Rendered Image focus (sharpness)

dlm4001

I am getting to a point where I am getting much better results from IRAY.  (reading the documentation and experiementing).  Still I find on almost every render, I add a little 'sharpening' in post render (photoshop).  I think an image that is too sharp, looks too digital for my taste, but most renders need a little nudge to be crisp.   I have improved this by rendering larger images, but even at 4K by 4K, I add a little focus with the Photoshop Smart Sharpen tool.  I am using high quality HDRIs for lighting sources. 

I have tried using DOF and adjusting the focal distance and f-stop to encompass the model in a pretty tight area.  Is there anything else I can do to tighten the focus?

nemesis10

A few things,

1. When rendering, one of the most important settings is Render Tab> Render Editor> Pixel Filter> try Gaussian or Mitchell> setting value from 1 to 0.5.  This is is the closest equivalent to resolution in Daz Studio.
2. In Dof, set the camera to DOF, switch to another camera (i use the top camera), adjust focal distance  so that your figure is centered and note the little bar that is in the center of the the zone of focus.  That little bar is where you will have the sharpest focus; I normally line it up with the eyes.
3. Use enough light; it is easy to make a bright image look dark (Google Day for Night in movie terms) but the program needs enough light to make things sharp.

dlm4001

nemesis10, I was very excited about your reponse. I did not know about the Pixel Filter.  I knew about setting the DOF, focal distance, and f-stop, but I did not realize that the little bar was was the center and the lining it up with the eyes tip.  And three, the light.  I know I should use a lot of light, but too often try to make it look like the final, in the render. "you can always make it darker".  I like that.  Thanks for taking the time to share this.  I have kicked off a render with adjustments. 

nemesis10

I should ment if you set pixel filter lower than 0.5, render time goes way up. The default setting is not great.  The differences between Gaussian, Mitchell etc... are small but your system might be a tiny tiny bit faster with one over the other but the difference will be trivial.