You're right Tom, I shouldn't have done the kid glove treament.  I've had people in the past say they could take it when they asked me for criticism, and got offended when I finally did give criticism in what I thought was a constructive manner, so that's probably why I did what I did.  Here's what I came up with.

mdb

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First:  Your composition isn’t as strong as it could be.  You say Mountain View, but the central point is a squirrel on a tree with an owl landing next to it.  I’d remember the golden spiral and push this focal point off to one side more and make the mountain the center of your picture.  That being said, a mountain without its summit showing is anti-climactic somehow IMHO.  I don’t mind seeing it through branches, but having the trunk in the way is too much.

Second: Tree posing.  The squirrel’s tree is actually quite good for the Tree Lab, with the exception of the leaf bunches at the end.  Not sure how you have it set up in the Tree Lab, but this could require some minor editing to spread out the leaves or get rid of them entirely and make it a dead tree or something.  Your call on that.  The most serious problem I see is the flowering tree and the very symmetrical trees on the right hand side of the composition.  If they’re to be shrubs, drop the trunk into the ground and just have the branches sticking up.  Second, play with the Tree Lab to try and make the branches a lot more asymmetrical.  Add segments and all that jazz.  Lastly, unless you really feel the need for a flowering tree so jarringly out of place with the rest of the composition, you should look for a way to make it appear more natural in scene.  The best way I can think of is to get it out from under the squirrel tree.  Flowering trees don’t do well in shade like all fruit and nut bearing trees.

Third:  Good attempt at the grass, but it’s not quite working here.  You may want to fake the funk, smooth it and use the progressive “Foliage 2” procedural texture with no ambience to fake grass or small plants.  You may be better off though going with a layer of grass models close to the front and then using a flat terrain in the close mid ground instead of trying for lawn height grass.  Remember also that under trees, grass does horrible too, so you are more likely to have dirt under them than tall or even manicured grass.

Fourth:  Good news, your middle ground treeline beyond your clearing is excellent.  It feels like it has a good distance from you and has a good range of colors and variances in posing.  Bad news, that mountain is way too close.  You have no feeling of depth.  I’d push it waaaaaaay back and make it even bigger.  This does give you challenges with textures where you have to play with them to get them the right “frequency”, but it will make a huge difference in realism.  Case in point look at my pic “Lord of All He Surveys”.  Those mountain ranges are between 2000-5000 BU’s away!  The rolling hills with copses of trees on them are about 1000 BU’s away.  Now if you want to make your close mountain sort of a mid ground foothill and lower it’s top line like a close cliff, that’s one good way to do it too, then put the REAL mountain deep into the background you’ll notice a dramatic increase in the feel of space and tangibility of your image.  One of the biggest mistakes I see are people being afraid to push objects and terrains away to leave “empty space” between them and use forced perspective to make their appeal for scale.  That may work for Disney World where reality steps in and they have to do these tricks, but here, you shouldn’t rely on it.  The illusion is spotted quite easily.  Remember, they can only see what you show them, only you need to know the compositional dirty secrets. ;c)  Perception, not reality rules here.

Fifth:  A taste issue, but reeds and other water plants often grow tight to the shore.  It’s also a good way to hide an abrupt waterline created by Bryce, unless you have a good way to fake a believable muddy shoreline.  Oooh that just gave me an idea on how to pull one off…. Gonna have work on that.  A fallen down tree, rocks and logs are also great ways to give realism and hide too clean flaws.

Sixth:  Lastly a pet peeve which I think you’ve dodged but just something I always try to iterate:  Turn off the blasted Ambience! :c)  I’ve seen more pictures on R’osity ruined because someone left on their texture’s ambience.  Use fill lights, play with Photoshop, do anything else to make stuff pop out, but don’t use ambience unless you really must.  I may have it turned on in less than 10% of all textures I use.  It’s one of the first bits of advice anyone ever gave me, and one of the best to serve me.  So now, if you go through my gallery, you’ll almost never find a picture where you go “huh, that tree shouldn’t look like it’s glowing” or something similar.