CinEro XL | Photomatic Cinegraphy - Moody Creative Cinematic Reviews

TLDR: Nothing in CinEro1.4 to make me move away from 1.3.

I'm a HUGE fan of Cinero 1.3 - My best images were created with that ckpt. Sure, it isn't uber-realistic like Realvis (which I also love) or Juggernaut, but CinEro1.3 was, and still is, my general purpose creative ckpt. It consistently produces aesthetically beautiful images combining pretty good realism with 'fantastical/extraordinary' elements that no other ckpt can.

I can understand why you want to make 1.4 more realistic and I hope you can achieve that, however, I've been disappointed with all the RC versions of 1.4 I've seen so far. Sure, they're more realistic (in a 1980's analog photo kinda of way), but to get that, they've lost a lot of the aesthaetic that drew, and continues to draw, me to 1.3. Below is some of the good and bad things I've noticed so far about 1.4 in a test of 100+ images - I intend them as constructive criticism:

* 1.4 images are usually more blurry than 1.3 (or the uber-realistic ckpts).

* 1.4 images are prone to mottling (the same with all turbo models). It disguises this as textured cloth, smoke and 'realistic' skin blotches, but if you view the color channels in Photoshop you can often see a uniform mottling (this is not the same as the realistic textures achieved by RealVis or Juggernaut). Yes, I can get rid of this mottling in hires fix / detailer like turbo models do, but I don't need to this in other non-turbo ckpts.)

* 1.4 images seem to be somewhat prone to a slight yellow color cast. As a once professional color grader, this is an anathema to me. 1.3 was usually such a 'clean' model

* 1.4's photorealism is more like 1980's analog photographs.

* More prone to gross disfigurement at distances further away than 3/4 body portrait - many ckpts have the same problem. 1.3 was comparatively very good.

The good:

* Compositioning seems to have improved in 1.4. Occasionally, 1.4 will override SDXL's mania about putting the main point of interest in the middle of the image. well done 1.4 :)

* Realism has improved - but at what price?

In short the realism I see in 1.4 is far from the quality I can, and do, easily achieve in RealVis or Juggernaut. However, CinEro1.4 seems to have lost the aesthetics and creativity that used to set it apart from other models - beautiful, creative, clean, 'magical' images. There's no way I'm going to swap out 1.3 for 1.4.

Sorry, if this was not the feedback you wanted to hear. I am genuinely trying to help by giving my honest opinion. Thank you very much for all the work you put into your models. I will put up some CinEro1.3 images later, hopefully they can inspire you a bit. :)