With and Without
by bbright

Comment:
From the Critique Club:

Very nice composition! Different take on the challenge! I like these things. You also got a nice focal point and the shallow DOF works well with the bare flower being slightly out of focus.

This shot however is kinda flat. It just doesn't have any punch. I think that this could be improved by boosting up the saturation a touch. I would also play around with the midtone contrast. This can be done very easily with a curves layer.

Why didn't it score very well? I thing part of it is explained above. The other part is probably because this is a flower challenge and people were expecting to see the actual blooms. This doesn't have any blooms and probably got marked down because of it.

Keep shooting!
Yours
TC

Lion eyes...
by Hawkeye

Comment:
From the Critique Club:

This is a very nice shot from a compositional point of view! I love the way you decided to center it on the eyes! That's a very powerful tool in shots like this.

Now I know that this was a Straight from the Camera challenge, but this could use some very simple improvements as far as camera settings. The first thing I noticed is it is rather un-saturated. I mean the colors are very flat. Your camera SHOULD have a profiles that you can set to increase or decrease the amount of saturation in the shot. You should also find that you can change the amount of in camera sharpening (for jpegs), contrast and hue. Bumping up the sharpness and contrast would also do much for this type of shot.

Your shot is also a little small. There is a tutorial here on the site that will help you maximize the size and filesize of your shots for entering into the challenges.

Hope some of this helps out.
Yours
TC

Nikki1.jpg
by ltlmschrisss

Comment:
I would also crop out the bright object top left. Next time you may wanna use your flash for outdoor shots like this to get a little catchlight in the eyes. Makes them look more alive!
TC

Locking away my emotions behind these ten bars...
by acrotide

Comment:
IMHO a tad too dark but very nice in it's subtlety!
TC

Who Left the Dog Tied to the Back Bumper?
by hyperfocal

Comment:
The title kinda sucks though I like the shot...
TC

Northen Winds
by graphicfunk

Comment:
Looks a little oversharpened and undersaturated... Too bad you are getting the anti-American vote...
TC

10 with the future ahead of her
by joynim

Comment:
Needs catchlights... Her eyes look alittle dull as is...
TC

Station 10
by Cam

Comment:
The ten is a very minor part of this shot...
TC

Ripe Buds on the Stem
by cloudsme

Comment:
More than ten! ;-)
TC

Zinedine and William
by jjbeguin

Comment:
LOL... The most captivating part of this pic is the girl staring into the camera! I would have tried to crop out the lone knee at the bottom of the shot but that's a sniglet! Nice capture. Love the girl looking back!
TC