Now delete these signs, make this sky more simple, more abstract, give a lot more space to this marvelous grass, less trees maybe, keep light this way (what a light)...
Yes, you are too close to this great american painter "Andrew Wyeth"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christina's_World. See all his work if haven't already.

Boofredlay and solo.
This is a great image here. I even don't care about 3d modeling, renders...

I think I'm spoiling pete's fine post but these are great renders (sensitive) and a fine opportunity for this.

For windows XP be sure to have nothing in color management window, if you find one just delete it.
For vista and OSX just have the best monitor profile, there are many calibration apps, ((OSX has its own, but its best to use a monitor profile that came with your mac, (24'' imac, or 24'' led display). For other fine monitors just use calibrator))
Older macs as my 2.33 dualcore 17'' mac book pro, work better with sRGB.

Here comes photoshop. First go to edit>color settings and on working space assign your monitor profile, tell photoshop not to color manage anything on import. Something very similar works with gimp.
When you PP an image, just convert it to a common color profile like sRGB -please dont assign your monitor profile because possibly you are the only one on the planet who has it.
If you don't want to do all these, just use view>proof setup and have a look how typical windows or macs or your monitor profile looks like.
Sorry for my english, I hope all this above helps.

Remind you this too. Lots of users use windows XP. Just a few can see colors correctly. Colors on my PC look the same as on my MACs. Give a try and don't be suspicious with mac users.
Again: Vista and OSX have a fine color management, XP or some Linux have not.

*here's a test. Download one of solo's fine renders, open in photoshop, assign sRGB profile, save, quite. Now open in preview and compare this with explorers's or firefox or safari's site view.
No I have a better idea, see solo's render with sRGB assigned. Compare it with the attachments preview (SCF machine discards color profiles when it creates previews)

OK I can write a small tutorial but don' mesh anything yet. This is not a mac problem, please read about color profiles first.
The only thing you have to do is: open image in photoshop, edit>convert to profile>destinatition should be srgb see photo.
Here source space is sRGB but could be monitor X profile or simple RGB or anything. Leave Black point and dither checked.

Listen pete. There isn't any color profile assigned in your images. So they look somehow grey in my monitor, until I changed system color profile to sRGB. So everybody, when posting, please assign a common color profile like sRGB. (convert to profile in photoshop or gimp). If you don't and if using XP, then vista or OSX users should turn their color management to sRGB.
Now in (sRGB), these renders look 30% better. I like your work 15% more and Vue 60% more. lol
BTW I use an expensive 24 monitor, well calibrated, (in DTP business for years).

What I like: Beautiful renders as always. The street scene especially is fantastic. Here we have a battle, two armies. Simple and great.
what I don't like: these street lights, this very well known model. You need something more detailed here pete.

jfleet from podium forum posted this link about free cut outs
http://www.kropped.com

Used them right away.

I can only agree with you freeagent. Same things happen in blender, maya, (modo sounds good). Just visit blender galleries, most interiors seems almost funny for a SU user. We need both of them. BTW can anybody tell me how to disable snapping in SU, sometimes is a pain in...

Great render. But I'll say this. When posted renders coming from my favorite workflow (blender>zbrush>blender>su) some people asked me why render to SU+a render engine. Blender is capable enough to render anything (3-4 render engines including vray). I haven't a clear answer. I'll ask you then the same thing. Why don't you model in max and render everything there? Why do you need SU?

Every nice PP app has a color management option. 8bit per channel = 3x8=24bits. Just be sure that your photo has a color profile embedded, then very nice OSs can project colors correct on your monitor. MacOSX and windowsVista can do it. WinXP or some LINUXs... no, sorry. Maybe this explains why photos opened in photoshop, look deferent than any XP photo viewer.
sRGB is fine for most cases. Just ask your app to do this. Look in prefs maybe there is something there, (color management), I can help for photoshop and gimp if you like.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_management

Thanks Daniel, I need some more information on this. I can't guess how or even if these huge statues where painted. The same question for classical greek sculpture too, where some well known tests haven't convinced me yet. Small scale egyptian sculpts have indeed some nice colors.

Here some more after restoration. Its a 3d world after all. I hate this in the real world.

I should restore it. Is as ugly as you said.

Almost finished. Some more small things here or there. I reduced faces to 30 000, nothing too bad has happened. Now I have a real time animation in SU, with almost same quality.

Thanks Malaise.
Zbrush has some great tools to reduce polys. I haven't try vizup but IMO working with triangles always comes to a mesh. We are talking about 1 200 000 > 8 000 > 2 000 polys (square). There isn't any app to do this. My basic model in blender is 2000 then I can go back and place the UV textures from the hi def model. To go from 200 000 to 50 000 or 20 000 is something completely different.
About photo reference didn't find any profile yet. Then my references are other Egyptian statues.

Be careful tomsdesk. This is the way to see same colors in deferent PCs and monitors. If you are in Pshop go to edit menu and convert your photos profile to sRGB. sRGB was internet explorer's default profile and its a standard for many equipments.

Thanks guys.
Ok Malaise. Here's some more tests trying to reduce polys. Now this has fun. 8 000 polys vs 2 000 polys
Remind you that 2000 polys = 4000 triangles = 8 000 double sided faces in SU, something I don't like at all.

Thanks Malaise.
voilà ce que tu as demandé et aussi un "SU 2d raw export" pour montrer la qualité qu'un SU animation pourrait avoir. No PP, seulement "glow" et "noise" avec gimp.

This is an interesting question redot but I don't use vray. Someone could tell us about it. I personally use blender (a swiss army knife for UV mapping IMO).

All the same for me. I mean you should consider the color profile, so many OSs, monitors, calibrators profiles etc. Nice work though.