What is your workflow?

Jay Jay_1264499

Afternoon, over the past few months I've been experimenting with Daz renders (saved as a .tif file) and been compositing (I use that term loosely as I'm new to that) with either Hitfilm2 or Photoshop Elements 12 with a background made in Vue

I decided to forego Hitfilm and composite only in Photoshop for my latest and fairly happy with the results. One way I would match contrasts between the background and the Daz render would be to turn them both black and white in hitfilm and amend the contrasts so they matched thus giving a better composite match. After that I would then revert them back to color. I'm unsure though how to do this in Photoshop though? I can turn to black and white simply but how would I then turn it back to color after I've amended the contrasts on both the background and Daz rendered layer?

Also, as my Daz figures were fairly far away from the camera I found that I had to render at at least 9000 pixels wide (which wasn't an issue). My background image though was 2000 pixels wide so I figured the simplest thing to do in PS was resize my large Daz render to match the Vue dimension. Would this be the best course of action or would anyone suggest a better method? My concern would be if I lost any quality of the Daz render by resizing that way.

Anyway, I was just curious as to what you all did with your renders and had any tips to share?

Thanks for reading. Here was the image I did with the above methods

Cheers

Jay

starionwolf

sorry for the short reply but I gotta run. I use IrfanView to convert renders from .TIFF to Jpeg. I use Gimp to add simple text. I use Scribus to create fake posters/advertisments and magazine covers.

You can see some of my simple work with Scribus here: http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewreply/504167/

I do like the idea of using layers to type text and add lines because I don't edit the bitmap directly. Yes, I do have a copy of the tiff but I don't want to damage the JPEG in Gimp or Scribus.

With Vue, I usually turn off the automatic light balancing (I forgot the term) because it makes the scene too bright.

I haven't done much rendering because half of my runtime file is not installed correctly. Its a long story.

I'll write more when I return.

Nice render. I like the sun rays.

JOHNGARRETT

AngryChair said:

After that I would then revert them back to color. I'm unsure though how to do this in Photoshop though? I can turn to black and white simply but how would I then turn it back to color after I've amended the contrasts on both the background and Daz rendered layer?

In Photoshop you can use a non-destructive "Adjustment layer" (Layers>New Adjustment Layer). This will place whichever adjustment layer you want right on top of your selected layer. In your case you'd choose "Black & White...".

This will make everything under the new adjustment layer appear as black & white. Then you'll see an "Adjustment" panel where you can fine tune the degree of adjustment layer. Turning the Adjustment Layer off returns everything to full color, hence the "non-destructive" term - you can always go back.

You'll notice there's also a "Hue/Saturation", "Britghtness/Contrast" and also "Levels" adjustment layers, any one of which can help you with the contrast.

I hope this helps somewhat.

Jay Jay_1264499

Thank you both for the replies and the tips. I was wondering today if Adjustment Layers would help me here so thank you for suggesting this!

Thanks again

Jay