Hey! I Think We're Soup!
by dsterner

Comment by rossglenda:
Great title. Very good focus. Needs a little more vibrant colors for my taste. Bet it made a good pot of soup!

Hey! I Think We're Soup!
by dsterner

Comment by Axleuk:
Nice focus, good colours but the composition could have been better.

Pinocchio says "I am not telling a lie!"
by dsterner

Comment by colorcarnival:
Hey - I gave this a 6 during the challenge. I love the face! I saw your re-do - much better! Tell me tho - are you using a tripod? Also - use a tripod (minimizes blur), use a lower ISO (reduce noise), and slow down the shutter speed - increase light. You are getting there woman!

Pinocchio says "I am not telling a lie!"
by dsterner

Comment by bvlindalou:
I wish you had a different color background...It might has stood out more...IMO

Anxiously Awaiting Awards
by dsterner

Comment by Gallatin:
Nice journalism shot, you caught the anticipation of the moment and no eyes are turned toward you, Nice work.

Pinocchio says "I am not telling a lie!"
by dsterner

Comment by kje83:
Um...your nose says otherwise...Hilarious!!!

Pinocchio says "I am not telling a lie!"
by dsterner

Comment by ludde:
kinda dark .

Anxiously Awaiting Awards
by dsterner

Comment by rennie:
Good emotions for sure :) All of them are also good looking. I think some of the viewrs may have trouble getting the connection to the challenge theme. BTW I can't imagine how long it took for a hair stylist to produce this curls :)

Brush Barn
by dsterner

Comment by klstover:
Regarding your photographer's comments - one thing that a lot of people will recommend is to not use the automatic feature on your camera. I had difficulty with this first but playing around with the manual settings gave me a feel for what types of changes had what effect. You can also try this tutorial for a beginning.

In the image I really love the red and gold tone - especially how the gold color spots on the barn are matched by the vegetation. It is a very lovely effect.

MEN - Just another lie!
by dsterner

Comment by klstover:
Background as mentioned is rather distracting. One thing would be to take it on a plain background - another, if that is not possible, would be to take advantage of advanced editing to selectively desaturate just the background. Sometimes people use this technique to leave the subject alone colored for emphasis. What I would do is in Photoshop, use an adjustment layer (layer --> new adjustment layer) to desaturate the shot. There are multiple ways of desaturation - see this tutorial by Leroy. Then you could use a mask (one of the little symbols at the bottom of the "layer" window) and paint black (or white, I could be mistaken) on it in the areas that you don't want that layer (the desatuation) to be (so you'd paint over the fish, leaving the fish colored.

Also in your shot, it appears that the fish is not in as much focus as would be desirable. Sharpening (I like smart sharpen in Photoshop CS or Neat Image, which is a stand-alone program that also works as a photoshop plug-in, and removes noise as well as sharpening) would be good or you could watch the focus when taking the shot. I can also see some haloing around the string - this type of effect is usually an indication of post-processing and draws attention to the processing as well as simply being distracting.

Colors are nice and composition is great. I like that you got the fish level and it's not hanging to one side or the other. In some shots, the composition being balanced is more important than others (like archetecture shots, where leaning buildings look really strange) and this is one of them (it would be just so obvious with the string if it weren't level), so I think you did a great job here.

edit: Here is a tutorial on layer masks and here is a tutorial on how to do selective desaturation under the basic editing rules (the thing I explained above, or layer masks in general, are not legal in basic).

Message edited by author 2007-02-08 00:19:54.