Colder
by GeorgesBogaert

Comment:
Excellent colours, and great compressed perspective producing a nice semi-abstract scene. My only nit-pick is that there are visible dark halos around the top of the building in the top left third, and you have what looks like a large speck of sensor faint dust that could be cloned out near the top left corner. One of my highest scores in this challenge.

The Wild North
by Paul

Comment:
Excellent tones, well composed and nice details - your choice of shutter speed was perfect to capture the crashing waves with just enough detail while conveying movement, too. My only complaint is that there appear to be some odd vertical marks in the sky above the rocks on the top left, possibly from dodging and burning, as weell as some visible clone marks in that area of the clouds in the top left, perhaps from cloning out sensor dust? There's a faintly visible repeated pattern that was presumably not added intentionally. Overall one of my highest scores in this challenge.

The City that never sleeps
by the_rkp

Comment:
Great detail, tones and composition. The only thing that I'd improve is that the horizon is just a little bit off horizontal - less than a degree, but it's noticeable with such a flat horizon line, a counterclockwise rotation of 0.25 degrees would get it exactly level. One of my highest scores in this challenge.

Dark
by posthumous

Comment:
Pleasantly dreamy and abstract - a nice take on the old cliche.

Focus
by jgirl57

Comment:
I was going to say this is ironically named because most of your image is out of "focus", but on closer examination it seems that it's motion blur responsible for most of the loss in critical sharpness. Still, a nice composition and concept.

Love of my life
by snaffles

Comment:
Nice tones and an interesting composition. Just a little too much motion blur / camera shake to keep the critical portion of the image sharp.

I see you
by vawendy

Comment:
Strong concept and lighting. Can't help but feel a little more sharpness in the foreground fur would have improved this a little, but still an excellent image.

There's Love in those Eyes
by Cyrilda

Comment:
The sharp lines on your selective saturation jar somewhat with the otherwise grainy soft texture of the image.

Study of an eye
by hajeka

Comment:
Nice tones and concept, there's just a bit of an abrupt edge around the left where the skin tone doesn't smoothly fade into the background which could be smoothed out a little more, and a bit of distracting noise in the pupil.

Quiet morning
by 2mccs

Comment:

Originally posted by pointandshoot: It is your obnoxious presentation, not your comment, that is offensive. A ‘good’ photographer understands the technical details. An ‘excellent’ photographer has forgotten them. A ’soul-less’ photographer judges the worth of a photo by them.

These irrelevant generalisations don't suffice to hide the utter nonsense of your primary statement.

None of what I said has been in any way "obnoxious". After taking the trouble to vote on a contest (on a site that has rapidly diminsihing voter numbers), I have subsequently taken the trouble to clearly and politely comment, explaining my vote - something that, as I'm sure you're aware, increasingly few participants of the site do these days. Receiving this kind of information is something that I personally value very highly on my own work, from other voters. I have subsequently returned to the discussion to answer some snide remarks, and explain precisely why what I said was appropriate, technically correct, and why I stand behind it - again, clearly and politely.

As for the discussion on why I chose to rate images low in this contest that relied entirely on digital effects, that was well covered in the forum post that 2mccs also participated in at the time of the contest, and doesn't need to be rehashed here.

The fact is it's thin skinned critiqueophobes such as yourself who have driven the site into its current sorry state, where everyone is terrified of explaining their vote, or sharing the faults they found in the photograph with its creator - for fear of having some sanctimonious commenter attack them in the comments with some semi-ad-hominem generalisation rubbish, as you've done, about what a "soul-less photographer" does, because they have found fault in yours or someone else's image. The fact also is that most photographers come to this site to learn and improve their skills, and attitudes such as yours are directly interfering with them receiving the very critique they need.

I don't intend to bow to that sort of rubbish from you and others like you, but I do intend to call it out when I see it, because it's important that everyone here who complains about the current commentless state of the site is aware - it's exactly people like you who have brought it to this state.