Bad hair day
by Arti-Elvi

Comment:
Ooh, gorgeous and creepy all at once! I'm thinking you're going to ribbon with this one, dear.

In Dreamsville
by oOWonderBreadOo

Comment:
Wow, great color and clarity on the flowers! People may comment on the blown areas, but I frankly think they help add that dreamy element you were going for. I wonder about the color on your hair though, it looks a little blue. Overall, great shot - I ranked this rather high.

Fall From the Sky
by steinar

Comment:
Besides apparently being just adorable, the photo is very rock star. Congratulations on a fantastic shot - this is my pick to win. :-)

Emu Eggs
by pointandshoot

Comment:
I hope this one does well. I like the texture and the richness of color, and the lighting seems to be just right.

Playing for Jesus
by Gunnsi

Comment:
Hi Gunnar!

As a portrait, I like this quite a bit. The concentration on the model's face is lovely. A bit more sharpness would be nice, and a crop that doesn't cut off the end of the cello at the right. I am also not crazy about the color of the border. I appreciate and agree with the impulse rein the photo in with a frame, but I think the mahoghany color pulled from the cello was the wrong choice since it's too warm of a tone against a cold gray. I slightly darker gray would have done the job and remained unobtrusive, I think. That said, I didn't really feel like this totally met the challenge. The girl is obviously the main character, while the cross in the background isn't even in focus. The "Holy Place" is too much of a supporting player when it should have the lead role.

Virtudes Angelicales
by yanko

Comment:
Hi Richard,

I was glad that this had been validated by the time I got around to voting. It looks like something out of a comic book. The scene looks like there was quite a bit of NI action going on. It's not a bad thing, I think, just one of those things where I'm trying to figure out how things were done! The only thing I have to critique here is that I'm not crazy about the gray/green against purple. I don't object to the purple sky at all, but something about the color combination puts me off a little. That's the best I can come up with, heh! Nice work :-)

St. James arriving to the temple
by alexgarcia

Comment:
Hi Alex!

This looks like a beautiful old church (basilica?)! No one does it quite like the Europeans, I think. Excellent choice of subject here. I like the aged b/w treatment.

There are some blown highlights on the face of the building and I think it's a diffuser or a polarizer that would help with that? I honestly don't remember which since I don't own that sort of equipment at this point. I wish I could see the top of the temple or, as an alternative, see a tighter crop with less height - at least then it would look like a more deliberate choice, less like you just ran out of camera space. In the lower left there's a darker gray strip of road or sidewalk that is a little distracting, I don't think anything would be lost by cropping it out.

C.H.I.C.A.G.O.
by DigiFotoBuddy

Comment:
Hi Shailesh from Rebecca of your CTP2 group!

Ahh, Chicago... I'm almost but not really from there, and seeing that familiar skyline tugs at my heart ;-)

I like the reflection on the water, subtle but very nice. The image isn't quite sharp, and I wonder if the tripod was shaking a bit? Chicago isn't called the Windy City for nothing. I would have moved the vantage to the right just a touch, so the CPD-lit building on the right border isn't cut off at all, and so the Sears Tower at the left side is a little closer to that border without touching it. I would crop out some of the sky so that there is the same amount of sky above the Sears Tower as there is water in the bottom of the photo, to give it a more balanced, panoramic feel. There is also a fair bit of noise visible in the sky, so a pass through NI to clean that up wouldn't hurt.

Seattle Temple
by margiemu

Comment:
Hi Margie from Rebecca of your CTP2 group!

This photo reminds me of nothing so much as a 1960s era photo postcard. The colors seem just slightly off in exactly that direction. The temple is a bit bland, the sky a bit too light and turquoise. The image looks rather flat, so a bit of contrast might help punch things up. It looks like a better vantage point might have been slightly to the right to get the branches out of the way, which you already know is hindering the shot. But the real killer here I think is the oversharpening. Someone else pointed out the fringing around the branches, and they're absolutely right. That halo/fringe effect is the best thing for you to look for when trying to sharpen an image. If you see it, turn it down. If the sharpening was done in-camera, look for that setting in the menu functions and turn it down a notch, then do your sharpening manually in PP.

park tryst
by blackenedwhite

Comment:
Greetings from Rebecca of your CTP2!

First, I will tell you that the color and tone is really nice. I liked that this was the rare shot with people in it.

However, I still think that the lamp is very distracting and would have cropped it out. Maybe even better would have been taking up a position more to the left, slightly in front of the couple and excluding the lamp.

It's a shame that there was so much motion in the shot, but I wonder if a shutter speed just one click faster might have helped a bit? I don't think that a slightly darker photo would have hurt the scene. But mostly I think it would have been better to use some models instead of attempting a night candid. They're near impossible.

A more expansive comment than the one I left during voting, eh? ;-)