[lsega77]

I hate you Brett Simms

Seriously though. I've been taking Brett's advise on contrast to heart and I'm really trying to focus on creating better images, not just complex ones.

So I took some time to read up on contrast as it relates to photography. I've been misinterpreting it as color saturation. What I've been reading says that contrast is about how light creates highlights and shadows in your scene (I know it's deeper than that but I have to simplify this for my own sake).

With that in mind I'm trying to study very simple scenes and create good contrast lighting. See below.

Here's the render.



Here's the ML setting.



Here's what the scene setup looks like in max.



Luis

[joshh]

scratch

[simmsimaging]

You are making me feel bad Luis!

I think this is an excellent lighting study. Very elegant setup and very nice control of light. Great start!

Closer light = greater contrast.

hmmm. generally yes, but not always. It depends on the light and object sizes etc. A large light close to a small object will be brighter, but probably flatter lit as the micro-detail shadows fill in.

Contrast is all about tonal range and colour palette. Both are important - lighting is key, but so is subject matter and awareness of composition too. From my POV most renders, including the excellent images produced by Maxwell, tend to read as flat because of a lack of micro-detail contrast and washed out blacks overall. The last thing is the predomination of a cyan/blue cast in MW renders (probably from using physical sky) that tends to kill colour contrast pretty handily. Those are the key areas to watch out for IMO.

Anyway - great work Luis.
b

[w i l l]

In my opinion - don't use an environment colour... only emitters (unless you're using hdri). Using environment flattens/reduces contrast.

[lsega77]

Contrast is all about tonal range and colour palette.
b

Tonal Range is the term that resonated with me. I think that's what my renderings alway lack. In general I've been told that my images have a grey 'haze' over them and I believe it's the lack of tonal range which is robbing my images of the 'pop' I want them to have.

What I'm learning in my studies is that I'm being overly concerned with evenly lighting my scene in an attempt to accentuate details in the models. Even lighiting produces the complete antithesis of a well contrasted scene.

Here's an example. On the left is the original render. On the right is an evenly lit scene.



This may not be the best example but you can see how the image on the right is loosing it's tonal richness. The colors are starting to get flat and featureless.

The image on the left could probably use some PS post but in comparison to the image on the right, it has a better tonal range (not the best just better).

L

[simmsimaging]

I think you are generally correct all around here, although there are good things about the second render too - for example I think the legs are better in that one, but rest of the seat is better in 1. As an overall shot though I definitely prefer 1 to 2 myself. I'll come back to that in a sec though.

The grey haze can often actually be a cyan/blue haze that makes images look cool (as in blue-neutral cool) and tends to kill some colour contrast. That has a lot to do with colour of light and the tendency of the render/camera white balancing. Over-filling will do the this too, but differently.

The gradient map techinique I shared will help with this in either case - but better control of lighting will take you further - as you are discovering I think.

One thing you may run into is the quality versus quantity issue with tonal range. More is often better, but it really depends on the subject. Flatter lighting tends to bring out shadow and highlight details - giving you a broader visisble range, but it's not always what gives you the best image.

The best image is the one that has the best control of the *differences* between the tones in the shot, however many there are. That said, I think you should generally strive to have something very close to white and something very close to black to ensure the overall shot has a feel of good contrast, but how many tones occur in between depends on subject, lighting, and aesthetic.

If you look at your two renders you can get a sense of what I mean: The tonal range of the seat portion of the chair is smaller in the first one, but the distance between light and dark is sharper so it has more contrast so a visually more appealing tonal range - and one that suggests the colour black better to the viewer. In the second image the chair tones are further away from the background so it actually pops more off the scene - so iyou have better snap off the background there. The floor is probably an either/or thing. The brightness relative to the chair is better in 2 as the tones are further apart, so better contrast, but *within* the tones of the floor you have lost something so the shadow of the chair is disappearing and so is the highlight/reflection on the floor.

So - you can see that there is good in both and that you always have to compromise something in a shot. You only have so many tones to play with in an image and you have to be selective about which go where to ensure that your main subject is shown in the best way. In this case I still think one is preferable, but if you wanted to go all the way you could split the difference but that would probably entail some post.

In any case, your understanding is clearly coming along - I bet the renders will be too.

b

[lsega77]

Thanks Brett! You insights in photography and the science/philosophy thereof are become quite invaluable to my progress with maxwell. But.... I still hate you!

Luis

[simmsimaging]

You are not the only one. You should have a beer with my assistant to see what a pain in the ass I can *really* be.

b

[joshh]

scratch

[lsega77]

Here's a textured version with a little post work...

L

[simmsimaging]

Very nice!

b

[w i l l]

Contrast is all about tonal range and colour palette.
b

L

I prefer the image on the right, i have to say... apart from the right arm.

[lsega77]

Thanks Will. I know it's all subjective but I do appreciate your comments.

Luis

[lsega77]

Just wanted to publicly apologies to Josh. I somewhat rudely ignored his comments in this thread. Although not diliberate I should have been more diligent in reading the comments posted.

sorry about that Josh.

Luis

[joshh]

Hey Luis, dont worry about it. I'm sorry I over reacted. My first comment about light distance was a little vague any way. I did that test I told you about and here is the result.



I rendered the exact same setup two different times and only changed two things. The image on the left has the light down close and the camera is set at f16. In the one on the right I simply raised the light up about 2 meters and opened the aperture to 5.6. The light intensity is the same in both. The results are pretty logical. The closer light is softer and the farther light looks harsher. The ineresting thing is that the intensity of the light in the reflection changes because as the light gets closer you have to stop the lens down to get the same exposure. This is a good concept to know if you need to control the brightness of lights in reflective materials.