The Blue Lagoon
by oskar

Comment:
Compositionally strong - that open space leads into the lagoon and the mountain nicely. The slight wide-angle element really helpes this - a classic approach, but always effective. A minor point, but I wonder if you couldn't have framed things a little better - take the mountain more to the left of frame say, and perhaps that foreground lump to the right, to add a diagonal line to the image as well? What this sufferes from, to my mind, is a lack of detail, and that hurts it quite a bit: whether it's from re-sizing, or your camera, or compression, or over-sharpening, or just the original image is impossible to tell, but something has made most of the foreground very blocky (small blocks, but still ...) and that would be the element you need to add to get this shot seriously amongst the high scores. It's odd, because the sky feels like it still has good detail. I think you've pushed the exposure just too far, also - the highlights have 'gone', and that might well be contributing to that lack of detail also. It's good though - despite those points - and without more information impossible to really suggest how things might be improved.

Old Warhorse
by dpdave

Comment:
The detailing around the shaded part of the bonnet is very good - smoothness of texture, and interesting graphic elements; I really think you would score better if you'd found a way to fill the frame with the truck, rather than having that small area of background present - it's that that stops this from being a study of shapes and lines, and makes it become partly something else - confuses the image.

Blossoms And The First Lady Of Spring
by prbetts

Comment:
She takes a little while to notice, does her ladyship. Mightn't it have been possible to bring her colour out a touch more, without disrupting the realism of this nicely shot scene.

Going to school
by kevrobertson

Comment:
This has strengths - real strengths that I suspect will get overlooked. Strong compositionally, strong tonality. Did you try it with a b/w or toned conversion? I would have thought it would allow the blokcy shapes of the walls and skyline to be less confised by their colours, and would not have harmed the magic in the sky. Love the balance of this composition.

K F L
by egillbjarki

Comment:
Light, tones, detail, and a composition that works strongly. Nothing to criticise, really. Just enough light into eyes to bring out colour.

A House in the Country
by dahkota

Comment:
I think i'd have tried some selective sharpening on that house - it could usefully just pop out of the image a little more? I'm no fan of the extreme nature of your darkening of the sky - have you tried using a threshold mask to achieve this effect - it allows the joins to be so much less noticeable? marvellous composition though, and with that little extra punch to match the processing I think it might have been a contender: I think you could use more contrast and lightness in the grass, and there's that overall sense of blurriness also. Close, but doesn't quite do it for me.

Stand Up
by maxj

Comment:
Great depth of field effect - though perhaps, given your title, you might have wanted to deepen it a touch to include those bits that actually are up? I think they pull the attention from the fabulous detail of the pollen bits. Excellent combination of the abstract in the bokeh and the perfect in the detail.

Change of Weather
by Jean

Comment:
Lacking some of that real ping of sharpness - camera? processing? can't tell - and perhaps some real sweep of tonality - seems pretty washed out, overall: those visible tops of the mountains could have more impact, to emphasise the mist, and the water could be toned down some, and it's a shame that all detail has gone from the sky. It's a good still scene, with real potential - but, certainly for this kind of orthodox beauty, it really needs to have that technical perfection to complete the impact.

Never Take Eye Off
by 123take

Comment:
Good shot - and I like the overall tonality in this too. The thing that bugs me more than anything is the sharpening halo around the figure and the island in the distance ... if this is from USM, then I might point out that it took me ages to realise that you can use values below 1 for the radius - like 0.6 - and this makes so much difference it's untrue. A shame the bright bit of sky is so blown, but really hard to deal with, that stuff.

Chick
by Pixelstate

Comment:
Beautifully detailed, and controlled tones too. Fine work. Background just a little dominant? Could have been muted more? And I wonder if, for a dpc audience, it wouldn't want for a little contrast - just to give a fraction more punch to the colours and the fine textures. I like it muted though - but the background, personally, I would have dealt with - just a touch, unnoticeably (hopefully).