Conclusion

Tone correcting 3D CG rendered image may look like an unnecessary step, yet another thing to do. But doing tone correction is actually way more efficient than trying to achieve realistic lighting through the addition and balancing of bounce and fill lights. There is no comparison. Getting a realistic lighting on a non tone-corrected render amounts to a long repetitive process of adding yet another light, orienting it properly, figuring the right intensity and doing repetitive test renders. Then when adding another light, all the previously added lights need to be readjusted.

The process if lighting a scene is made much easier when the tones are already corrected. All the already available lighting instructional materials such as theater lighting books, TV, film, photography studio lighting books etc., can be followed, and their instructions can be reproduced, much more easily when the tones are corrected to start with.

Tone correcting 3D CG rendered images should be mandatorily done. Except for artistic or stylistic choice of course. Otherwise, just do it. Make your lighting life easier.

Here are some of the Photoshop curves I used in this tutorial :

• Gamma 2.2
• 0.5 f-stop f-curve
• 1.0 f-stop f-curve
• 1.5 f-stop f-curve
• 2.0 f-stops f-curve