A first attempt

A friend is developing an old property and wanted an artists impression of what a new porch would look like. I stumbled into Blender and thought I would have a go. WOW! its an impressive package.
I had a photo of the property and using PaintShop Pro, I normalised the two walls and painted them onto two planes.
Can someone explain why the roof beams in the second view seem to be highlighted. I would have expected them to be very much darker.
http://www.ashdown-software.com/pictures/view0.jpg
http://www.ashdown-software.com/pictures/view5.jpg

What kind of lights did you use? It seems like you’ve used a sun or hemi. Try using spots for the main lights and normal lamps set to a low energy level for ambiant light.

Yes I used a Sun for overall illumination and a spot to produce shadows. I will try as you suggest, thanks.

Put your sun at a higher altitude. Then it won’t reflect off of those beams. Also, use yellow light rather than white light. It is more realistic. Nice job generally speaking.