Sunset Cottage by Vince Whitmore

Sunset Cottage by Vince Whitmore
http://www.filterforge.com/gallery/311.html

Nice work! Kinda bit too crisp with the details?

It's definitely getting better!

Personally, I think it's really really just in the amount of detail and it just needs a bit of control. For example the dirt texture on the road, I figure uses displacements, does get very bumpy and so does the grass... and the bricks. This is just kinda like my analysis of things but what's making it look very crisp in the picture is basically the overall uniformity of detail. Where ever my eye leads to, there's the same amount of detail as much as where I was looking previously. In reality, as you go further, things start looking a bit less detailed and so on.

I don't really have a perfect solution to this but often times where I work we just use z-depth and subtly blur certain areas out but that probably isn't the solution here. Either way, that was just my thoughts on it. I hope it helps.

Environment design! Fun fun Please keep it up.

I like the third version best. In my view, you are simulating landscape photography here. A DOF effect is fine for portraits or flowers, when you want to make sure that the background doesn't distract from the central focus of the image, but in a landscape you would want to keep the stunning sky in focus.