Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you
by vawendy

Comment:
Not digging the distortion of the eyes.

Drink Up Boys
by littlemav

Comment:
Nice photo treatment. Not so much with the slogan and text - at least for me. I'm not talking about the message, I'm talking about the actual verbiage and text spacing. Lots of empty space and skewed text. I would have included the title on the poster.

Uprising!
by mefnj

Comment:
Well done but the colors seem a touch muted/yellowed. Was that intentional?

FOREIGN HYBRIDS
by MadMan2k

Comment:
Another "call the font police" poster. Too many fonts, too many effects.

A Necessity of the Human Spirit
by hahn23

Comment:
Nice photo, but I'm not a fan of the text placement

Loose Lips Sink Ships/ The Walls Have Ears (WW II)
by daevans

Comment:
Call the font police. Too many, and Comic Sans not once but twice. The boat photo is nice though.

study in red
by sfalice

Comment:
Critique Club Comment:

I will apologize right up front and let you know that I've stared at this for 2 hours and have very little to say about it other than, "Yep. It's abstract macro. That kind of abstract macro." There's not much here to command my attention - even the desire to figure out what the heck it is (it looks like a partial white silk-screened logo on something red). I'm not crazy about the level of noise. Otherwise there's little I can critique because it's so abstract that I can't tell if what I would want to correct or do something about was accidental or intentional. I gave it a 5 because it fit the category and moved on. Obviously I'm not alone in my ambivalence towards this photo when I look at the voting breakdown.

I truly wish that I could give you some kind of real feedback on this. If you'd like to add some information to it other than your full EXIF, like what it is and what you were trying to say with the photo, I'd be happy to try to add some value to this. Otherwise, I'm sorry I couldn't be more constructive. Your "Study In Red" is absolutely lost on me.

Daybreak at Big Bay Lake
by juliannj

Comment:
Critique Club Comment:

First off, let me compliment you on your view!! I'd love to be able to wake up to that every morning. Sunrises tend to disappear much faster than sunsets in my experience, to bravo on capturing a beautiful one.

While the scene is absolutely stunning, there are a few things with how you processed the image that made it less than ideal for me (I was one of your 5's). First off, as Devinder mentioned initially, the reds. They can be notoriously had to tame, especially with flowers, and while you've managed to preserve the details within them, they are certainly over-saturated. I'm also wondering if your color treatment didn't lose some of the wonderful oranges and yellows that are hinted at closer to the horizon? Selective color adjustments are always safer bets here, though a little more time consuming. Without knowing specifically what you did in post it's hard for me to suggest ways to correct or avoid doing this in the future, but beware of the Saturation slider as it can make some colors pop while simultaneously blowing out others.

Compositionally it is fairly sound, though the decking/walk in the bottom left is a little distracting. Were you to crop up from the bottom right corner (you want to save those blues) and land the horizon on the bottom Rule Of Thirds line I believe it removes enough of it to keep it from being a line that leads you away from the subject. One other little nit to pick for me are the vertical lines of the building. Camera angle has given you a slight forward tilt there that it easily corrected with a vertical perspective adjustment tool available in just about every editor.

I hope to see many more beautiful sunrises from you in the future!!

Message edited by author 2014-09-11 10:13:32.

Grand Tetons
by jgirl57

Comment:
Critique Club Comment:

Ah, the Grand Tetons. On my bucket list, for sure.

It's a lovely scene, and as has been pointed out, a very blue one. Probably too blue for me, but obviously others like it. Perhaps a color balance or hue/saturation adjustment to the Blue channel to pull them back just a tad. It's also a little dark for me. Seeing you use Photoshop I'm wondering if you do a levels adjustment as a part of your workflow? As it stands now, the White end of your histogram has about 30 points of unused space, and just bringing that marker over to about 225 from 255 gives you a lot more pop and definition in the dark areas of the mountains. You're also losing some details in the haze in the distance, so maybe play with some contrast curves, or better yet since you have the Nik Collection use Viveza 2 with some Control points to selectively control where you lighten and darken, and boost up some shadows and structure.

While I normally don't like a centerline horizon it works for me here. I tried playing with a different crop, but without having more sky or water to add I can't find something that would work better.

All that's not to say that this isn't a lovely landscape - it is!! I gave it a 7 originally, and with just some lighting adjustments would have scored it higher. As is it just lacks a certain "pop" that I believe you can coax out of it as you refine your post processing skills. I know you've been at this for less than a year, so these skills will come with time. You should certainly be proud of what you were able to do with this one.

Defeated. .....
by Deve

Comment:
Critique Club Comment:

A very stark and honest portrait. You did a wonderful job conveying the circumstances of who he is and what his life condition is at the moment. Sometimes, when people wear their lives so openly, all we need to do is aim the camera and press the shutter button and it's all there - and I believe you were able to do just that. I am reminded very much of a series of homeless portraits done by Michael O'Brien in a book called "Hard Ground".

When shooting portraits getting the eyes sharply in focus is critical, and I find his right eye to be a little soft, likely due to the slight tilt away from the camera. His other eye is perfectly in focus. It's not enough to truly worry about, but it was enough for me to notice.

I'm not a fan of the color treatment or the lighting here. Just way too yellow/amber in the tinting. I love a good sepia or coffee toner on a B&W, but not here, and definitely not to this extent. This screams stark, plain black and white to me. And while I love the direction of the light and the shadows it creates I find that the one side of his face is just blown out a little too much. The hands on a man like this are as important as the eyes, and I think you lost a lot of important details there, from the dirt under his nails to the dryness of his skin. I would have also liked to have seen a little more detail in his eyes - more differentiation between the pupil and the iris.

I think you have a wonderful photo here, but just need to revisit the post-processing. I think with some careful rework it can be something special. And I agree with Devinder, "Defeated" is the antithesis of what this says to me. Perhaps "World-Weary"?