Fork Handles?by
meneleComment by Dirt_Diver: Greetings from the Critique Club :)
Well I do not know who Ronnie Barker is but like
pineapple said I'm sure that he would have been proud of you.
As far as the image itself goes, you were right about the lighting. The mismatch lighting doesn't help this image. To fix it, you should have closed the blinds on the window or turned off the house light. If you like using ambient light from outside and you are shooting inside I might suggest the light bulb "Daylight". It has the exactly what you are looking for to give you that perfect indoor/outdoor lighting.
I personally don't use Neat image but know a lot that do. From the looks of it you may have applied too much to try and smooth out the background. A good helpful hint for blurring the background is to pull your subject away from it. This is called Depth of Focus or "DOF" for short. The further the subject is from the background the blurrier it becomes thus creating a sharper subject image.
I'm also seeing a bit of blurriness on the paper that you're subject is holding. This is caused by the slow shutter speed. Try shooting at ISO 200 or higher while indoors so you can have a faster shutter speed. You might also consider using the flash or a soft box to increase lighting.
Over all, the entire image is fairly good. After all 26th out of 74 isn't bad at all if you ask me. And I can see how 4 candles can sound like fork handles. Good work on coming up with the idea for the image.
~Joe~
Photographer found comment helpful.
