Maybe it’s just me, but I like rendering that look like a concept or a communication of an idea, rather than a photo. I think for that you need to sketch more with the color, linework, pastels, rather than “render” with it. Even in photoshop renderings, you can still keep it loose, and take some artistic liscence in order to convey more information to the veiwer.
It took me a long time to figure out. What helped me is that I used to never render one. I used to draw up like 10 variations, pick 3 to through color on, photocopy each of those 3 times, and rendr all 9. The last one was usually the best because I didn’t care as much how it came out.
Idunno, it worked for me.