Here is a forest river at sunset. The first image is the final composition, the second image is the final composition with different lens flare, and the third image is the original image minus all the post processing effects. This was rendered in Cycles at 500 samples. Hope you like it!
i like them but a DoF would benefit these images A LOT.
I love how the difference in lens flare can really change the scene. I like this nature scene. I am new to this stuff I was wondering how did you make the trees? And the ferns in the foreground?
nice render,-how much ram is consumed for trees?
@Alvarocgi: In my opinion I don’t like to use DoF that often, though I have made an image using DoF. Most of the image was in the background and centered, so I didn’t want to blur it out too much.
@elewin: There is a script under addons in the Blender User Preferences tab called Add Curve: Sapling. It doesn;t come automatically enabled so you have to do it yourself under this tab and you can now add trees using the script. In Blender 2.7, you have to add the curve using shift+a because it is no longer listed under the create tab for some reason.
The ferns I created by hand using several planes. Once I got one branch done, I copied it and rotated it around until I made a full fern
@rusted: I really don’t know, but I do know it used a tad above 2GB of ram because I couldn’t render this on my video card.
Glad all of you liked it!
This is nice!!! I’m not sure what it is with most nature renders, all the foliage seems to just blend together… Not saying it’s a bad render!!! Maybe you can use different shades of green or something… It would be quite time consuming but, cool never the less. Also, again not saying anything bad about the render but you could add a few foamy rapids further downstream. I spend a fair amount of time at the creeks/rivers by my house. If you wanted to add more of a focal point a large bird, like a crane, would look nice! Maybe a few flowery trees hanging over the rivers dropping several pink/white petals.
Extremely well done, I do agree with some of the points Zombie brought up, more color variations would add to the realism. But a really great job on this.
Very good. I like it very much. As a noob, I can’t say anything to help. Simply splendid.
Nice scene but I think you just put the wrong things in focus when you started using the DOF. You’d want that foreground sightly blurred, an the focus further away, in the middle of the image.
Keep it up.
Thanks for the pointers! They’ve really helped a lot.
It completely didn’t cross my mind to blur the foreground rather than the background. That makes a lot more sense and thanks Oscar J for bringing that up. I have a new image with the proper DoF below.
Wow, that helped a lot I think! Mind if I ask how ya did the lens flare?
fantastic!!!
can you show the mesh, i don’t beleave it is 3D
@ImmortalZombie: Thanks! I did the lens flare in Adobe After Effects.
@nikitron: Thanks also! Everything is 3d except for the sky background. I have a capture of the blend file, the first image solid shaded and the second image a wireframe view. The dark green trees are dark green because they are pine trees with particle needles. The rest of the trees were made using the add curve: tree script and the ferns and landscape were made by hand.
That sure is a lot of vertices… haha
that looks better but now you have too much DOF in the foreground. tone it down some and variate the foliage colors, and your render will be top notch.
:eek::yes:
I agree with swirlypillow a touch too uch dof. But I don’t agree with the foliage variants. I like the colors reminds me of a soon to end summer. Like one of those last warm days in the evening where you can take your canoe out on the river…
…It is raining and cold where I am currently. This image just pumped me up for my vacation in Montana. 
i was just talking about varying the shades a of green a little bit. not every leaf on every tree and plant is the same color green. 
just a subjective opinion is all, the work is already really good as it is.