Last Meal - Cruel and Unusual Punishment
by millsa

Comment:
Quite a nice simple well executed image.

Postal Mailing Anomaly Origin (worm) of eMail Spam!
by ocninon

Comment:
Made me smile, so that is good.

GOT SPAM?
by krcnaples

Comment:
Subjects appear a little bit out of focus.

This (spam) prosecution has to stop.
by Oded

Comment:
Interesting image and full of character, but really only linked to the challenge due to the title.

Broad stripes and bright stars
by SEG

Comment:
Cpanaioti has hit the nail on the head really. The angle you have shot this at does not really portray the challenge topic.

Secondly a flag is not really a very inspiring subject, so no WOW factor there. Typically flags in general do not score well on DPC.

Pristine !
by judojoe

Comment:
Joe, I saw your comments on the forum and thought I would comment. The challenge topic was Old Cars, this car, although a classic, is really not old. It doesn't matter which way you try to spin it, the challenge was old cars not classic cars. If it was classic cars, you would have scored much higher. It's a bit like putting a shot of a teenager into a baby challenge.

This is one of those cases where the challenge topic was pretty specific and there was not much room for misinterpretation. I am not surprised at all at the lowish score, in fact, the only reason I think it's not lower is because the image itself is decent from a technical point of view.

Whale Zen
by codfish709

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club

How terrific to have seen something like this.

I think this image had the potential to score considerably higher but was hurt by a couple of things that could easily be avoided.

1. DPCers LOVE straight horizons. Even if things should be at an angle due to the naturally curving landscape etc, DPC voters want them straightened. Irritating but a fact of life here. Thus, had you straightened the edge of the land then people would have been happier, even if that is not how it looks in reality. I happen to think it's fine as is, but I know that would have hurt your score a little.

2. Borders/vignettes. DPC voters have a love/hate relationship with these. Many people just dislike them completely and vote accordingly. In your case, you have combined a vignette with a double lined border, so I think you may have had a double whammy on that one. Possibly either/or but probably not both if you are looking for a decent score.

3. Composition. Sadly the Whale is just about to leave the frame which could have hurt the score a little. I appreciate how hard it must have been to get the shot in the first place, so you likely had little control over that.

4. The landscape in the background lacks a bit of definition. I think you could have selected this area of the image and tweaked the levels/contrast to make it pop a bit more. This is only a very marginal change but may have helped a little bit.

I hope you are not off put by the frank comments. I just noticed this is only your third challenge, so hopefully the tips will help you try score higher next time out. Knowing some of the things that voters pick up on is always helpful when preparing the next image.

Sarah

Up to Mars
by RulerZigzag

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club

Well I totally get what you were aiming for with this image, but have to say, I think the red is hurting you big time here. Yes, totally get it with the Mars connection and all, but it really does not enhance this image very much. I think there was enough red in the image to start out with for the concept to have worked.

Composition etc all work fine for this one, but the colour is what is dragging your score down for sure.

Sarah

Idle Waters
by RulerZigzag

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club

I think this image scored quite well for this challenge.

You said you hoped you had fooled the voters into thinking this was actually a night scene. Hmm. I don't think you did completely.

Things that could have improved your score.

Composition: Horizon is dead centre, always a good idea to offset it if you are looking for a higher score. I know I often choose to put the horizon dead centre, but I know I will always suffer with the score if I do.

Focus: Seems a bit off to me. Everything appears to be just a little bit on the soft side.

Exposure: The sun is over exposed which I suppose is what you were aiming for in trying to get it to mimic the moon. However, I think you could have achieved this better by reducing the brightness a little bit. It would have looked more realistic I think. You mentioned you didn't really do much editing to this apart from dodging the boats. I think if you had done some very minor tweaks with brightness and levels you would have achieved the look you were aiming for with better results.

I'm personally not a big fan of the blue stripe in your border. I think it detracts from the image. Certainly my eye is drawn to it, away from the image itself.

Overall I think you scored pretty well with this one, but could have scored higher with some very minor editing.

The beauty of uncertainty
by snaffles

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club

Susan, I've been sitting on this one a few days as I'm not sure what to say to be honest.

As far as photos of butterflies go, I think this is a very nice one. It could be used in a natural history catalogue. However, as far as this challenge goes, then I think it's probably not the best composition. The composition is very static and holds little interest to the viewer. As I say, it's a decent enough photo of a butterfly.

As far as exposure is concerned, it's a toughie with a high contrast subject such as this. However, I took the liberty of downloading it and managed to pull back some of the detail by tweaking the midtone levels slider. I notice in your processing steps, for this and other images, that you do not tend to use levels. I urge you to take a look at the levels adjustment layers as this one feature in PS is probably the single most useful tool when trying to make your images pop.

PM if you want some more info on using levels.

Sarah