As many of you know I regularly post my pics in the gallery. Perhaps you noticed that many viewers down rate my pics because I am pasting scans of actual people onto the rendered Poser figure. Strangely, it seems that my latest pics are provoking stronger negative reactions then my earlier cruder efforts. I really dont understand why this should be but, I suspect many viewers feel (unconsciously perhaps) that they are being had by a fake and respond accordingly. I am aware that the mechanics of my method can be evident and yes many find it unsettling. The alternative is the actual Poser head which even if subject to heavy morphing always betrays it's digital origin. It goes without saying that the hair issue remains to be resolved here regardless of how convincing the digital face may be. Given two imperfect options I have elected to continue with scans. I believe that the final image projects a certain "aliveness" which can not be obtained by other methods. Perhaps someone from the other camp would care to comment.

You have every right to do your art however you wish :-). I have seen full poser people with photo backgrounds and no one has a problem with that. Or cosmo hair or whatever. don't worry about others, this is a artists community and those that do not like it..its their problem not yours. Keep up the good work. In the end its the final image that makes the statement..not how it was made. ARADTech , with his 2 cents , whatever that is worth...

Indeed!. How you get to an image is of less importance than whether that images conveys what you meant for it to convey. One advantage of this forum is that it educates the critical eye. For example, I may not like artist Y but I can tell if their latest CG submission is up to par based on their previous posts. Too often people confuse objective reaction to subjective opinion. My advice is, if the person seemes to confusing the process with ther result, pass over that crit and move on to the next one. You are doing just fine and let no one tell you diferent. Matching f-stop and exposure 'tween renderings and real life is a tough job and your progress in this regard enriches us all. jje

The only problem with using photoscans is the copyright. You have to use photos you have the rights to. Celebs are a big no-no most of the time. -JH.

In art the tool is the means for the artist to express him/herself. Whether that tool is a camera, a brush or a computer. As long as people don't brag about things they have not done (pretending a scanned face is an actual render or that a rendered face is a retouched picture) the tools you use are only for you to decide. Poser is a great program with great limitations: anytime you bend a limb more than 90 degrees a retouching job is required to erase the "scratchs".

I use pieces of photos that I blend into my pictures. The poser Belly buttons just don't look all that nice to me even morphed, so I have a large collection of cropped belly buttons I blend in :) I also use photo backgrounds constantly. It dosen't matter how you get to a finished work, its the final results that matter. I do more rendering in photoshop then I do in Poser ;) -Trav

I agree with the statements above that the result is what counts. I browsed through your images and I saw that some of the heads look too "glued on" to convey a feeling of reality. It's very hard to match a face with the lighting of the environment. But that's not a question of art. I would always use a scan, e.g. when the background needs some atmosphere, but is not so important to a scene that it would justify to model it in 3d. Maybe some critics are not pleased with your pictures because the face is still the most important part of the human body (well, mostly ;-) Some people put lots of work to sculpt their own characters out of Poser's default dollface, and they may not be satisfied with just avoiding that problem by using scans instead. I must object to your opinion that you always see the digital origin of the Poser figures. There are some characters out there - only to mention Kozaburo's Nene - that look damn real when the lighting is properly used. Step by step, all the obstacles in the way to photorealism are being cleared by this community: eyes, hair, skin texture. It's getting better every week, and Poser4 hasn't been out for so long! But photorealism is not the only goal that Poser art tries to achieve, although it's a great challenge. Some images are post-processed to match the style of paintings in various techniques, some to look like photos of a certain period. Finally, I want to encourage you to go your own way to express your imaginations. Try different techniques before sticking to only one. And keep sharing your works with us.

9x's out of 10 its the lighting, shadows, and lack of skin detail. -Trav

For an artist to survive, he/she needs to be pretty thick-skinned, especially when regularly posting work to a forum which literally invites criticism. I suggest not worrying too much about the negative comments, and not speculating on the "real" reason you get them. You can't please everybody, and that's okay. You also don't need to rationalize the way you do what you do - if you're pleased with your results then the hell with what anybody else says.

You are right about an individual artist's mode or method of creativity, after all, it's the end result that matters. One thing I think a lot of Poser owners really tried to do was to surpass the ordinary into the extraordinary. Paul Hafeli quickly comes to mind. He, along with some others, took poser to the point of having to look long and hard to determine if it was a real person or not! Paul did this mainly with creative textures and proper lighting and attention to detail. His work still amazes me as do a lot of the other artists here as well. I think the issue is to be creative in your own mind, whether it requires, digital photos to compliment a scene or tweaking and trying a variety of techniques until you find one that fits the bill for you. Every artist is different in style, technique, disciplines, presentation and methods. That's what makes the community the rich wealth of diversity that it is! You go ahead with your creations! All the best, - Art -

It isn't too bad as long as the light sources of the 2 images match really well. I think duesentrieb is right that people get mad because they beat their brains out trying to get the poser doll face to look more real, and they see pasting a face on as a dishonest shortcut. I'm not against it in principle. It depends on the results, I guess. I mostly stick to using 2D for backgrounds because my Bryce skills are merely adequate.