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.

Steely Eyed
by illini75

Comment:
Impactful subject, but would have been better without the bit of motion blur, and with less centred composition. Sharpening halos are especially visible around the left edge of the bird's plumage, too.

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.

Quiet morning
by 2mccs

Comment:

Originally posted by mitalapo: Originally posted by riot: Relies on a photoshop filter to produce the majority of its value in meeting the challenge: 2. broken preconceptions are gold.

This relies on the "digital zoom" feature of an iphone, which acts by blowing up the original image and tiling in new pixels in a bilateral blur, a "smart blur" effect; this is absolutely no different than a photoshop filter, the only change is that it's done by your phone's software instead of by photoshop. I'm sorry if this offends you, but I stand entirely by my comment - this photograph is nothing at all without reliance on an entirely digital effect.

Upon a winter's day
by markwiley

Comment:
Finally an image that actually benefits from the black and white treatment! Good composition and tones; I especially like the detail of the skyline in the far distance. My only two complaints are that there's a tiny bit of sharpening halo around the foreground branch and the edge of the leftmost tree's trunk, which I'd have cleaned up at the end, and that there's some dark haloing around that tree and some odd shadows in the sky halfway to the left edge too.

Night guest
by Paul

Comment:
One of my top picks for this challenge

Message edited by author 2017-01-08 06:55:23.

And The World Stood Still
by WonderDude

Comment:
Nice concept, but I would have liked to see the apples in focus here, and the reflections on the vase slightly better controlled.

Fog in Dubai
by mqnaufal

Comment:
Great shot and processing, only nitpick is that I would have removed the two big spots of flare on the fourth and fifth buildings in the upper left.

Seeing Eye to Eye
by MeMex2

Comment:
you have some really nasty artefacts from the clumsy selection mask you used to do the fake background blur - it's especially visible around the feathers near the bottom of the scene, the heron's legs, and the one fin of the fish being artificially blurred.

Unconventional Thanksgiving
by Bearded_dop

Comment:
That bokeh looks familiar.