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I realise it’s meant to be a dark scene but I still think you could get a little more light on your figure. The black outfit she is wearing lacks detail and she blends a lot with the background.
I think you are doing well though! The scene is telling a story and though you may feel like you fail, you are adding/changing things as well as posting to get feedback from people. This is vital for learning and building on what you enjoy, even if you feel you lack the skill or experience to improve something quite in the way that you want. It’s important that you enjoy it and like the image you are creating, more than getting something 100% technically perfect.
Also, it’s small detail in your picture, but I really like the moth you added to that lamp, a tiny witness to the carnage going on around :-)
Ok, this is not a step forward in composition, but had to be done. I wasted most of the day creating my own ship for in the bottles - a schooner versus the pirate ships I had been using. I think it takes away from the story, as there's no longer an empty bottle for the ship he's carving, but since I spent all that time on it, I had to render it and share it.
Don't worry you will improve every time you put together something. Studio has a big learning curve, and the only way to really learn is by doing it. You will be struggling along and then all of a sudden you go, "OHHHH now I get it! and something will click and it will be easier. Rinse and repeat lol. A year from now, you will look back and be amazed at what you have learned and accomplished.
As far as photoshopping goes, yes, I can fix a lot of things in photoshop because I already knew how to use at least the basics BUT, I always try and get as much right and get everything to as close to what I am aiming for in Studio first. A. its a good learning experience and B. Why post work it if you don't have to? And C. you can learn to postwork when you are ready to learn it, no rush. I didn't do any postwork to my images at all until I had been rendering in Studio for almost a year, because I wanted to learn everything I could and be comfortable using Studio on its own. Because its far too easy to say, oh, i'll just postwork this or that. But then you don't learn the fundamentals of Studio and I feel like I am short changing myself if I don't give my best effort to the program at least in the beginning.
Love that you made your own ship!
Well, not sure how much I love the ship - it's the schooner in the second render I posted...it's "toy ship" resolution - so inside a bottle it's fine, but certainly not sea worthy, let alone larger render worthy. The ships that I've used in the other renders are the Smirking Mermaid from 3D Universe's Skull Cove. Making my own ship really gave me an appreciation of how much detail and work the Daz Published Artists put into the things I buy. Someday I will understand UV Mapping and unwrapping...but I feel I'll have to read a lot more forums, and beat my head against the monitor a lot more times, before I conquer that.
As a bit of a test/self-challenge, I replaced all Published Artist items in the scene with ones that I made, or prims with surfaces. Even the "builder" I dialed back to generic G3 Male and used the Daz default outfit. Perhaps a more true test of my composition, but clearly suffers from the lack of details and the main character is out of character for the scene. Here's the render for comments/discussion purposes, but I don't like it as much and will be going back to using the better quality items that real artists have produced...
Also, I was thinking one empty bottle and the Shipbuilder with a ship in his hand, adds to the story. Does that make sense? Before these contests I never really thought about how the single image had to contain all the elements of a story. I accepted the asthetic theory around ratios, lighting, etc and I've been engineering images by them more than telling a story artfully. So. Much. To. Learn.
Here is the latest view from inside. Most of my effort has been on the glass shader settings for the bottle to try to get the right reflections/distortion for the background to convey more clearly the situation (in addition to the model in the creator's hands and the other ship in a bottle next to him). We'll keep plugging along...
I think you done a great thing with this testrender. Your shipmodel and the guy fits perfect in the scene.( I like that the shipmodel do not look hyper realistic, cause its a model^^.)
The other thing, it's interesting how a scene is changing while we working on her. First there was the witcher, who has brood about his past and now we see a young man who is indulging his hobby.
Thank-you, Daybird. I too find the evolution interesting. I can't sketch things, or think them out in advance...I start and then it evolves as I change things that prompt me to change other things. Who knows...given where it started, this could evolve into a kids tea party at this rate ;-)
Thanks for the feedback earlier. Here's a hopefully improved draft of the scene.
This is awesome. Now it feels like we are really inside the bottle looking out. I really like this! As far as using all freebies and base models, its an interesting exercise and if you learned from it then it was worth it. I do know that most of the freebies I have, now that I have a (really) basic understanding of how things work, all pretty much get tweaked especially the surfaces. Modelling your own stuff, its a great skill to have and the more you do it the better you will get. The UV mapping? I haven't heard a single person say this was easy to learn. I think EVERYEONE struggles with UV mapping. And for the other render I think an empty bottle would set the scene even more as he is working on a new ship
I love both views you are working with. They each tell their own distinct stories and points of view.
One suggestion I have for you when you want to expriment with a different POV is to save the scene as an Alternate verison. Either with a different name, ie: Inside The Bottle for the alternate and ShipBuilder. This way you can change the lighting and camera for each view point without having to change everything back.
If you have already done this then just ignore what I just said.
I really like the whisp of smoke from the pistol recently fired, and the flash from the other - nice sense of sequencing. She's striding through clearing the place. Also, it's been mentioned, but the moth on the light is genius.
A minor detail and maybe something most people wouldn't notice but your horse in the background should be showing some interest in what is happening around it. A loud gun has just gone off and this would attract the horse's attention. Horses are prey animals and are always on the lookout for danger...even when they look like they are relaxed they are aware of their surroundings.
I Google images all the time to try and get poses correct. Here are some examples that will hopefully help.
Thank-you so much. That's a very good point, and after struggling for a few verisons I did end up forking the versions a couple of iterations ago. Plus I read in a forum somewhere that if you keep saving to the same file over and over, you may corrupt your .duf file, so I save under version names every few major changes so I don't lose everything. At first I was trying to do both points of views in the same file (and do keep both cameras in both files just to check every now and then), but they have diverged. In the back of my mind was an animation of the camera pan and zoom from the first view into the second, but that's well beyond my experience and patience right now. Much of the minor changes in this round was synching some of the changes between the two separate works back into the other.
I agree. Sometimes it is those little details which really add to the scene.
Just to share some experience, having spent waaaaay too much time around horses (mostly writing cheques while my daughter competed on them). Even the most chill horse will move it's ears at least. The ears on your horse are pointed forward - implying that it's both happy and interested in something directly in front of it. Although that's the 'ideal' look, it's really hard to get a horse to point it's ears forward like that for a picture - it usually involves crinkling peppermint wrappers or tossing dirt or grass just off camera (been there, done that). If it were tied there, the ears would most likely be askew, both relaxed and listening for predators. A loud noice would at least get the closest ear immediately on it (they swivel like little radar tracking dishes), even if it doesn't move it's head (Kismet is correct, but I have seen some "bomb proof" horses that are trained to not react like that to loud noises).
I really like the other changes, and the sepia tone.
When I said I wasn't working on this test anymore, apparently I lied. The tank top was bothering me, both as being too modern a style for the candle-light work surface, and it made me feel cold looking at it. So I knit him a sweater in Carrara. It also gets closer to the colour scheme of the earlier one, and in the thumbnail the lighter shirt helps define things better.
Really beautiful. I really love this image. The black and white especially just pulls you right into it and the way its all done and the way the light is you especially get pulled into her eyes which for a portrait is an important thing and the subtle expression just adds to it even more. Really beautifully done.
Im really loving this view. It has a real "Gulliver's Travels" feel to it for me. I love the detail and can really appreciate the amount of work that must have taken to set that up like that inside the bottle. Really nice work!
This one is also very very good! Everyone is on a roll...you all are going to make me jealous!
I will agree with Kismet about the horse..it's a small detail but a lot of times its those small details that can make the scene that much more believable. I love the lighting on this and the color tone suits it. Makes it look very "old west". We are not to this yet, but it might be fun for you to look up some tutorials on using Atmosphere in Daz Studio. (We have some previous contest threads on it with some links and if you need some let me know as I know a couple good ones) but it might be fun to experiment a bit to see if you can get kinda low lying dust going from the ground. Not necessary just seems like it would fit well with the scene. Wonderful work! 
Welcome! You are off to an WONDERFUL start!
I really like the camera angle to this. The only suggestion I would have is to may add an extra light into the scene to help add a little bit of light to him. Since it is night you generally want to go for blue or grey light colors (cool tones) It will keep the feel of it being night time but still give some light so you can see the details of the image. If you need information on lighting we do go over that in the course of the Challenges (we go in an order and since this is January you came in right at the beginning) If you aren't sure on lighting but don't want to wait for us to get to it to experiment, check the threads in this forum from previous Contests/Challenges as generally they contain links to tutorials etc to help get you started using them. I also suggest Daz 3D YouTube Channel here: https://www.youtube.com/user/WWWDAZ3DCOM as they have lots of great tutorials for those just starting out. If you have any questions, please let us know! And wonderful job so far! 
Here is the link to that thread in case you want to play: http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/115276/october-2016-new-user-contest-atmosphere-wip-thread/p1
And here is the link to the last challenge/contest thread on lighting in case you would like to look at some of the links: http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/70702/february-2016-new-user-3d-art-contest-lighting-wip-thread/p1
Here's the latest view from inside the bottle - for the first time in one of these contests I've resorted to post work in Gimp to remove some extraneous rigging (on this model I only have all or nothing visibility for sails, rigging, etc).
This view is so much more intersting than the other. The other is too busy, while at the same time there's nothing going on. I haven't made any comments on the other view as I don't know what to say. This one, however, is the view I think ought to be worked on.
@dstuffle, this is a huge improvement. Other people have already commented on the horse. I'm still having trouble finding your focus, because the light tells me one thing (the man who's been shot has more intesting lighting, while the shooter is more obscured by shadows than lit). Those clouds are still distracting... but not as much as before. The lines add significant focus and that both helps and doesn't, I think... because of the lighting issue. I'd lose that blur/smoke, personally... It doesn't add much.
What are you wanting the viewer to focus on?
Really loving this. And that is what post work is for. As you are learning studio, post work is for the things that you just can't fix in studio (like partially removing rigging when its not an option lol). Of course, you can use as much or as little post work as you want, but if you are focusing on doing it in Studio, don't feel guility if you have to use postwork for something like this.
Loving the sepia tone to this now. It really gives it an old west feeling. I agree that the long piece of smoke is a bit distracting but don't necessarily think you need to get rid of it entirely. If its smoke from the gun, you could add a much shorter length of smoke or have some tendrils of smoke drifting upwards to indicate that the gun was just fired.
The sweater fits better than the tank top for sure. Now he looks more like a seasoned fisherman.
Ok, here's an update from the inside...just more extraneous rigging removal. I think this clears the view of the "Creator" and also solves for some hanging sheets that were attached to the now invisible sails. I don't want to take too much of the standing rigging out, or it will look less boaty. Thoughts?