The Spot
by ltaylor

Comment:
Critique Club Review:

Color, saturation, and hue are done well. Focus and depth of field are very good.

The green grass in the foreground competes with the rest of the image a bit.

As this is an advanced edititng challege, I would suggest removing the foreground grass that breaks up the smooth lines of the foreground shore, and the objects in the water (bouys?) that are distractions.

The fisherman looks a little oversharpened. There looks to be some sort of processing artifact along his shorts that makes him almost "photo shopped" in.

Overall a very nice photo.

Simply Pastels...
by talikf

Comment:
Critique Club Review:

A simple but elegant response to the challenge.

Color, saturation, hue, lighting, exposure, brightness, and contrast are all great.

Focus is good, and I particularly like the way you have used depth of field to keep the eye from being drawn away from the subject and off the top of the frame. Yet at the same time there is enough detail there, so the viewer is not left wishing for more.

A very nice touch was the crumbled chalk being added to the trails to give the picture a little extra texture.

Excellent job and a well deserved score.

Autumn Breeze
by TUBORG

Comment:
Critique Club Review:

This is an outstanding photo. Probably the only thing that kept you from winning a ribbon is the image didn't meet the challenge. Some would argue that, challenge criteria shouldn't be a factor. Fact of life is that it is in many voters minds. However, that being said I still would not base my total vote on challenge criteria.

The lighting, color, contrast, saturation, hue, exposure, focus, depth of field, heck.... everything about this image is done extremely well.

About the only thing in this image I find distracting it the objects in the air to the left of the woman. They seem a bit oversharpened, appears to be a halo from processing around them. Minor, but there.

One last thing, is that the grass gives away the fact that it is not windy after all. It takes a while to notice, but then there is that "Aha!" moment.

Still an excellent image. One I could see hanging on my wall, and should have been a ribbon winner elsewhere. I didn't vote in this challenge. If I had it would have been a 9. 10 -1 for not meeting challenge.

Friendly Gathering
by DelRioPhoto

Comment:
Critique Club Review:

Focus is good. Depth of field is used to advantage to isolate the flower petals from distractions in the background.

Color, saturation, and hue are good. Lighting is a bit uncontrolled. Areas on the petals are burned out in the highlights, leaving no color and no detail.

The edge blur helps focus attention towards the center of the frame, but doesn't seem to be evenly applied. The right side of the frame appears to be sharp clear to the edge. The left, is more soft.

Interesting image.

Drip
by freakin_hilarious

Comment:
Critique Club Review:

Color, saturation, hue, lighting, are all excellent.

Focus is lazer sharp. Depth of field is a little shallow as shown by the blur on the end of the drop.

The picture is a little under exposed for my taste. It makes the pastels a little dark. I would have liked to have seen details on the brush bristles all the way down. They appear to dissapear into the black background a little above the bristles.

Very nice composition, and staging. I really enjoyed this picture.

Sweet Tart Spill
by Kaveran

Comment:
Critique Club Review:

Lighting, color, saturation, hue, exposure, contrast, and brightness are all well done.

Focus is very good. Depth of field is good.

The drawbacks here are, the cup tends to become indistinct against the background, especially on the upper left. And, the one that cost you votes, no pastels. Although you made the colors light and bright, they are still not pastels.

Most voters vote quality of picture, and how the picture meets the challenge. Some people rail against having a good picture voted lower because it just didn't fit the challenge. Unfortunately, this is not the way the voters tend to think. And personally, I agree. The idea of a challenge, is to be challenged by the subject. Otherwise we would have anarchy and week after week of free studies.

This is a good picture, and unfortunately it suffered from being in the wrong challenge.

The World Through a Bubble
by Schuff

Comment:
Critique Club Review:

Cool picture!

This is definetly a shot where the sum is greater than the total of the parts. Two worked definetly better than one, and I think three or more would have been a less pleasing composition.

Saturation, color, lighting, hues, compositon, are all very good.

I'm not sure there is anyplace else in the frame you could put the bubbles and look better. Yes, they are a bit centered. But given the two, and the size needed to appreciate the detail in the reflections, this is about what you had to do.

I would suggest darkening the light highlight to the left of the frame. It does distract from the bubbles a bit, and would be allowable under advanced edtiting rules. Also the background behind the right bubble goes a bit dark to be that big.

All in all, I lke this picture a lot! Very creative!

Soft and pastel
by marvin

Comment:
Critique Club Review:

As you have already noted, your lack of a tripod hurt you in this one.

I'd have to agree with others, there doesn't appear to be a point of interest. The sharpest area is along the lower left, and then it appears to have edges that are bit overly defined in the green areas, almost over sharpening. (Could be optical illusion.)

Was this after a storm, or dry period? The flowers look like they are distressed, either from a storm or wilting from drought or age.

Along with a tripod, I would suggest plucking dead brown and dying blooms. Unless it is a mood piece on sorrow or death, flowers usually are accepted best when bright and healthy.

Pastel Still Life
by DigiFotoBuddy

Comment:
Critique Club Review:

Focus is good, depth of feild could have been shallower. I keep thinking if the glasses had been isolated from the paper by a shallow depth of field, the attention would be more focused on the glasses, and the lines would seem to come from nowhere.

Good positioning of the glasses and camera to get the lines where you wanted.

Is there really much that hasn't been done before with a camera? The question only becomes have we seen it done before, and how well does this compare? The wheel has been reinvented many times in many places by photographers around the world.

The color comes across as a little dark for my tastes. A bit brighter would more fit a pastel challenge, in my mind.

Congratulations on making the upper half of the class.

Silence
by Arti-Elvi

Comment:
Critique Club Review:

Wow! Drop dead beat me with a stick WOW!

The one and only thing I can find in this picture is the closest fingers on the hand are a little over exposed. It is hard to find the fingernail on the closest finger.

This is an amazing shot, and I could see it on a billboard advertisement for Apple's iPod or some mp3 player.

Just amazing, and one of the finest pictures I have ever seen on this site. The pose, the compostion, the flower pot, and the expression of the model are just magic.