Winter Wonderland
by Everyday Renee

Comment:
In Photoshop 5, I first selected the entire image, then used the Edit>Transform>Perspective tool. This gives you handles like the crop or scale tool, but is not contrained to a rectangle. I dragged the bottom handles directly sideways until the two main posts appeared parallel (109.4% of the original width). I then cropped the excess background this steps created. Unfortunately, I then noticed it needed about a 1 degree rotation; I try to always combine the crop and rotate steps by rotating the crop rectangle. Because this created more unwanted background, I just added a thick stroke in a contrasting color (not the one I'd recommend, but one you can see!) instead of cropping further.
(Tick ... tick ... tick ...)
OK, that border looked pretty bad (I'm leaving it on the thumbnail so you can see) so I've selected the border with the magic wand, feathered the selection 8 pixels two times, then filled the resultant selection with white to create (what I hope is) a frosty effect, and then added a couple of pixels of black around the outside to make it show up on a white display page.

I've also been a little sloppy today, and have been re-saving the image in JPEG instead of Photoshop or TIFF format, so I'm sorry if the image quality has gone down a bit.

Avian Contours
by ScottK

Comment:
A good idea; looks a little bit oversharpened, creating a slight halo on the top/back.

Ornate
by Spanish_Grease

Comment:
Creative use of refraction, reminiscent of the classic vase/face double image.

Tree Forms
by stuart

Comment:
I have a shot of something like this .. they have both great shapes and textures.

Winter Wonderland
by Everyday Renee

Comment:
I agree this looks like a winter "stock photo" in the best sense -- I could easily see it on a greeting card or CD cover (I have one with a similar image I'll post when I can). Since it's not for a DPC entry, I wonder if you might want to try using a perspective-correction to make the two posts vertical, and even out the size of the windowpanes on the right.

The Torch Of Freedom
by GeneralE

Comment:

Originally posted by TooCool: Finally, the thing I like best about it is that you tried something totally different from all the other shots I've seen. You showed great originality here. Unfortunately, here if it's new and it ain't dang near perfect, it's not gonna get much of a reception. TC

A fine review, and I've decided I can live with the low technical scores, if a few people can see past them to "get" the underlying idea.

Thanks!

$20.00 to the first person to correctly guess what these are. One guess per comment.
by GolferDDS

Comment:
Looks kinda like the hubs of audio cassette tapes, but I don't think that's quite it ....

Drink Coca-Cola
by tomlewis1980

Comment:
That might be what happens to your eyes after downing a six-pack.

Morning Shroud
by Imagineer

Comment:
On my monitor the sky looks a little over-exposed, but it's a nice capture of the mist. Personally, I'd play with various Curve settings in Photoshop to see if I could bring out some sun rays, probably darkening the whole thing some.

Angelic?!
by RiderGal

Comment:
On my monitor her nose looks a little too bright. With the extreme effect you have here, I'd want to try further experimentation, such as applying a canvas filter to make it look painted, or layering it with a picture of some nice fluffy clouds at a low opacity level.