> I don't think you appreciate how much "artistic effect" goes into just 
> seeing
> things realistically in the first place. It's not an "effect". It's a 
> necessary
> part of the visual process. The brain pre-processes everything which then, 
> in a
> sense, has to reciprocally post-processed to make it look right. All the 
> concern
> about calibrating monitors precisely and adjusting for gamma seems to 
> overlook
> this ultimate "monitor" which works nothing like raytracing or 
> photography.
>
> Painters have discovered this, even naturalistic painters like Vermeer, 
> long
> before Ansel Adams or digitized photographers. The eye is not a camera. It 
> works
> by different rules than physics, rules discovered mainly by artists, and 
> which
> science is now just beginning to understand.

I think you need to separate the process of calculating the correct light 
values (which is what POV is designed to do) and mapping those to some pixel 
values that looks realistic (which POV does is a very primitive way).  The 
issues you mention only exist because it's not possible to display the full 
range of colours and intensities human's can see yet on displays or paper. 
There are plenty of complex techniques for mapping actual physical light 
data (either from sensors or program like POV) to 8bit images suitable for 
displaying on a standard PC monitor, none are perfect.  POV doesn't pretend 
(yet) to be able to do any of this, if you want this then use an HDR output 
format and an external tool.

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