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Welcome to cultural learnings of 3d printing for make benefit glorious nation of dakkadakka.

So you have your shiny new printer in front of you, and maybe you've printed up the test cube thingy and that worked OK, but now you're hitting a wall. Something's just going wrong and you're just not sure what it is! Well, if you're interested to learn from someone a couple months ahead of you in the learning curve, here's a quick repository of the knowledge I have gained since starting with resin 3d printing.

1) Photon Workshop (or whatever your default slicer is) is not the only program you want to have.

One of my first big breakthroughs was switching over to a different program called Chitubox for doing my supports and layouts. Chitubox has a couple really key features that don't seem to be in Workshop: First, The Edit Supports tool is incredibly clutch, allowing you to move the pillars of your supports away from the model you're trying to make. Second, you can change your support base setting to "Skate" from "Oval." "Skate" makes the base of your model where its stuck to the build plate into kind of a trapezoid shape, which gives your scraper the leverage to get underneath the model and makes removing anything from the build plate way, way easier.

I now support my models entirely in chitubox, then save the full layout as an STL file, open that STL in Photon Workshop and just hit slice. The slice button (and slice settings) are all I use Photon Workshop for now, and it's 100% better.

The second program I'd consider absolutely crucial is Windows 3d Builder. Also free, a default windows app, but strangely it has a...basically flawless in my experience auto-repair function for STL files.

When you get models off your printer that have weird resin pillars shooting through the entire Z-axis of the model, destroying details - that's a corrupted STL file. 99 times out of 100, if you open that STL in 3d builder and hit "Import File" it will let you know there's problems with it, and clicking the "Repair" box will fix that problem. basically any file that I have not printed before, once I save the STL file from Chitubox, I open that bad boy up in 3d builder and hit repair on it before I slice it for printing.

2) The default slice settings from Photon are causing prints to fail (again, just in my experience.)

When my printer came out of the box, I didn't really understand what all the slice settings did. Exposure time was set to I believe 3 seconds. I got several prints failing to stick to the build plate and ending up falling off or just totally stuck to the printer screen after the first couple of layers. I ended up finding an excel sheet on a 3d printed minis subreddit and cranked up the exposure time to 8 seconds. The downside of this is that prints that used to take 2-3 hours now take 5-7, the upside is, never once, not one single time since I did that has a print fallen off the build plate and totally failed.

3) The default support settings are causing details to be marred on your miniatures.

I found videos from 3dprintingpro on youtube in my search for how to do my supporting, and initially I was worried about setting the ends of my light supports as small as the guy in that video does it. I am now urging you: Take that plunge. Light supports are NOT for holding your structure up -theyre for ensuring that overhanging details get printed.

4) The reason your parts are warping is because you're trying to print large flat surfaces.

Basically, every model wants to be printed like a ballerina standing on a tippy toe. I started from the logic of "If I print my model standing straight up, then I don't need to add as many supports and it'll look better!" and that was wrong. It worked OK for figures with flat feet, where I could just deal with the foot bascically being a melted mass that I had to clip and sand down, but basically any piece with detail on all sides required a ton of work.

Find a position where just one or two points are facing downward, orient the front face of your model "up", and put light supports on all the details on the back face of your model (or the face with the least overhanging details). Find an orientation where no critical surfaces are printing flat.

If you're doing your supporting right, when you get your parts printed up you should be able to twist them and instantly snap off 95% of your supports, leaving basically no visible marks on anything. (obviously be careful about super delicate parts). You should not need clippers to take the supports off of a normal model.

5) print up a model that you're going to use as a Ubiquitous Scale Model, keep it sitting on your desk, and import it into every build as you're setting up your model supports.

Scaling is a real challenge, and printing - say - one space marine model, and then just having it hanging on your desk means you'll know how big everything is going to be relative to that model. This is super easy, in hindsight super obvious, but once I started doing it I never again ended up with Gnome Eldar or Gigundo-Genestealer Cultists.

On your #2 - if you're having issues where the print is peeling off the print bed, you can increase the exposure for the raft layers only and it'll resolve the issue without affecting the overall print time too much.

3D Builder is mighty indeed.

For the slicer I suggest skipping Chitubox and going straight to the new kid on the block, Lychee Slicer. The free version has slightly less functionality in the area of precision editing supports, but the interface is lightyears ahead, facilitating a smooth workflow, it has STL repair, auto-supports that beat Prusa's, island detection, transparent supports so you can actually see what you're doing, special mini-supports you can use within a model (to support the chin from the collarbone, for example)... The paid version adds unparalleled support control, easily beating all other slicers put together.

Great info and I follow many of these, both through trial and error and tips from others.

I do love 3D Builder and Chitubox (even with its quirks), with a bit of Meshmixer thrown in.

In addition to the great advice above, here are a few tips I have discovered for both resin and FDM:

FDM
1. Absolutely love the flexible plate for my FDM, as prints pop right off. I cover with painter's tape and when it heats and cools you might see a wrinkle, but when it heats back up the tape goes smooth again.

Resin
1. Try to hollow all prints larger than a 28-30mm mini. If you can add a hole to drain the excess, that is best, but in any case you will save tons of resin. Chitubox has a great Hollow/Dig Hole feature.

2. Different resins will have different print, cure and longevity characteristics. It might prove useful to do a small exposure test (lots of test print files on Thingiverse) to see what works best. I have found a .5 to 1 second more or less exposure per layer can make a big difference.

3. Use Anti-aliasing judiciously. This is not a 'set it at max and be done for all' feature. Sculpts with super fine details will get the best reproduction with AA at the lowest setting or turned off. Use it only when doing large items where you have the layers set rather high and maybe lots of flat surfaces. Some printers boast super high AA abilities trying to make up for a low resolution screen - this will just make that super detailed sculpt really smooth, but all details soft & mushy.

4. Do not over cure your prints. You can test what time works best with the resin you use with something that has a small thin part, like a sword. You really do not want it rock hard, as this will be too brittle. The ABS-like resin work best, but you can still properly cure almost any resin print allowing just a touch of flex so those thin areas do not snap right off.

With the Siraya Tech Simple i am using I find a slightly shorter exposer by .5 - 1 second and about a 4 minute cure in my 60w UV chamber ($25 UV lamp mounted through the top of a plastic container lined with tin foil) keeps them just right. Your exposure time will vary greatly depending on the UV source, proximity to the light, wattage, etc.

Good luck, all!