Painting clothes in Photoshop - step one

Above you will find the image I've begun with. I've already set a basic pose in Poser 4, and exported the figure as a wavefront object, then imported it into Bryce. After setting a couple lights, getting a comfortable sky, and texturing the figure, I rendered a full picture, and then a mask render. I've made the picture about 2500 pixels high. The larger the better. You'll be getting to some details later, and you'll find them easier if you begin large.

In Photoshop, I cut and paste the mask render into a new alpha channel, allowing me to cleanly select the figure and place her on her own layer.

Usually a Poser figure has certain inherent oddities in the mesh or texture (various folds, corners, rough areas)... I've airbrushed these away, made some color corrections, painted some more here and there until I was satisfied with the overall skin tone. I've also enhanced a few shadows and hilights.

Important note: Never, ever (and I mean never!) forget where your light is coming from. It will effect everything in your scene. You can't depend on the wonderful lighting your 3d program provides to bail you out of what you are about to paint in only two dimensions.

Undoubtedly, I will make future changes to the figure. Depending on the color of the hair and clothes, I may change it later in order to create a better overall tonal quality in the scene. I'm sure I will find areas where the clothes interact with the body... and I'll get ready to whip the virtual paintbrush out again on the figure.