so how long did it take you to make this scene, start to finish?
i love the lighting and textures.
There are a couple of things that lept out at me. The chairs seem just a bit too tall. Might be an illusion, but try shortening their legs if possible. Just a tad. Second one is the french balcony door. It looks like it’s boarded up. If it had a “french” door with some curtains behind it, it would look fantastic.
I think Moon Dragon was close about the chairs, but it looks more to me like the table is too short, making the chairs look too tall. I guess either one works, but if it were me I would make the table taller.
-Anthony
the scene is very good but there is indeed some scale problems at least in relation with the rope in front.
I find the chairs especially a bit wide.
Just a few minor things:
-Repeating texture on the walls (although mirrored) and caustic reflection of the water.
-The shadow areas seem to be a little dark for a scene with bright sunlight, but that might also be my monitor.
-The color on the arc on the left goes from pink to almost white, seems like specular reflection.
Artaures: time to make it: hard to tell, as I worked on and off on this for over a month. Actually, I saved all the preview renders of this image, numbered in sequence from 1 to 46, version 46 being the final one. Number one was saved on September 11th, so that gives 7 weeks, though for about two weeks in the middle of this I was much too busy to have any time for this image.
MoonDragon: ahh yes, thanks for pointing that out, the chairs were a bit too high (55cm), I lowered them to 45cm. The balcony door isn’t boarded up, that IS the door. What would a French window be doing in Venice? 
I did base the architecture on reference photos from Venice, and some other places in Italy. The only things completely of my own design are the tables and chairs.
SoftWork: what texture are you referring to? I made sure to use different textures on the objects… If you mean the cracks, then look closer!
I did think some about the arc, now I see the problem: it’s not reflectinn, but I used the same material as the white bricks on the right, which go from the dirty pink at the bottom of the house to white higher up.
Anyways, for one more final render at 1600*900 pixels, I changed the chairs, and am rendering it in parts, I’ll upload it once finished!
Oh my god, wow! Simply breath-taking. Work hard and be proud as they say!
Repeting textures, see images below. The textures on the wall may not be 100% te same, but they clearly have the same source.
WallTexture
CausticTexture
Ahh, you are correct, I didn’t notice that! That means two of my crack dirtmaps come from the same photo, good to know that for future projects…
The caustics are repeated: There was no way that I could get caustics to render on the walls in Yafray, it appeared only on the water. So I had to work around that, and render a seperate 1024*1024 caustics picture (white on black background), and place it as a texture onto the side of the building, the stairs and the wall. You do have to have a good eye to spot the repeating caustics though!
I’ve finally got a 1600*900 picture for you guys. Some changes to the crack texture, and the chairs are shorter. Plus I used an arealight for softer shadows.
http://deeppixel.uw.hu/gallery/venice_1600_arealight.jpg
Hate to do this to you, but now the chairs look too short. Also the new cracks seem to have some funny shading in them. Are those shadows in the texture? If so you may consider rotating them a bit to match your light source.
really beautiful work,
another thing you could add are some more small texture work in the walls. currently they are very clean, i would try to giving them some grain. also i like the bird shot in place of the guy shot.
i thought it might look cool as a old time photo
the cracked stucc o textures are placed upside down, it gives it a weird look. Look at the shading on them, you have the light source somewheres to the top right, but the stucco light source is bottom right.
MoonDragon & JellyWerker: Yes, I noticed the texture too, only too late…
Well, I guess it’s time for Yet Another Venice Render… will post as soon as done.
Yeah, the old photo look would be cool, I’ll try it in post-pro on the next render!
you could try not the full b&w but strong desaturate & light sepia teint, that could get good results too
The only real crit I have is that your new crack texture dominates. It is almost a focal point in the top left corner because it is so big and strongly textured.
I liked the colour scheme when both buildings were pink but if I’d never seen them, I’d probably like the new scheme just as much. I also liked that lower light angle but again, if I hadn’t seen it that way… The new pic looks brighter - maybe the new light is too bright for the angle it’s at?
The greyscale pic is awesome. If I saw that on a Venice website I would never even assume it was anything other than real.
All in all, I’d be glad to say “I made that!”
Okay: new render:
And, old photo. (Not completely desaturated)
the old style photo rocks!!
the wall texture also looks good, but i think i would make the cracks a little smaller, haha, right now it looks like huge chunks of the wall are missing. the pigeons are attacking, ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!, haha 
Print it on photo-grade paper and fools many peoples !
nice work