A painting studio
 

This started as an exercise when I first downloaded Maya PLE. I went back to it only recently.
Since I am just starting with 3D I really need some constructive criticism.
Thanks!

I takes a while to look through that "barely noticeable" watermark... lol :)

I like your scene. Couple of things though: The tubes on the table looks huge. Don't know if they really are that big but they catched my eye. Another thing that might improve the image is to lower the overall color saturation. Could be done in photoshop...

Maybe a subtle fog (like dust in the air) and some depth of field could improve the realism too...

feedback
 

I know, isn't that watermark a pain in the ... :mingun:
Thank you for the suggestion on some atmospheric particles, that is a very good idea. I had tried applying some fog to the main light but it didn't work. Could you suggest something?

I'd go the way you suggested. Just needs some tweaking to get it look good. IPR is handy with this...

Another thing that will help is adding some dirtiness to the objects. At the moment, everything is too clean and perfect, which is quite the opposite of any painter's workspace. Subtle bump maps to add imperfections to surfaces would be a quick solution. You could also add some grime and dirt to the textures themselves (if you used any bitmap images in the color channels). It's a very good start.

That is probably the most overlooked problem with CG scenes today. They're always too perfect. Dirt, dust, and imperfections are the key to a realistic render sometimes.