A need for a virtual camera thread

Stu-
The problem I see with your lighting of the airbrush jars is that the light is coming from the front and down, and it's a very "elementary" lighting setup. Also, there should be a depth plane in the image that directs the audience to the jars and not the background (The background needs blurring for another reason--there's not enough "business"...you know, junk all over like an artist's loft?).

Try defining a spotlight lightsource and point it from about eyelevel down on the scene to imitate a Luxo lamp. Then add point lights where needed to lessen the contrast in the overall picture.

One thing that modeling people need to get used to is that you create 150% of a virtual world, but if it's going to look like a photograph, you need to crop away a certain percentage of the image. You will and need always to lose part of a chair or something in the picture, 'cause life is not choreographed!

I spent 2 days on a scene that was only going to be an environment map. But the visual complexity paid off.

My Best,

Gary David Bouton
Gary@GaryDavidBouton.com
Free education! The Writings Web site
and the updated GaryWorld Gallery is pretty okay, too.