Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=71426&Start=1&Artist=Dmentia&ByArtist=Yes

http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=71426&Start=1&Artist=Dmentia&ByArtist=Yes __________________________________________________________ In Poser __________________________________________________________ I get an idea of what you want your finished scene to look like...this step is kind of optional as some people find inspiration after playing a bit in poser...I found my inspiration while looking at a book of art by Sir Lawrence, Alma-Tadema to be exact... II open poser and load your base character into the scene, I chose Victoria as my base for this image...I also loaded the changing pony tail and parented it to Victoria's head before posing her... III pose your character and set your window up for the final image...I also turned on the horizon line guide, to get my camera angle right...I wanted her looking at the horizon... IV start loading in additional elements...I chose to scale them rather than trying to move them far enough away to get the depth I wanted... V tweak everything to perfection, get the image as close to the final as you possibly can...it saves alot of time on post work... VI now you're all set up, render the image in the size you want to work with...I rendered rather large for this image...render with textures on and shadows off... VII now open your hierarchy window, and hide all of your foreground elements...for this image I hid everything except for the castle, the tower, the bonsai behind the castle and the ship...render this and save the file as layer1.tif...render with textures on and shadows off... VIII open your hierarchy window again, and hide the background elements my layer2 consisted of the forground bonsai, the book, and the wall so I unhid those elements...render this and save as layer2.tif...render with textures on and shadows off... IX open your hierarchy window yet again...hide everything but your main character...for this render I left victoria, her hair, and the olympian visible and hid the rest save this render as layer3.tif...render with textures on and shadows off... X last but not least I hid everything except the baskets and its contents and rendered it as layer4.tif... XI one more render then on to photoshop...for the final render turn the textures off, turn your transparencies off as well, and turn shadows on...use your hierarchy editor to show all except for the ground plane unless you are using the ground plane in your render...this render should come out all white with shadows...save this image as shadows.tif XII another optional render would be same as above without shadows and with depth cueing on...this one would help with knowing how much blur and or desaturation to apply to certain areas for depth perception... __________________________________________________________ In PhotoShop __________________________________________________________ I open all the renders...since you saved them out as tif files they all have alpha channels...using your first render with everything as a base, hold shift(holding shift down will make them all come in exactlly in the same spot as the origional) down and drag the other images into that picture in order(layer1.tif, layer2.tif, layer3.tif, layer4.tif, shadows.tif)...now select the channle tab and select the alpha channel of all the images, shift-drag the alpha channels of all the images into the main image channles(the optional depth render alpha channle would also go in here if you created it)...you now have one psd file will all the renders and alpha channles included...close the secondary images, and go to work! II ok, starting with layer1, find the corresponding alpha channel and use your select color range option to select the black area of the alpha channel...go back to the layers and delete the selected areas...under layers pull down menu find the matting-defringe option and defringe the layer by 1 pixle(this will get rid of the whiteish outline around your layer)...follow the same procedure for each of the layers...the shadow layer should be hidden at this point and the stacked layers should look very much like the origional image... III from this point on the process becomes a bit more image specific but hopefully it will still be useful to you in your renders...hide all the layers except for the back ground and layer1...create a new layer above the background but below layer 1...I actually painted the background layer in 3 segments, but you could use a photo or bryce render here...for my image I divided this layer into 3 segments earth, water, and sky, and applied filters and colors until I was happy...I then went back and added detail here and there to make it a bit more realistic...the sky was kpt6 sky effects with white airbrush added to make it more fluffy, the sea was noise and photoshop texture-sandstone with motion blur set fairlly low, the earth was photoshop texture-craquelure/sandstone, noise, and gaussian blur...I went back and dodge tool'd the horizion to make it a bit more hazy, and then used burn and dodge tools to add more shadows and highlights...on the sea I also used the pattern brush set on soft light with a tighter pattern to give it more depth towards the horizon... IV so now you have a background, but the entire ship is sitting on top of the water, that will never do...so duplicate the background layer and drag it up above the ship/castle layer select a square area around the ship, then invert your selection and delete the rest of the layer...now the ship should be hidden but everything else in layer 1 visible...select from the horizon to the top of the image and delete this area as well, now you can see part of the ship...use your eraser to erase just a bit of the the sea around the hull of the ship till it looks like the ship is floating in the water...then use your dodge tool and a tiny bit of smear to create a wake around and behind the ship...your background should now be all set, ship in the water instead of on it, and moving forward as your wake depicts...you may also want to use your depth channle now to blur the ship/castle layer a bit as they are in the distance... V now unhide layer2, for me this was the wall, book and foreground bonsai...the wall wasnt exactlly wide enough up top to lay the book on, but no worries, I simplly duplicated it and moved it up several times...then I erased the book area of the duplicates and merged the layers, and brought them above the origional layer so the wall would still be infront of the tree...this layer took a tiny bit of tweaking, but it was well worth it I think...I used alot of dodge, burn, and multiply on this layer referencing the shadow layer to get an idea of where the shadows would fall...I also added more flowers to the bonsai, shrinking my new flower layer behind itself a bit to give the impression of some flowers being further away...this was probablly the easiest of the layers...dodge, burn, sharpen, and blur were all used sporadically to add a bit more realism to the layer... VI now the fun part, unhide your main character...I'll start at the top and work my way down, so the hair first...using the magnetic lasso tool I selected the hair(anton's changing ponytail collection in this image set to oldfashioned greek and tweaked a little with the goldenbrown map) I copied just the hair into a new image which was aproximatelly 125x150 or so...I enlarged the canvas of the new image to 200x200 so that I could add ringlets and what not to the hair, then I increased the over all size of the new image to 600x600, this of course made the hair all chunky, but it did retain the overall look of the model...in this new image now 600x600 I used large hairbrushes to burn, dodge, and smear the hair to the way I wanted it, still keeping the basic style intact, but adding alot of detail...once I was happy with the hair at 600x600, I shrunk it back down to 200x200 and used my sharpen tool to make it a tad sharper in certain areas...now the hair is detailed and still fits the model, and working with large hair brushes is much faster than working with tiny ones...I pasted the new hair back into the image above the origional hair, perfect fit :)...pearls were added and multiply tool was used to give them some depth...pearls were very easy, just the paint brush set to a very small setting and then layer style of bevel and emboss applied to round them up a bit... VII in a new layer I drew a quick outline of victoria's blue gown and used my dodge, burn, and smear tools to create the illusion of draped fabric...I then applied a texture to the layer in softlight mode and used my sharpen tool here and there to make it more realistic...then back to dodge and burn to tweak it some more...I repeated this process for the cream layer of her dress and also went back with a tiny hair brush to create the fringe around the bottom of the cream layer...I duplicated both of my dress layers and drug the new layer behind the origional...blured by 1pixle and adjusted hue and saturation to make that layer black...then I used the victoria alpha channle to delete areas of this new layer not on victoria...so the dress ends up with a very slight shadow/outline only on victoria's body... VIII for victoria herself I used the alpha channel to select around her, I expanded my selection by 2 pixles then feathered my selection by 5 pixles and blured my selection by 1 pixle...this completelly softened her edges up a bit, a quick easy fix for external hard lines on poser figures...then I went back with my blur tool and fixed the internal hard lines where body parts cross over one another...specifically her ankles and ears in this image...dodge and burn using shadow layer for reference, and then curves and color balance to get just the skin tone I was looking for...a few moles added here and there for good measure and a touch up or two to perfect her as best I could... IX the next layer needs to be unhidden now, for me this was the basket with bonsai and roses inside...the bonsai makes an excellent basket filler(thanks for the idea anton, and the model) not too muc post work on the actual layer, I did add more flowers above the layer to fill the basket up even more, and sharpened, blurred, burned and dodged until I was happy with the outcome... X now all your layers should be visible except for the depth and shadow layer...and the image should look nearlly complete...select all, and copy merged...paste either into a new image or above the layers of your origional image, and reference your shadow layers once more to tweak the lights and shadows of your merged image...check out your depth cueing channle to determine what needs more bluring or more sharpening...tweak what ever needs tweaking until you're happy with your image, then save the file...don't forget to create a thumbnail of your image either by shrinking(prefered) or cropping(just a pleasing and sometimes fun)... XI share your image with the rest of us! we'd love to see it! __________________________________________________________ hope this helps a little, feel free to ask questions as I realize I am some what vague on occasion :)

I don't know about enjoying postwork :-) Oh alright, I probably do - and I really appreciate the tutorial. Thank you so much! I'm going to print this out and give it a try. Claire

Thank you for giving us this tute. I so admired the way you did the hair on that graphic. I actually had not realized that you had done so much postwork. LOL...I sure wish I had your patience. Poppi ;)

thank you! this was very much needed ;)

Many thanks, Saved the tutorial and the picture. Beautiful work