I started to make a roman courtyard with a pool. It is now a platform surrounded by water, hard to see with the stormy sky. The plants in the foreground are head high to the woman, but by lowering the camera angle it seemed to give a feeling of remoteness to the character, and the pool. So what do you think? Is it done or what should I add or change? Since this is only my third pict, I'm still looking for others points of view.

No Points here, it looks fabulous Sharen :-)

Here some remarks about this great image :

1. The pink marble texture used on the floor
   around the pool is somehow strange. Either it's
   at the wrong scale or it's not reflexive enough,
   but it doesn't look realistic.

2. The column in front of the camera is a bit
   disturbing. As it is not a core element of the
   composition, I would remove it or replace it
   by something different(a statue, a foutain, etc...).

3. It would be nice if we could see more clearly
   the reflection of the woman on the water. a little
   change of the camera angle could do it...

4.the light is too homogeneous. A few spot lights
pointing towards different objects will add some
ambiance and mystery.

That's it,

hope it will be useful

Eric

I agree with Eric about the marble. It is a little strange. I often get marble tiles from here

http://www.grsites.com

Then have heaps and many of them work really well in Vue materials.

My only other nitpick, and that is what it is because this is a gorgeous image, is that the water in the pool ought to be still. It looks a bit wavy, and it would have to be pretty windy to get waves on a pool that size, but there is nothing else suggesting wind in the picture. The grasses in the vases are quite undisturbed.

But this is a wonderful image - very calm and peaceful, and a nice mysterious ruin.

Thanks to Sharen, Eric and CarolUK for you comments. Caroluk, thanks for the texture link, really a big help. I've changed the marble texture and smothed the water. How would I show a movement to the grasses as if they were disturbed by the wind? Eric, I moved the woman to the far side of the pool and raised the camera angle to increase her reflection. I,m not sure of what to high light with spot lights, any hints on what to try? I also replaced the forground column with a piece from Baumgarten archieves. Thanks again to all, and any further comments on the new image would be helpfull. Ed

This is what I had in mind : Use spotlights to emphasize some elements of the scene. You could create an axis between the plants on the right, the statue and the woman (see the mock-up).

Before doing this reduce the global exposure in the
atmosphere editor down to -0.2. You can also give
more depth to the "coming storms" by adjusting
the thickness near horizon of the clouds : raise it
up to 50 %.

Eric

Ha ha now that's some pretty precise comments. ya got my vote. I'd add a bit more stuff to the far side of the pool maybe also. Or add something like more pots between the columns. You got a nice pot there but because you can never see the whole pot at this angle nobody will ever know. Could you maybe get the lady to dip her feet in the water to give it life. Depends what your looking for I guess. Think of the whole thing as a photograph. Would you take the time to get it enlarged and hang it on your wall if you had taken the picture? You got a excellent start man. Ask yourself what do you have to add to make it special? Not a keeper yet but it could be.

Hey Eric, thanks for the sutle hints, LOL. I'll give your suggestions a try and I'll probably throw in some more objects.