Rags
by NikonJeb

Comment by pamelasue:
great image ... wanna know what he's looking at ... wish the eyes were a tad bit sharper ...

Rags
by NikonJeb

Comment by abranton:
Nice portrait

Hibiscus
by NikonJeb

Comment by levyj413:
Hi Jeb. I like this. I think JuliBoc and others have explained why it's not quite perfect, but 4.9 is just silly. ignore the score and enjoy the shot. :)

Rags
by NikonJeb

Comment by Judi:
Good composition but the focus should be on the eyes more than the lips.

Rags
by NikonJeb

Comment by Dirt_Diver:
nice image but the red in the back is a bit distracting for me.

Hibiscus
by NikonJeb

Comment by citymars:
Hey, Jeb -- how's it going?
This got a six from me. I liked the fact that there is some subtle colors remaining in the desaturated areas. Technically I think your PP work was good, though there's a hint of bg color seeping in at the edges of the flowers. As others mentioned, the boxy gray shape is distracting, although your depth of field helps. I suspect the main reason people had trouble with this is that there are just too many flowers in the challenge, and unless a flower photo is outstanding, it is going to get neglected and abused.

My second and third challenge entries are getting trashed, deservedly. However, I think my Desat entry was better than many that rated higher, including several in the top 20-30. Ah, well. :-)

Message edited by author 2007-05-30 11:26:43.

Hibiscus
by NikonJeb

Comment by jackal9:
I can't imagine why it didn't do better than it did but, for me sel. desat is used on a B&W to add punch to it, in other words find a good subject for B&W and then allow some aspect of it to remain in color to really make the whole image stand out. Just my thoughts and I may be way off base...

Hibiscus
by NikonJeb

Comment by JuliBoc:
Jeb, I think there are several things that hurt your score.

1. While the bloom is lovely, the color is lovely, and you did a very good job on the selective desat, the photo doesn't seem to be improved by the process. In other words, I doubt you would have used this technique on this photo if it wasn't the challenge topic.

2. Even thought you desaturated the background, there are elements in the background that still conflict with the blossom -- e.g. the two light gray items behind the blossom.

3. I think there is too much b&w in the bottom of the image. It might be better if the bottom was cropped to just below the bud making the aspect ratio almost square. The other alternative would be to leave the size as it is, and color the bud which might balance the composition better.

Hope this helps. Of course, it is just my very amateur opinion.

Hibiscus
by NikonJeb

Comment by posthumous:
This was another one of my "6 and a half"s. I actually had it at 7 for a while because I like how you can still see some green in the stem and leaves. The leaves are very dark but still retain a fine level of detail. But I just ended up scoring this challenge low overall. 6 was a good score from me for this challenge. I am honestly baffled at how you got scored as low as you did.

Hibiscus
by NikonJeb

Comment by poser:
some people just don't get art.