Showroom Layout

[Jpalm]

Real nice!

[Dan_ddd]

Thanks Guys. There are soooo many polys in this that it's starting to get hard to work on it now but I really appreciate your comments. Unclebim. I need to learn how you add the subtle sharpening POP. I can't seem to do it without ruining my images

[kronox]

No other comments. Photorealistic for REAL

[Fletch]

...I need to learn how you add the subtle sharpening POP. I can't seem to do it without ruining my images

Truly fast easy and powerful is Highpass Overlay Sharpen technique.

Subject: Unsharp masking

Unsharp mask is a nice tool indeed. However it tends to bring artifacts into the image as well, and sometimes boosts materials that have a fine bumpmap on them too much. I usually (both in photography- and renderpostpro) use the high pass method: Merge all visible layers to copy by clicking the top one and pressing ctrl+alt+shift+E, then go to filter->other->highpass and slide until you see outlines only. Then click ok and set the top layer (the merge) to overlay. Most of the times this method doesn't sharpen texture details.

In addition to those steps, I usually set that layer opacity of the overlay layer to be something less than 100%, I start at 50% and work my way up.

[Dan_ddd]

Thanks Fletch I'll give it a go

[unclebim]

Usually I save the ready render as three separate images with three different camera exposition settings, say 0.9 - 1.0 - 1.1. Then I blend these with the exposure blend script in GIMP (http://tir.astro.utoledo.edu/jdsmith/co ... _blend.php), this gives more detail in shadows and highlights. Then I flatten the image and run a tone mapping script (does some color correction, I don't remember the source, see attached image about it). Flatten again, duplicate layer and run a local contrast maximizing script (http://www.photo-plugins.com/Plugins/Pl ... ement.html). The last one does not run under Gimp 2.8.2 or any above 2.6.10 if I remember correctly, so I run via Call XNView plugin (requires XN View installed and Photoshop plugins folder configured). Play with sliders as desired, the close XN View and press "yes" twice in dialog boxes appearing. I believe this is better than sharpen. Then try changing the mode of the "enhanced" layer to "overlay" and back to "normal" and reduce opacity as desired to see what best suits you.

I believe this is what I do. At least I did the last two steps with your rendered image.

Regards!

[Fletch]

UncleBim, have you tried simply saving your image as .hdr format and opening and tone mapping that? I would be curious to know if that works easier for you than saving 3 differently exposed images. You can also save it in other formats. (see user manual for full list)

[unclebim]

Yes I tried but I don't remember any more why I did not like it, maybe I'll try again and see what happens. BTW I forgot to mention that I use Neat Image at the end of my workflow if needed and also put a raw edge image from SU on top of the edited rendered image and blend it in Multiply mode with opacity between 10 and 25 usually.