Blue Lagoon
by marbo

Comment:
Very cool. I love the blue in combination with the IR plants. This would've done well in that fantasy world challenge. Might crop just a hair off the bottom so the grass doesn't over dominate.

Old and New
by Gabriel

Comment:
Great shot. I like the colors in this much better than the one that placed second in the old & new challenge.

The Professor
by arlanbart

Comment:
Kindof cute, but the border is really ugly, which detracts a lot. Also, mind your highlights. I know it's tough with black dogs, but the blown highlights are very distracting.

Classic portrait
by carodani

Comment:
Perhaps a little oversharpened.

Together Forever
by 3DsArcher

Comment:
Composition is fine and the birds are wonderfully colorful, but you've got some wierd compression artifacts or something. There seems to be a strange haze around the branches and on the left sides of the birds and some other wierd patterns, which on the whols gives it the effect of seeming a little out of focus at first glance.

Pigeon Headed
by briantammy

Comment:
This doesn't really do much for me, as the brigtness in the lower left draws the eye away from what might otherwise be an interesting silhouette.

Take Me To Your Leader.....
by espy2

Comment:
After reading your thread, I've been eagerly waiting to see your photo. To be completely honest, I have to agree with the commenters and I hope you'll read why:

Firstly, blurring is not the same as shallow depth of field. Shallow depth of field uses a wide aperture to achieve an image with a very short bit of the distance from the camera in focus. Blurring to make one part of your image in focus and the rest not is not shallow depth of field, it's just blurring things as it has nothing to do with how far those things were from the camera when the image was taken. For that reason, I agree that trying to fake a shallow depth of field in post (using any method) does not meet the challenge. The key word here is depth.

Secondly, the challenge and the rules are two separate things (which is exactly why "does not meet challenge" is not grounds for DQ). Just because something is allowed does not mean it should be used to great extents, i.e. to the extent of creating the challenge subject. I could use duotone to create a green and red image of a blueberry, but people might not think that it met the challenge in that complimentary colors challenge we had a while back.

Third, it is possible to fake shallow depth of field well in photoshop or other programs. I don't think it's really a spirited way to go about meeting the challenge, but if someone can fake a shallow depth of field well enough that no one knows, I think it's a little sneaky and not really in the spirit of learning that prevails on this site, but more power to them. However, if someone fakes shallow depth of field badly OR uses post to create something that isn't shallow depth of field, I would certainly vote them lower in a challenge about shallow depth of field.

Fourth, even after reading all our arguments, you obviously disagree about what meets the challenge here. That's fine, but everyone, both you and the rest of us, is entitled to their interpretation of the challenge. When submitting on DPC you have to understand that not everybody will interpret things the way you do. The photos that fair best are usually those that follow what one might call the majority interpretation. You can't be upset because your interpretation does not fall into the majority interpretation. You just have to accept that you're out of the box and take the lower score in interest of art, or you have to buck up and do something that appeals to the masses. Why do you think scores are generally bell curves with a normal distribution? Because no two people have the exact same opinion of a photo, but the majority tend toward something similar.

Fifth, you state below that "The reason for advanced editing rules in this specific challenge was due to camera's like my own in which aperture only opens so far, and minimal dof is near impossible to acsertain." How do you know why this challenge was run under advanced editing? All member challenges are advanced editing. And by the way, your camera opens up to F/2.8, which is plenty wide.

Lastly, I don't mean to be rude here, but I find it rather pathetic that you marked only compliments as helpful below. You even said in your rant thread that you had no problem with people thinking the blur was done badly. If eight people told me I had done a bad job with the blur tool, I would certainly find that helpful. If you can't handle constructive criticism, you need to reevaluate your participation here.

All that said, below is the comment you would have gotten from me if I had voted on this challenge (I would have made no assumptions about post, but worked from the definition of shallow depth of field):

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This doesn't look like a shallow depth of field to me. You've got objects in focus at a range of distances from the camera (tree, fence, girl in red, pointy silver thing). A shallow depth of field isolates subjects at a specific distance from the camera. Additionally, I find that the silver pointy thing, particularly the bit in focus distracts from the girl who is the main subject, because the silver thing is so very bright and much of the girl's head is in shadow.

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edit: typo

Message edited by author 2006-01-23 09:55:34.

A Toast to the Kids of the World
by JPR

Comment:
The thing above/behind his head is distracting and would be easy to clone out.

guard rails
by Zenjohn

Comment:
I'm not sure if it's over processing or what, but this almost doesn't look like a photo to me, more like a computer illustration.

Let Your Soul and Spirit Fly
by Elemmennope

Comment:
Now you've got the song stuck in my head...

The focus seems a little soft on the sort of partially fallen tree in the middle, which is a little distracting, but for the most part this shot works pretty well. I do find the white line in the border extremely distracting though.