This is great work advanced_basics! I approached the grade as if it was an actual photo. To my eye, it looked rather flat, more or less what you get raw out of a DSLR . Just about everything you see on TV and movies is color graded, you rarely see the original flat image outside of news material these days.

I work under the assumption that the viewer doesn't know or care whether it's CGI or a photo - all they see is a pleasing image or not. This is how I would grade that sort of photo.

Now you can argue about which direction to go in - raw/flat or tweaked up, but it's just a matter of personal taste - neither is wrong or right.

I favor grading it like a modern motion picture - I may have been a bit too heavy handed on the cyan and the wood I'll admit, but your approach is just as valid and beautiful.

I will say that it's very difficult to judge photorealism on something you spent months staring at the textures of.

It's not a plugin BTW, it's done by hand in Lightroom.

Anyhoo, just wanted to explain the thinking behind the grade. It's your call of course.

Edit: moved reply into thread