on the hair.

Thank you so much for your help and pointing me in the right direction!!!

Yeah that too.  :)

I am SO confused.  I just rerendered the first image (with the red cloth) at exactly the same settings as my 2hr 46min render.  The ONLY change is that I removed the hair.

This render took 12hrs 02min 45 sec.

I guess I should pack away IDL until I know what I am doing.

BB:  Thanx.  Basicly I am going to have to wrap my head around all the technical stuff to get anywhere near a good render.  sigh seems like lots of studying for me. 

I understand about the best time / best quality.  I think what I meant was the best quality at the best time for that quality.  I don't mind waiting hours if it at the right quality with all the right settings but hours for sub standard just doesn't make sense to me. 

What I would like to do is play with each setting and see what they do - as my biggest problem is that I don't know what the different settings do and what will change.  I am not very good with technical stuff. - but having to wait hours for a test render means I am going to be busy with that for weeks. 

Thank you for all the help.  I will start at the top of the thread and see how much I can take in and actually understand.  If all else fails it is back to std P8 renders for me.

Thanks everyone for the help.

BB:  That looks super good.  Compared to what I am getting at higher settings.

Let me ask you this then:  Based on the settings I am using NOW - am I getting the best I can at the best time I can?  In other words if I wait till SR1 will i get better results by just changing some settings or do you think there is more to my "problem" than just the current way Poser handles IDL.

I hope that makes sense.

In short.  I don't want SR1 to come along and I still battle because there is something else  I am doing wrong.

Same scene but in a room and not just the wall behind her and the floor.

It looks really bad but I think that has more to do with light and prop placement than settings.  This one took 18 mins 13 sec.

:D

This one took 22min02s!!!!  HUGE improvement.  Thank you very much!!!

It does have a few artifacts etc but at least I am pretty sure now that my settings are semi correct. 

btw - If I add the hair it takes 31min29s but the hair doesn't look too great.  

cobaltdream:  I understand and agree.  thanx

pjz99:  Thanx I will try.  Although this was the first scene I had actually included the hair with the IDL but I will give it a shot.  Thanx

Cobaltdreams:  If it was just this image that I was having the long render times with I would understand that but I've had just the figure sitting on the floor with hair - no clothes - and it was also a 24hr + render.  I am pretty sure that there is something seriously off with my settings but I am going to try to go through them and see what I can figure out. 

If only I could get my mind to grab hold of all this information and process it while I sleep. 
I am doing a few render "tests" on something different to see if I can pick up anything.  I might post them too.