Photo Lab is a built-in tool for creating photorealistic renderings in CET. Photo Lab creates high-quality renderings with natural light and shading, renders multiple images at once, enables immediate post processing effects without the need to re-render, and automatically updates changes made by the user in the rendering to ensure accuracy. Renderings take place in the background so that you can keep working in CET while they are in progress.

Photo Lab is able to use High Dynamic Range (HDR) imaging which allows a greater range of luminance (intensity of light) between the lightest and darkest areas of an image than many standard digital imaging techniques or photographic methods. HDR images more accurately imitate lighting found in real scenes. Photo Lab is fully synchronized with Paper View to make printing as easy and straight-forward as possible.

Photo or rendering? With Photo Lab renderings, it is hard to tell the difference.

To open the Photo Lab, select the Photo Lab button on the 3D view toolbar, as shown below, from the Tools drop-down menu, or from the 3D component tab.

The Photo Lab buttons in CET

Interface

The Photo Lab window is divided into four main areas as shown in the pictures below. In addition, at the top of the window is a standard menu bar.

1. Photograph setup area
2. Preview area
3. Post processing area
4. Thumbnails area

Overview of the Photo Lab interface in simple mode

There are two modes for working in Photo Lab: Simple and Advanced.

• Simple: Use presets for the photograph setup and post processing. CET has default settings, and you can also save your own.
• Advanced: Choose settings for the photograph setup and post processing. CET has default settings, and you can also save your own.

The first time that the Photo Lab is opened, simple mode is displayed. To switch between modes, select the Advanced or Simple button or select it from the orange Preset drop-down, or scroll to the bottom of the Photograph Setup section:

Overview of the Photo Lab interface in advanced mode