Hey, all
I’ve been using Blender for about a year. (Learning slowly) I recently finished a render, and am looking for some critique as well as ideas on how to improve it. I used Blender’s compositor quite a bit.
Large Version <- Link
Thank you! 
-Leonardo
It’s a good start. I like the buildings and the general feel of image.
The pitch black wall behind the red spheres doesn’t feel right compared to the illumination on the spheres and the sidewalk. It’s unnaturally dark.
The one source light in the scene, the street lamp, doesn’t seem to be affecting the wall or the spheres, so I’m not sure how the spheres are being illuminated with such a soft, flat light.
Maybe there is another street lamp off screen to the left, but it doesn’t seem like it. If you wanted to suggest a second street lamp, you could create the edge of a pool of light around the spheres, then make a clear separation from the pool of light from the main street lamp visible in the scene. If you do that, the lighting on the spheres should probably be much harder, with higher contrast and sharper edged shadows.
Lastly, I’m not sure that the scene should be completely surrounded by a black void. In the lower right corner, we should see a hint of the street texture. Between and behind the buildings you might add a dim sky with hints of dark clouds, to add some depth.
Thank you for the tips, harveen. 
I’ll work on the lighting some more, and I’ll work on the sky a bit. I agree that the blackness seems unrealistic. Maybe turning up ambient occlusion to brighten everything up just a tad would help. Would adding some depth of focus help the scene?
-Leo
I would agree with harveen - in addition, it looks like some dithering would definitely benefit this image.
By the way, is there a hidden meaning to this shot? I’m not sure I quite get it. There must be something. . . 
You’re welcome.
Increasing AO might help a bit. Look at some night photographs and see what kind of lighting approaches they have. Then come back to your scene and think about lighting it like you would light a real life scene (or at least imagine what kinds of lights would exist in a real setting), especially pay attention to difference between hard and soft lights and shadows (sharp vs. soft/blurred). Also look the use of contrast between bright and dark areas.
As for the black wall, I would imagine there might be some bounce from the light on the sidewalk.
I would skip DOF until you’re happy with the lighting. When you’ve got it looking the way you want, then you might try some DOF to slightly blur the buildings in the background, if you really want to focus the viewer’s eye on the red spheres. Otherwise, you might just defocus the dark sky/cloud background behind the buildings, if you want the buildings to be a little sharper and more important to scene. Don’t go overboard with DOF or else your image will look like a macro shot or a stop-motion miniature. Again, look at night scene photographs to see how they use focus and depth of field for the type of scene you’re creating.
[Laughs] No, not really…
The point of the image is just to make the viewer curios - to make them want to know more about the scene.
-Leo, who is re-working the lighting setup.
Guess it worked!
Agree with what the others said and in addition. Loose that lense flare as it looks fake and unrealistic.
You know, I just showed it to some members of my family (Easy way to get feedback) and they said the same thing. Maybe just a glow or something like that.
-Leo
