*using DAZ figures, or any purchased or free content not made in Poser for that matter, is a lot more like steroids than postwork.  photo-based or even painted textures show Photoshop a lot more than any postwork less than a fully repainted image.   i've known several people (outside of the community) who were disappointed at what pure Poser can do with no outside purchases or creations.  and who felt very disappointed to learn that they had to purchase or make all the content "Poser" users posted in their renders.  not to mention, professionals post process stills and video all the time. 

• If I had to do it with pure poser, I would given up long time ago, and as a matter of fact I did : I bought poser 1, 2 and 3 and I didn't use it for a long time because I was rather disappointed of the possibilities.
  Until years later I discovered the community on the internet and saw what was possible with Daz Victoria (and other models of course ) and poser4 pro pack, I bought the new poser 5 and I was sold.
  For me everything you can import in poser, models, props, backgrounds, textures, you name it, is still part of the poserscene you make, because poser has that possibility. And that is what poser is: you compose a scene, you import or load all the stuff you need, you render it and you export your picture. And what you do with that picture, I don't care at all.

 Greater skill because he's shown that he knows how to work in more than one software package.  And greater flexibility because he's not permitted himself to be bound by any sets of "rules" in regards to the "proper" way to do things.  Particularly not when others attempt to impose those rules on him.

If you make your own props, figures, textures then you will have to use more software packages because poser isn't just capable of that. You can't "create" anything in poser (well almost anything, you can use primitives to build things, read Geep's tutorials) so you have to buy it, download it for free or to make it.
That is what I meant with pre-work.

Bopper.

-How can you improve things when you don't make mistakes?