Arcady - You seem to have a great sense for what you want in your image. I think that some of the earlier comments in this thread were on-target when they said the loss of detail came more from lighting than anything else. In my day job, I do video production, and lighting is always the biggest concern for getting images that look good. One of the failings of RDS (and presumably Carara) is that it has a default "ambient lighting" feature. This ambient lighting has absolutely no analogue to the real world, since it casts no shadows, comes from nowhere, and adds nothing to the texture. It just keeps images from looking super dark. Well, in the real world, your image would have tons of black in it if the only light sources were the candles. I would consider almost no ambient light and limit the reflectiveness of the room's ceiling. Then, I'd throw in a backlight -- something with a cookie (what we call them in film / video -- I don't remember what they're called in RDS, gels on the light? mabye?) to add some texture and to bring out the woman from the background. Watch any movie or TV show and look for the backlight -- it gives people the highlight that makes them a star.