What are the rules for compositing with passes in photoshop?

Farina · Feb 2016

Hello,

i have rendered my object in brush. How i now, the full render is the "Diffuse" or " Beauty" Render pass.

I want to know more about compositing and i want to ask you, if there are rules in photoshop with the editing?

Diffuse pass in photoshop = Normal
Every Light pass in photoshop = multiply
Every shadow and ambient occlusion pass = screen
Cavity pass???
SSS pass ??
Depth pass??
Mask pass (how i say in photoshop, that every pass should follow the mask pass?

I mean, is this always to 100% right?

lorenzo_di_pietro · Feb 2016

As far as I know, there aren't universal rules when it comes to compositing. The only thing that matters is your artistic eye, your taste. However, generally speaking:

- shadows, ambient occlusion and cavity should be set to multiply;

- highlights should be set to screen;

- diffuse = normal is ok;

- the main purpose of the mask pass is to help you to select and mask, because thanks to that pass you can easily separate the geometry from its original background;

- from the depth pass is often generated an alpha channel that you can eventually use as "source" in the lens blur filter;

- SSS: mmmm.... this is hard. I remember a old tutorial where the artist generated an alpha channel from SSS, and then he used that to create a mask for a layer (filled with a solid, warm color) set to color dodge. But again, there are million ways to handle the SSS pass and the one I mentioned is absolutely not a universal formula.

Finally, keep in mind that almost all the layers should be adjusted in opacity (or fill) in order to get better results.

Oh, and I found this:

http://www.creativebloq.com/3d/how-create-orc-zbrush-61411834

Hope this helps

Farina · Feb 2016

Thank you so much Lorezno!

It helped me really a lot!!!!!!

What are the rules for compositing with passes in photoshop?

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