Hi there,
a general question to u all who create this incredible artwork.
How long it takes you on average to fully make a picture u post here?
I know it has to be variable but I'd like to get an idea.
I have some experience on Photoshop and I know working on an existing picture can already be long but I don't know about the app ur using such as Daz 3D. Btw why Daz 3D and not another app?
Tx, congrats to u all and tx for sharing
For me personally, I take a lot of time with the set up, but just like a CAD Engineer I reuse setups that I like. Once I set up a scene, sans models, then I don't really have to set it up again. Setting up means lights, fixtures, cameras, environments and usually overall hue. That usually takes a few hours and many iterations until I am happy with the environment.
The models are placed then posed. I tend to use pre-defined packaged poses. But unless you are dealing with same proportioned Genesis 3/8 almost all poses need tweaking. If you don't do that, and you can easily spot the people that don't, you will have fingertips or hair that poke through skin or clothing, models that appear to be floating in the air, feet with semi-rigid shoes that are bent in ways that are physically not possible, etc.
Render times vary greatly. Usually all less than one hour, with many less than 30 minutes (all my renders are done in 5K then resized for F95). There are some asset heavy sets, such as DM's Lorus Bath, that have spanned multiple hours. For context I am using an undervolted RTX 3090 (non - TI, that is why it is undervolted)
Every image is post processed using Lightroom, I tried Photoshop, Luminar 4 and others but always come back to Lightroom. Since I use that in my photography I know how it works. Usual post processing takes about 10 minutes from app startup to shutdown. Processing only includes a subject mask then slight increases in exposure, contrast, saturation. Finally export with the signature in the bottom right corner and done. The post processing is done to make the model 'pop' in the render. For me, there is little worse than a great model in a beautiful environment and a completely flat looking image. I am not talking about high-key vs low-key, I mean just let there be visual differences between subject and background.
Why DAZ, you ask? Because the app is free, there are large communities where you can get help and there are tons of people that follow Internet Rule 34. BTW, there is also a large pirate contingent with sites like the one you are on here.