Another attempt a a moonlit scene.

[TSPCo]

This is a model of a building I see everyday, re-purposed here as a place to hang out and swim, eat and drink. (not necessarily in that order).
I like the way it looks but some rippled reflections in the pool would be better. Also the obelisks to the near side of the pool aren't quite right, a softer glow would be better. I modified them by removing the pointlights inside and putting a fake emitter on the outside.

As usual comments are welcome!

[Fletch]

Maybe your computer screen needs calibration, but the images seems very very dark on mine. (maybe mine is wrong, who knows?)
This looks better on mine, but I suspect will look too bright on yours.
Please check out the water tutorial, it's quick and painless.

In general, it looks quite good. You need some trees around/behind the building, and a good spherical sky. These images are best with a sunset sky. You rarely see magazine shots done with total darkness. Usually they are done at Twilight.

You could easily add a curved treeline in SketchUp to make a silhouette of trees behind the building. Check the resources section, there you will find the perfect thing.

[TSPCo]

I just tried a non scientific approach to check my calibration.On Imaging resource,http://www.imaging-resource.com/ARTS/MO ... IBRATE.HTM
There is a simple black and white "color test". Using JCP (just color picker) a little free color picker my numbers matched their numbers exactly. What does this mean ? I don't know but it was fun to see.

I have some sunset images I have taken, they are not hi-res, or very big, 2304X1728, is the best my camera can do, there are flat not curved. In one experiment I did projecting the image on the inside face of a half dome, it looks promising, not perfect, and it won't work with all the images I tried. Still working to get it better.

[TSPCo]

sc1twrnt4.jpg (88.93 KiB) Viewed 5332 times

I tried the water tut, is it normal when you unlink color, for the program to go into a browse mode? Just curious.
Here is what I came up with, using SU material sparkling water, color white unlinked, bump at 0.4. Still experimenting.
No trees yet Fletch.

[Fletch]

sc1twrnt4.jpg

... is it normal when you unlink color...

yes. when you unlink the color, it's basically saying "oh, you don't want that texture? ok, which texture would you like instead?" then you click cancel and that's basically saying "no thanks, no texture, just a color."