Cheers, folks!
Martin, I pretty much always post-work my renders, there's no purist here! Sure, the main image will come from the renderer but I nearly always have trouble getting a nice 'pop' in a dry render, lighting looks flat, colours muddy. Usually in post I'll do some toning/balancing/contrast, noise removal, stuff like that but never
too far from the original source.
Selective sharpening/softening via gradient mask layers etc. Sometimes I've even been known to use the clone brush, but that would only be as a last resort if I needed to cover an error(A.K.A. a mistake!
). Hmmm, I haven't used the cloner for a while, must be getting better!
The dry render to this image(attached below) is awful! Grainy/blotchy, muddy, crap. It has sat about for weeks gathering dust, I just done some of the above to tidy it up because I thought it had some potential, it's been pretty well received everywhere I've posted it so far. I think the end result matters more than doing it dry(most people do, actually, I think) but, I think you'll agree that, even though it isn't a stunner, it's far prettier now than the raw TG output below?
I've just written pretty much the same thing yesterday when asked elsewhere about any post-work that was done. Any means necessary! And remember, I'm a Scot, we're loath to throw anything away!
