Rasa Sentosa
by Retroesque

Comment:
Very effective image - feels so bright and sunny. Almost sci-fi in its feel.

Coral Bean
by Ja-9

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club:

Hi Janine - nice to get another of yours from the queue.

This is certainly a full-on colour image! For me the technicals are pretty good (with a single caveat - see below) but I'm probably with the camp that subscribes to sometimes less is more. Having said that, I respect the way in which the images delivers the vision you had for the image (and indeed an interpretation of the challenge brief).

The technical caveat is the loss of detail in the highlights - we can see the detail in some of the upper petals and it seems a shame to see them disappear towards the lower part of the image where the harsh sun has topped out your histogram. I don't think you should have been shy of losing the background a little to black to preserve the highlights with your exposure - having the magenta emerge from a darker green/black would have been just as effective.

I don't normally like borders but this one is well picked.

Best regards

Paul

Spring is in the air
by docjonny

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club:

This is a pretty picture - no doubt about it. Full of vibrant colours. I like the central flowers the best.

There are aspects of your processing I like and some that I think don't work so well. I like the glow but not the prominent haloing. I like the detail / low contrast in the flowers but not so much in the background - I think a bit more contrast there would have helped. I also think your most prominent highlights are a little problematical.

The overall net effect is certainly positive though and it gave you a good placing in the challenge.

Paul

strawberries and cream
by disassociation

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club:

I think this is a pretty well executed shot that probably deserved to do better in voting. You achieved pretty good focus on the dropping strawberry and you offered up a good splash phase too.

There is room for improvement though - the cream is rather greenish in colour and could be corrected; was the bowl green?

Socom's observation about the reuse of the strawberry is a good one and certainly the cream-filled pits of the strawberry detracts from its vibrancy. There's still some movement unsharpness in the cream, I'd like to offer some advice on how to freeze that but my knowledge of flash work is miniscule. I wonder about your aspect ratio too - there does seem to be some spare real estate outside of the area of interest that you might have used to better effect.

Overall though, this is a very good effort.

Paul

Morning flight
by Abra

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club:

I think this is a really nicely made and attractive image. I also think it deserved better score-wise. I'm really surprised you called it pretty bang-on.

I enjoyed your notes - and how your explain your intent.

I like how you've captured the reflection of the sun in a succession of curves and you've managed to catch the birds in juxtaposition and I think the degree of motion blur is perfectly judged.

Your five 1s surprise me - there's nothing here to dislike, I can only think some people thought it was DNMC. I certainly don't agree.

There's not a lot I can offer by way of a critique since I would change a thing.

Paul

Waves of Sping
by luckyluciano

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club:

Well done for entering your first image on DPC! I see you have a second image submitted to, so you're on your way.

As for this image, I agree with your commenters (and you) that the image is soft to a problematical extent. I do like the light though, especially the way in which it adds an edging effect to the leaf. I also like your choice of aspect ratio too - it works well.

It terms of meeting the challenge - I'm not sure that this is the best match; I suppose I had expectations that the subject would stand out from the background as a consequence of its colour. Here, the constant colour across the frame has the opposite effect - though I do concede that excellent edging provides some much need contrast.

Overall, I quite like the idea behind the image although I think your already know the execution isn't quite there.

I'll be interested to see how you do with the next submission.

Best of luck

Paul

Thinking
by heida

Comment:
Spectacular! Great juxtapositioning.

R E D
by ScooterMcNutty

Comment:
Really pleased this ribboned - very well made.

Warmth
by equanimity

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club:

Well done for entering your first image in a DPC challenge. I like idea of this image, your notes explain your intention well. The idea is a third of the job with the other two thirds being execution and presentation.

Execution: Focus-wise, this image struggles - I'm not sure what's caused this lack of focus but you've missed it by quite some margin. Working with an aperture of f/5.6 doesn't give you a huge depth of field at short object to camera distances so the tolerance for missing the focus is small.

I'm not sure why you are set to 1600ISO, although I can't see any evidence of noise, with a shutter speed of 1/2500, you have plenty of margin there to bring both down.

Compositionally, the basics are there but as you commenters have said either include all of the flower or go closer; here it just looks like a petal has been carelessly clipped. I suspect that you might have been inside your lens's minimum focussing distance so pulling back a bit would help with composition and focus.

Exposure wise it's tricky high contrast lighting and although it isn't optimal on the screen, I don't think you're so far away that you couldn't pull it back in software.

Presentation: (Post processing): Not sure what tools you have access to here but doing some highlight recovery and adding some tonal contrast to the petals would help the overall quality of the image. Having said that, with an image this unsharp this alone wouldn't make much difference - you need to raw material first.

Good luck with your next entry.

Paul

Palm trees at sunset
by topdog

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club:

Well, you certainly made an impact with this one and actually I think the overall scene you shot was a good choice for this challenge. I can even buy the centred composition with the trees eclipsing the setting sunlight.

However, your processing is a different matter entirely - sure it's obvious that this must've been the look you were going for but that doesn't explain the choice - the end result is ugly and more than slightly ruinous of your nice scene. I think people have little tolerance for seeing good shots ruined.

Your other comments are right, halos and fringing are pretty much pathognomonic of badly applied HDR. Having made that choice, you're living with the results.

Of course, if you like the look then carry on but if you want higher scores you'll need to accept that your images have an audience other than yourself and unlike you they do get to vote on your images.

Now, there is a whole subculture on DPC of supporting alternative and disruptive images and playing to that crowd can be fun but even there, with this shot - you'll struggle to win admirers.

However, as I said before - if you're just shooting for yourself then carry on, that's admirable in itself and after all, it is your image.

Paul