Delightfully Psychotic Cyclists
by Melethia

Comment:
Trading Post -

A shame that the focus isnt sharper on this one. The angle/lean is good and the colors are nice. Cloning out the cyclist in the very back would have given you a clean sharp line with the other 3 cyclists. But the big issue is focus. Keep working with your lens and I know you will be doing better soon.

Documenting Predatory Chicks
by tngrndream

Comment:
Trading posts -

Did the parent robins damage you at all? I have been attacked several times by these vicious birds just from walking close to a tree with a nest in it. I gave you a 6 on this one. I think the title with the pic was kind of funny. You have pretty good sharpness on the birds and the colors on them are nice. The hsot overall seems a bit too bright. Some burning work on the nest could have toned down the brightness of it. A slightly darker feel would have been nice. I dont know whats on either side of the nest but a slightly wider crop on the sides and the top cropped down a bit more may have helped as well. The grass and bush seem saturated a bit too much and dont do much for the shot. I think you have a good shot here and with a little more refined processing you could have done much better. I still think you scored too low on this one.

Dad's Patricide Comedy
by chalice

Comment:
Trading Post -

First off - if you had lost the glasses and we couldhave seen your eyes your score would have been higher IMO. It looks as though you have them bugging out great but they are hidden by the shades and the bad reflection in them. A different background would have helped as well. One solid piece without the division and stepping away from it a bit would have been nice. THere is also an odd yellow color cast. Maybe the lighting that you used. I give you kudos on the shot ingeneral as self portraits can be challenging. You got pretty good focus on your face. As a movie poster shot - I am on the fence on that one.

Dirty Pond Crisis (A documentary on the effects of water pollution on fish)
by Kelli

Comment:
Trading POst -

Hmmmmm. I guess congrats on the brown. To be honest I don't think this was the worst shot inthe challenge. The worst was (deleted title). But I will admit this wasn't that great. The water definitley looks polluted, but the fishies seem to be hanging in well. The fish arent really in nice positions in the frame. The color is blah ( I know - it is supposed to be brown). THere just wasnt much to make me want to look at it for any longer than it took me to find a number to vote it. Hope that isnt too harsh. But again - you ahve a brown - and thats better than a DQ. Hang in there - it can only get better.

levels
by dockie

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club -

At first glance I had a hrad time figuring out what I was looking at. Upon realizing what it is I see that you have a cool angle on this stairwell. The rotation works really well to make me wonder.

Beyond that I think my biggest issue with this shot is the focus. This may be a result of the image not being the maximum size the site allows. A loss of 160 pixels can make a huge difference on the focus of the shot. THere is a tutorial somewhere on this site on how to Save for Web that would give you thebest bang per buck on pixels for challenge entries.

Your lines, lighting and shadows all work good on this shot. The geometric perspective is cool and fits the challenge. Either more crop on the right or less on theleft would have brought the shot more into balance. Abit too much dead space on the right compared to the left.

Hope these help. Congrats ona personal best and I hope you see many more.

Tim

Thundering Hooves
by shphotography

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club -

I will begin by saying that you have some beautiful scenery to be working with up there. Unfortunately there are some issues with this shot.

First off - the shot is soft overall. A sharper focus on a horse would have been nice. I realize they are all running but separation between the middle two would have been good as well. If you were able to find them spaced in a more balanced way the shot would have been more effective. The colors are a bit flat as well. Upping saturation on blues and greens may have increased the background colors without affecting the colors on the horses much at all.

As far as meeting the challenge it may have been a bit of a stretch in my opinion. A side angle on the horses allowing you to se ethe hooves more may have brought it closer.

Looking at your portfolio you have some very nice shots. The man and horse series are beautiful. It can be hard shooting for challenges especially in basic editing mode. Keep going at it and your scores will go up as you grow and learn.

Tim

Reflections
by Qiki

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique CLub -

Now this is one cool shot. I have no personal experience with long shutter speeds so from that technical point of view I cant make anyt serious comments outside of the fact that whatever you did worked really well. The lines in the reflection are pretty wild.

Your detail and focus on the cityscape is very nice. A part of me thinks that it might be just a tad bit better had you cropped a little more on the left hand side or had some extra space on the right. It feels a bit off balance with the building on the far right and nothing on the left to counter it. But overall this is just nitpicking on my part - I think you have a tremendous shot and so did the DPC audience.

Well done and congrats on your top 20 placement.

Tim

Days Gone By
by msdoubletrouble

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique CLub -

I think you have an interesting main subject. The tricycle has some good character to it. Unfortunately it seems lost among the irises. I think that a closer cro on the left to get rid of the flowers would have helped bring the focus to the trike. Maybe even a higher angle for the shot instead of looking straight on would have helped as well. I want to see the trike more so than the flowers or the greenery.

From a focus/sharpness point of view there seems to be something funky going on. The picture overall has an odd texture to it (if that makes any sense). Even the blurred background feels off but I dont know why. A slight bump up in saturation, especially on the trike would have been nice I think. Even a bit more on the green as most of the colors seem a bit flat. More light may have taken care of this as well.

THere are alot of different textures, lines and shapes going on. I think the composition is just a bit too busy. Isolating the trike more would have given you a higher score I believe.

You have some nice work in your portfolio and I look froward to seein gmore of your entries inthe future.

Tim

Fuzzy Five
by sammigurl

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club -

You have a very interesting pic here. At first I wasn't sure what it was but that didnt really matter to me. This has a funky feel to it and works pretty good as a macro shot.

The colors are wild and I think they work well with the composition. THey attack the eyes when you open it up and thats ok. I think my biggest issue with this overall is the focus on the fuzzy five and the yellow inderneath. A crisper focus I believe would have helped them to stand out better. Maybe even a slight desat on the background to give a little bit more separation on the main subject and its background. It just seems a bit too blurry for me. Possibly a little bit of burning to bring out the shadow lines in the background may have been nice as well. Increase the BG texture without really adding any major detail.

The off cenetered position works really well IMO. And the shapes of the flower are very cool. Overall you have a nice shot here. I think some slight changes in postprocessing could have raised your score up a bit more.

Looking at your portfolio I can comfortably say that you have alot of potential here and I really look forward to seeing your future work.

Tim

Forget Something?
by ecdillon

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club -

Let me begin first by saying "lol". I have been to many Renaissance fests and don't remember ever seeing something like this.

Now on to the comments. I think that the front two characters draw away from the one I belive you want to be the focus. At first reading the title my eyes go right to the front two and then I wonder how they correlate. It makes sense once I see the third character but he is secondary. I think if you had made the pantsless man a layer and everything else a layer, dropped the saturation on the everything else layer and kept the colors and sharpness on pantsless man the shot would have been different. It would have put the focus on the person you wanted. The front two people just dont seem to have anything to do with the other and thus takes away from the impact of no pants.

Beyond that - your layer work looks pretty good. The blur and desat is a good balance to the main characters. Its not painfully obvious that you did this work. Its just enough. The focus could have been a bit sharper on pantsless man. I think your score suffered because of the composition and the candid feel. Its too much of a snapshot to really do well in a Free Study. I do expect that most everyone who looked at this got a chuckle, which may have been your primary goal. Success comes in many forms. Goo dluck in your future entries.

Tim