Another thread about light

38everythingwrong

Hi. Recently started studying DAZ for the comics creation and for the last couple of days I've been playing with indoor/outdoor lighting, day/night, different light sources. And so far I've come to the conclusion that for night renders, light sources that already exist in enviroment(lamps, bulbs, torches) work great. For day renders I like shadows and light that give HDRI. And with all this in mind, I have some questions:
 -How can I make the character stand out in day scenes so that the environment and the character get light and shadows with HDRI but do not blend?
 -Where can I find a table of watts for different light sources? And preferably the same values of emission temperture\luminance (I'm very bad at physics, so a cheat sheet wouldn't hurt).
  -Am I right/wrong in my assumptions about day/HDRI - night/emission? I will mention that I'm more interested in “speed/quality” than “quality”, so setting up a full studio light is hardly a rational decision in such conditions. But then again, I've been doing this for less than a week so any advice is welcome!

Fishtales

Might be too much information for what you want. It is what I use when needed but I am a retired electrician so can mostly understand it :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminous_efficacy#:~:text=8.5–11.4%-,Ultra-high-pressure (UHP)%20mercury-vapor%20arc,is%2095%20lumens%20per%20watt.

CES3D

While not related to lighting, another technique to make the subject stand out is to enable the camera's "Depth of Field" to blur the background.
Use "Focal Distance" to specify the distance from the camera to the subject (where you want to focus), and "F/Stop" to specify the range of focus.

prixat

I would use a couple of narrow beam spotlights pointed at the characters head, one behind as a hair/halo light and the other as a beauty light from the front.

...but first check you have the 'camera light' turned off. The 'Auto lights' tend to flatten out a render, similar to what you are describing.