In response to some queries about this, I thought I'd share my 'no postwork, postwork' methods ;). What I mean by that is that I rarely do a lot of 'painting' on my images, aside from occasionally fixing up a knee/elbow/hip joint that went wild. I've had a similar mini-tut on my homepage for quite a while now and others have posted similar methods, so there's nothing new here, but I'm hoping that it will still useful to someone and/or inspire them to experiment and build on these simple steps. Images to follow...

I kinda skipped over the fact that the background also changed... if you only want to affect the character(s) in the scene, then you can use the alpha channel of the .tif file to create either a mask or a selection for cut/paste and just add new layers with the character(s) only. Anyway, I pretty much do these steps on every image I create, but sometimes set the opacity differently for the duplicated layers, depending on the lighting and affect I'm looking for. You can also play with other blending modes (overlay, multiply, etc) for additional affects.

Great tutorial. Good to see someone else who uses PSP and not Photoshop. Wish I could afford PS, but until the taxes come in (and aren't used for bills), I'll stick with the less expensive PSP.

Given the toolset of PSP, I see no reason currently to spend 6-8 times as much for Photo Shop (assuming I had it to spend in the first place ;).

Great tutorial I have photoshop and I usually follow this same steps, only difference that I apply a gausian blur to softlight then duplicate the layer and change it to screen, then change the screen layer opacity lower than what the soft light is set and usually I do the sharpen part at the end before resizing. I will try this way. great results the skin looks more natural than the default poser render, thanks :)

I used to do the same thing (blurr, then copy and change to screen), but I kinda liked the idea of separating the blur and sharpen between the 2 layers as the operations seemed tied more closely with the blending modes used (sharpen only the 'screened' portion of the image, and only blur the 'soft lit' portion). The actual final-image difference between the two methods may be indistinguishable... It's hard to argue with the results you've been getting Dash ;). As for the opacity, more often than not, I set them both to 50%, but (depending on the lighting used and the affect I'm after) I'll set the screen layer higher or the soft light layer higher. BTW, I generally render to size, but if I'm going to resize it in the end, I may do another full-screen sharpen before resizing too. Thanks for the comments.

Thanks for the tip Spanki, I have PSP8! =O)

Just got PSP 8 at the campus bookstore. It was cheaper to buy the full version than the upgrade from 7. Looks,er, interesting... The main feature to PS 7 was the Actions, and it seems like PSP8 has the same basic feature, different name. I've never figured out channels or masks but I'm going to work on those concepts because of this tutorial.

I pretty much do it the same way. I also render the clothes by themselves as thier own layer on top of the original, helps with shadows. The more layers you use, the more options you have. I use PSP8 also.

Attached Link: http://majesticartistry.com/tutorials/hazeeffect/hazet.html

Neat technique using half-tones Maj. I've never played with that option much - now I have something new to try - thanks!

Great tip...thanks! I also have PSP 7 & 8. I have PS too, a very old version, but never got into it. Now, I have no reason to, I can do everything in PSP. :)