Digital Art Landscape (Comment Orientated)
by Someamateur

Comment by h2:
Like this very much, cause it is somewhere between photograph and illustration, cloud looks almost original, trees and fence have so much detail. Compositionwise I think the cloud shouldn't be cropped - can you move it a little down and left?

Digital Art Pelican
by Someamateur

Comment by h2:
Not fond of it if you want it to be seen as a phot, but has a great childrens book illustration style to it. Needs a little more saturation IMO.

Mirror Image
by Someamateur

Comment by LalliSig:
I like this shot but still, could have been better. The tree kindof fills the frame too much for me, I would have preferred a landscape oriented shot with the tree in the right side of the frame and you including all the branches of the reflection. I think a polarizer would have helped by getting the sky and reflection ultra blue, you might want to start using one of those if you shoot a lot of photos like this, trust me, you won´t regret that purchase if you don´t already have one.

Processing wise I also think it´s a bit flat contrast wise, I tried using auto curves in photoshop and it overdid it a little but it´s a step in the right direction, a little work on the contrast and you would be set.

Anyway think it´s underrated in the challenge and should have scored better but then again the free studies are hard to score well in.

High Speed Action
by Someamateur

Comment by LalliSig:
Kindof agree with everything khdoss is saying, looks like you "need" a faster lens for this type of photography, I haven´t shot much basketball but the little I know about photographing the sport, you usually have to have a minimum shutter speed of about 1/250 to safely "freeze" the action and especiall the ball, preferrably 1/500 and up.

Did you shoot this raw? If you do, try setting the ISO to 1600, overexpose the shot about half a stop and then darken in raw conversion, it will really help with the noise. Also the white balance is a bit off for my taste, too yellow, try setting the WB to tungsten next time or adjust it afterwards if you shoot raw.

Personally I don´t think it´s neccesary to get a new lens, I would just have gone further with the panning and have fun with that, when panning fast sports like basketball I find a shutter of about 1/25 +/- 1 stop works best, depends on what the players are doing.

This looks promising so keep it up dude!

Guess what it is !!
by Someamateur

Comment by Monique64:
Wicker basket or ball (ornamental). Not keen on the lighting.

Guess what it is !!
by Someamateur

Comment by Sheryll:
wood chips?

Guess what it is !!
by Someamateur

Comment by higgledy:
wood twine....?but shaped into what...not a clue.

Guess what it is !!
by Someamateur

Comment by crazydollhead:
Decorative ball

Guess what it is !!
by Someamateur

Comment by cwainwright:
a wicker ball

Had its day in the sun
by Someamateur

Comment by SamDoe1:
I think this photo did bad because there isn't much interest to it. It's a good photo with good focus and good exposure but it's just bland. I'm not sure how it could be improved but a start would be a different crop.