Follow my KeyShot and Photoshop advice for perfect renders every time

KeyShot is a fantastic niche rendering software that works as both a standalone package and a plugin. It’s possible to render still images, videos, and even augmented reality. The renderer hit the market as a product visualisation tool capable of mimicking a studio setup with high-quality lights, cameras, and a backdrop. Since its humble beginnings, it has evolved into a much more capable tool that’s a viable option alongside renderers including V-Ray, Arnold and OctaneRender (all of which feature in our best rendering software guide).

Compositing render passes is a common workflow for artists wanting to push their work to the next level. KeyShot isn’t the most robust option for this (read my KeyShot review), but definitely has everything required to make it happen for the majority of artists. But before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s look at what compositing actually is.

In simple terms, compositing is the process of combining a collection of render passes or elements into one final image. There are dozens of different types of render passes, but the main ones are Diffuse, Lighting, Global Illumination, Reflection and Refraction. Each of these is a separate pass, which only picks up and renders the specifics of that part of the process. As an example, the Reflection render pass will only pick up the rendered pixels that are generated from reflected bounces of light.

Each render pass is pretty useless on its own, but the real magic comes when they’re merged together using either a photo or video editing package, with great options being Photoshop or After Effects. Render passes can either be exported out of KeyShot as individual files or as individual layers within a single Photoshop file. The latter is definitely the most straightforward in terms of workflow and is the option that I’ll be unpacking here.

Once you have all your render passes as layers within your editing application, the next step involves blending them together so they actually end up working in combination rather than against each other. This is done using blending modes, with each of the render passes requiring a different type of mode to enable it to fulfil its function in the stack. The Reflection pass, for example, requires a ‘Linear Dodge (Add)’ blending mode.

I’ll initially cover how to export render passes out of KeyShot, before moving across to Photoshop and delving into the process of bringing it all together. If you want to learn more, read our 30 KeyShot rendering tips, now, below I go into a little more detail on my KeyShot / Photoshop workflow.

Inspired by this workflow? Then read our guides to the best 3D modelling software and the best laptops for 3D modelling to expand your knowledge and kit.