az Studio is a pretty fun and easy program to use to create 3D art. Alone, you can create virtually whatever you want in almost no time at all. But, the magic of Daz can really shine with some clever post work in Photoshop. Below are some tips and tricks I use when creating my scenes using this program.
So one of the things that Daz does well (especially as of late) is texturing of the human skin (as well as fur). Depending on your skill level and the quality of the textures you use, you can get some amazing near life like results. But sometimes you may want to go with a more, “illustrative” look. By that I mean something more painted like.
With a bit of post work in Photoshop (and a plugin called Topaz Impressions), this can be done quite easily in a variety of ways.
The first method I use is using the “High Pass” filter option in Photoshop. I usually use two of these layers, one for softening the skin, and the second to bring forth details in the skin in certain areas.
To soften the skin, duplicate the layer and add the High Pass Filter with a radius of something at around 9 pixels. Set the High Pass filter to overlay, and select the “Invert” option from the Image, Adjustments toolbar. To bring details into the skin, do the same steps above, and just omit the invert option. You will notice your image to be significantly softer than it was before with the High Pass method.
If that is not enough, then I suggest getting the Topaz Impression Photoshop plugin. This is a wonderful tool that can help get that illustrative look. Word of caution though, it is very easy to get carried away with this plugin. My suggestion is that less is more. Usually, I pick something from the Topaz library, tweak it, and set the opacity level of it at around 30-50%, depending on the filter being used.
One addition that I use is using brushes over my subjects, I’ll cover one particular usage in the next section.
Lately, Daz Studio’s various content artists have been doing a wonderful job at hair creation. They are becoming more and more natural and realistic looking. But sometimes, that may not always be the case. In those instances, Photoshop hairbrushes can do wonders.
Take the image of Ciri below. On the left is my render straight from Daz. On the right is the finalized version. In Daz, the lighting created dark black patches where the hair should have been. With a few strokes of my pen in Photoshop, I was easily able to cover up those spots and give a better overall blending to the hair. Using the steps above, I softened the skin as well.
Another tip is coloring the hair. Sure you can do this in Daz (or spend a fortune in buying colorized hair packs from their shop), but it is actually much easier to change hair color in Photoshop. Simply just open up the hair map in Photoshop and set a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer right on top of the hair layer. You can also set up a gradient layer over the hair layer if you’re looking for something a bit more multi-colored (like my Rainbow image below).
I hope these few tips will help you enhance your imagery!
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