Acid wash
by Melethia

Comment:
Ridiculous score. At least PH liked it :) I didn't get chance to vote or even look at this challenge, but I find it hard to believe this was only a middle of the pack sort of image.

In the Dugout
by Ja-9

Comment:
Shame Janine, it was a nice image, but yeah, definite vignette.

Court 6
by Melethia

Comment:
No way! How on earth did this only get a 5.4? I give up

Luminous
by Cuttooth

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club

First impressions: This is a nice wide angle cityscape and it works well in black and white.

One of your commenters noted that this is spoilt by too much noise removal followed by sharpening. I have to say, I am in agreement with that comment.

Compositionally I am not so keen on the centred horizon. I do find I would like more foreground for this composition.

I'm not 100% convinced about the border, but can see why you may have chosen to use it. You have the benefit of having seen the image without, so I presume in your mind it looks better with.

I'm afraid this is probably not helping you much.

Sarah

Elizabeth - The Darker Years
by Alicia

Comment:
Have absolutely no idea why this did not score much higher. I thought it was excellent Alicia. Well done on a good score, but I thought it would have done a lot better.

I AM LEGO
by rinac

Comment:
Rina, well done on the ribbon. This is awesome.

Luminous
by Cuttooth

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club

Picking up a few to do just before rollover is not a good idea! A little bit rushed so I will come back to this in a few minutes after rollover.

Sarah

The River Walk
by picklenose

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club

I like the composition of this very much. The lovely footpath leads you through the image very nicely.

As several others have noted, the image feels rather soft. I'm not sure why, if it's due to a little bit of camera shake or .. For some subjects I think it's fine to be soft, but this really does need to be sharp.

As far as exposure goes, it's a bit challenging because it's obviously a rather high contrast scene to start with. It makes it difficult to get detail in the shadowy parts without blowing out the highlights to much. I don't know what editing software you use, but in PS you can open a JPEG image in Camera Raw. The slider named fill light can work well to bring back details in the darker areas. I find I use that often to help shots that are a little underexposed.

I do not precisely know why this did not score higher, I think the composition is lovely. Sorry if I did not help much.

Sarah


Message edited by author 2010-05-10 00:33:36.

Early Morning Light
by Ja-9

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club

First impressions. This is a nice scene that works quite well in black & white.

Compositionally, I would like to see a bit of a wider angle here, although I think to achieve a wider angle (to include some more of the water to the left) may have resulted in a swim!

For me the image feels a bit underexposed in the shadows, so you are losing some of the detail.

I read your processing notes and wondered if you had tried doing your editing in a different order? I find that doing the conversion to black and white before making any other adjustments gives me much better tones throughout. So I do my Nik Silver conversion and then only after that do any levels adjustments, contrast/brightness etc. I took the liberty of downloading this image (i have deleted it) and opened it in camera raw. I used the fill light slider and managed to bring back a lot of detail in the shadows, so give it another go, as I do think the missing detail hurt this in voting.

Finally, I do find the image to be a little over sharp. I think it's very difficult to get sharpening correct for images with a lot of detail. It's very easy to over cook.

Hope it was useful.

Sarah



Message edited by author 2010-05-10 00:29:43.

Rocky landscape
by snaffles

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club

Hi Susan

It's been a while since I got one of your images for critique.

You did quite OK in this challenge I think. There were so many wonderful images to compete against.

I think this is a lovely shot of the mountains. You have done so well to keep it so sharp considering it is taken through an airplane window, never the cleanest things at the best of times.

The composition works well and it seems only natural that it would be in Black and White. My only real critique comes to the b&w conversion. Somehow I would like to see a bit more variation in the tones, particularly the mid-tones.

I don't know what order your did your processing ie if it follows what you have listed in your notes or not. I personally think the best thing to do when converting to B&W is to do the conversion before adjusting the levels, contrast or curves. By making a levels adjustment to the colour image you are not going to optimise your B&W conversion. I would definitely do the desaturation (or whichever method you use for B&W) first and then adjust the contrast and exposure after that. (As always, this is just my opinion - take it for what it's worth).

I also feel the image is a bit over sharpened. I don't know it's really necessary to use both sharpen and usm. I think a touch of USM before saving for the web is probably enough.

But anyway, great image and one I'd be happy to have in my collection.

Sarah