Image is attached.

I want to match the lighting from the background picture.  Is there a way to make light seem to come from a background picture?

The attached image was done with white lights in poser, then adjusting the levels on the layer in photoshop to blue tint.  But it doesn't really match the background.

Can someone help with the desired effect of matching the background image lighting, but having it a little brighter so the figure can be clearly seen?

I can't seem to adjust the lights so that the face isn't too dark - I've tried a blue light in the background with shadows on, coming from the direction of the sky, then a blue light and white light in front with shadows off to illuminate the face (spot light pointed at head,) but then the face comes out dark.

well, first of all, stop making lights for her front. you've got a twilight image, with light from behind  her.  every photo i've seen in the light situation, including ones from bright day, creates pretty much a silhouette.  you can probably work something out with ambient lighting in the form of either an IBL with the right colors or 4 or 5  infinite lights with no shadows in the right colors.  the right colors being the colors of your background image and the ones they imply.  so any ambient light from above should be a shade or tone of lavender.  anything from below and behind her should be a shade or tone of blue or bluegreen.  the image implies that she's got sand in front of her, so lights from down and in front should be muted taupes and very soft browns.  high and in front would be a darker sky, so start with the sky color and add some blue and take some brightness away.  all your colors should be low saturation and medium high brightness.  if you can, base the colors on eyedroppered colors from the image.

and lastly, have an infinite light that's the same pale yellow as the obscured sun.  that should be the only light with shadows.  it should be from behind her and up, so that the convergent point comes from the sun in the image.

unless you want to imply a campfire, her body and hair should have no highlights in the front whatsoever.  her face would be dark in that lighting. if you want her face bright, she should face the sun, and the sky behind her should be dark.  but at that time of day, it's hard to get artificial light to show, because it's so light, but too dark to see something with the sun behind it clearly.

The application is a character on a background, but facing the camera.  So even though it's not realistic to the background, her face has to be lit.

Whenever I try IBL's I get a washed out image.

i understand what you want, but it's not just a matter of realistic.  you said you wanted her to be integrated with the background.  she's not integrated largely because you can't integrate that image and get  her face well lit. lighting is probably the most paramount element when integrating a background image and a 3d character, and what you're saying is you want to violate the lighting. what you end up with is a standard cg backdrop look. 

that said...

an IBL or other low or no specular ambient light can give you some of the muted tone and hues  of the background image. 

i can't comment on IBLs giving you a washed out image easily.  you see, it's all of a piece. since i'm not precisely sure of what image you're using, or of the other lights in the scene, i can't give you very precise feedback.  but i'd say

make sure your source image matches your picture.  that doesn't mean using the picture as a source.  if you look in the forums, there are templates for IBLs.  that is, they show what part of the circle corresponds to which part of your image space.  from what i've read, Poser's IBL is extremely  imprecise, so just painting the general colors you want should be fine.  there's a template in this thread: http://www.runtimedna.com/mod/forum/messages.php?ShowMessage=257363

don't over do the IBL.  most of my very light images use an IBL shader that gives it the colors i want, but still doesn't go any higher in intensity than 70%.  others will probably have different advice and tricks, but that's my personal settings.  in this case, i'd keep the IBL source colors pretty muted and middle brightness.  i think i'd have the intensity down at about 50%, but it's very hard to say without actually trying it myself.

make sure your only non-ambient light corresponds to relevant light sources.  so, for instance, the sun and maybe some sort of light source for her face.  the sun should be no problem, since it's behind her, but anything for her front should be of an intensity that doesn't completely blow out your figure.  start with a low intensity (say 40%) and adjust from there.  i'd suggest if you really want her to integrate with the image, tie the face light to something believable.  like a campfire, or a lantern or whatever you can think of.  the point being, if you have a physical basis for considering that front lighting, it should help you give appropriate direction, intensity, position and color.

This is the result of attempts to follow your advice.

i think you've made a big improvement (impressive!), but is it closer to what you want?  and just in terms of materials, if you haven't already, i'd suggest adding a blinn node to her skin for specular, and one to her bathing suit with some noise for lycra.  softer blinn on skin than lycra, of course.  i also find it helpful to maintain a quasi-inverse relationship between specular and diffuse amounts.  that is, more shine, less diffuse and vice versa. 

i'm not sure you will ever get a real effect with this background while your figure is facing us,
as cobalt said she would mostly be a silhouette, with just a hint of back lighting on her left hand side, this is especially true because of the image you are using, it has a very prominant sun burst right behind her.

this image to me looks like a studio shot with a model standing in front of a canvas, why? because at some point during editing that photo, someone has set a layer effect to "multiply", which will darken the image, enhance the contrast but also "multiply" will usually add that vertical line grain that you have, so it looks like a canvas.

anyway if you still want to use that photo, and try to make her look like she is at that location, then i would have her facing the sea / sunlight more, that way you will get a half an'half effect where she is half silhouette and half lit.

but if you want to make it look like a studio shot instead, where you could light it however you like really, then you would need to lose the backlighting, raise at least one spot light above her head, and work on the shadow casting of her shadow onto the canvas, which you would have to apply that background image to a square or cube prop.

personally i would go with the studio version, as i don't think the on vacation type shot is gonna work out.

anyway just my opinion,
i also think you improved greatly with your second image over you first.

That is the problem with nearly all compositions of "Figure standing in front of a picture" - they look like a figure standing in front of a picture.  If you completely ignore the picture for lighting concerns and don't really care if it looks intensely fake, then it looks fine, and much better than the first version.

..guess I'm in trouble...;)
Heaven knows I try. The shadows are what get you; that's why light from behind is what I usually use. Angles, color, and intensity to match the background helps, but I'm only an amateur at this stuff...;)

I like the first one better.  it's more cartoonish.  since they won't agree on how to
light this using poser, I would just do the first one again with a darker background.
use a front lite with dramatic falloff, either with baggins inverse square, or poser dials.
add poser sss to hair and skin to increase rimlite fx.  I like the bra on that one, too.
make facial expression more dramatic, try to match head and skintex more closely,
as was done in second image.

"this image to me looks like a studio shot with a model standing in front of a canvas, why? because at some point during editing that photo, someone has set a layer effect to "multiply", which will darken the image, enhance the contrast but also "multiply" will usually add that vertical line grain that you have, so it looks like a canvas."

I don't want it to look like she's in a studio in front of a canvass.  But no multiply was used.  The background and image of the girl are separate layers.  The background layer was duplicated, then the duplicate was desaturated and set to layer blending with soft light.  The girl layer was then placed on top of those two layers.  That's it as far as Photoshop.

There are two lights behind the girl in poser, one is yellowish matching the washed out sun, an infinite light set over her left shoulder.  The other is an IBL set to a bluish tone from the image, with an image map node that's blank (no image) with with a light blue set for the color.  That one is at about hip level, just over her left hip.

There is one light in front of her, it's pointing up (pointed to her left eye) from the ground and is a bluish spot with a very large end angle.

The only light with shadow is the infinite yellow behind her.

I want it to look semi real, but it cannot look so real that she has to be facing the background and is dark towards the viewer.  She has to be facing the viewer, her face has to be lit, but within those parameters I want it to look as "realish" as possible.

I'm going to try some of those tips about nodes for her skin and the suit.  But all this advice and commentary are appreciated.

The image is attached if anyone wants to show an example of what they can do with it and a character.

I don't get it.  If you want it to look real, you cannot have foreground lighting.  But you say you must have strong foreground lighting.  You can't achieve both ends here, your subject is standing in front of the sun.  The sun is not a light bulb, it's immensely brighter than nearly any source of artificial light.  Pick one, either realism or your artistic preference, and decide which is a priority, either realism or your goal of having the character brightly lit from the front (not saying that's evil and horrible, just it will never be realistic).  Unless you have the character set on a planet with multiple suns, or perhaps there is a nuclear bomb going off in the foreground right as the image is captured.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070818123508AAoGuUy

I'm not trying to give you a hard time, just suggesting that you take advantage of the very sensible advice you've already been offered (cobaltdream, missnancy).

"I don't get it.  If you want it to look real, you cannot have foreground lighting."

Except for that there's a light source, maybe it's a spot light, I want the light to look as real as possible while still having the face visible.  The face must be visible, must be seen. 

I have tried to take advantage of that advice as much as possible within the frame of this is for a project in which the person for whom the project is being done wants to see the face and wants that background.

The skin, eyes, etc. can look more real, even if the shadows and lighting aren't.

yes, but not integrated with the image. first off, it's a painting, so if you're trying to match it, what you want is actually a slightly stylized, illustrated look.  second of all, as pjz99 mentioned, another light source wouldn't show up worth anything unless it was incredibly strong.  think about how bright it is on the beach in the afternoon.  i've seen silhouetted photos that were backlit but during the day. and even without backlighting, lights don't show up in early twilight.  it's still too bright out for even bright lights to be very visible.  

i could try playing around with the image, but where did you find it?  is it your own, or your clients? i notice it has a signature, and i just want to make sure i wouldn't be stepping on someone else's toes.