Please some feedback on tone & color...

soften your shadows but the composition is nice..

What I see is the brick wall in front of the scene is stronger in color (darker and more saturated) than the redwood. This could make the wood look dull in comparison, even if it is the right color by itself. Maybe getting closer so there isn't so much brick would help.

That's looking waaaay better. Cheers m8

I'm at this stage now. Still doesn't look nifty enough for me. Any thoughts?

Made some postwork experiment. Yuor material lacks the red value in the reflection color box. You probably make it reflect a gray value, which is not fisically correct. Try it out. RK

Thanks Ralf, wil try that This is where I'm at aftyer today's work, still not convincing... [ATTACH]39570[/ATTACH]

Well , just the color of your wood in the shadow zone is a little bit washed out in comparison to the reference. Did you try to give this wood material a fresnel reflection with IOR value about 1,8. By the way what render are you using Vray? RK

Thanks Neil, I'm doing just that. :-) Some specific critics needed though...

Tweak and adjust within photoshop post rendering.