Have been working on this for most of the afternoon and evening ever sinse DC posted the new challenge. I wanted to make the tree the center of the piece and not part of a forest. I don't use the treelab often and forgot how much fun it is! This is also my first ever panorama render :-))

This is the original render.

Another first ever was trying the DOF. But I could not get that right. My sky disappeared as well LOL. Still I love the effect.

BTW the grass is postwork, the cheeta from poser, the rest is bryce. 2 Trees in the distance, Accacia tree in the front with different leaves. No extra lights.

On an image like this you want Less DOF, the smaller the objects are the greater the DOF you should use. But try decreasing the lense aperature. Does it start at .10, if so change it to .04 or less.

It's a cool scene! And the tree is impressive. About DOF, Ornlu's right. Just think of what happens in real photography: subjects are big, so DOF plays a lesser part in the image. I use DOF quite often, and I always found the default setting at 0.10 to be too much.

looks nice so far... ...btw its not a cheetah ;-) Its either a jaguar or more likely a leopard

Yeah, cheetahs can't climb trees very well.

Thanks for the comments! The yaguar came from emperor Ken, with Leopard texture of Cloudland castle. The second image with the attempted DOF was just for play, didn't get a hand of this DOF yet as it was my first try ever. I ment the first image as the WIP for the challenge (hence the :sort of"). I kind of like the second though as it looks really hazy and hot there :-) What should I improve in the first image?

Looking great. >>What should I improve<< I'd work on the pose itself. The legs being so straight give it a sort of "stuffed animal" feel to it.

Thanks MuddyGrub, I agree with you. I found it very hard to pose the beast in Poser for a tree in Bryce. Will have to work on it.