Missing You
by xlr8tn

Comment:
*Critique Club*

Greetings from the Critique Club! Hello my name is Mandy and I will be your critiquer today.

First I want to point out the good things. Black and White pictures are my favorite! But with this shot, I think that color would have been a better choice. I think that it is nice that all of the ducks are going in the same direction. I like how they move your eye across the photo from one corner to the opposite corner. So your cropping was good.

Now for the nick pickety stuff. High Key effects are great on SOME pictures. I think that with water photos they make the photo less intersting. Water shots can be so magical with all of the reflections and movement. Why remove that? The ducks seem to be out of focus, but that could have happened with the processing of the high contrast or when you converted to black and white.

Your subject does not fit your title. Ducks swimming does not say Missing You, IMO. Maybe if there was one duck swimming alone. Maybe if there was a mother duck and her babies behind her with a definate gap between the second to the last baby duck, a missing you theme would have been easier for the viewer to relate to. Or maybe that is just a bunch of hogwash. What do I know? I hope this was helpful and good luck in future challenges.

mandy

Sail On Sailor
by Tuckersmom

Comment:
this is beautiful!!!

Friendship - Missing You
by Tuckersmom

Comment:
*Critique Club*

I like this photo. I enjoy looking at this scene. I think that is important when taking a picture for a greeting card. I like grain too. I think that it can add character to a photo. IMO, grain can create a feeling or mood with a photo that seems boring otherwise. In your photo the little girl (darling BTW), is picking up shells. She is gathering objects maybe for her collection. This action does not say friendship to me or missing you or even thinking of you. Maybe other voters felt the same way and that is what resulted in a 5.4 score.

Your picture is very cute and different (added grain and desaturation) which sometimes is not liked by the majority voters. This probably wasn't what they had in mind for a greeting card. It is not easy to appeal to the masses. I have a very hard time myself and have made up my mind to take pictures that appeal to me and me alone. If I do well in a challenge I am thrilled, but if not it is not the end of the world. Overall, I think that this is a cute picture and I hope the best for you. I see a ribbon in the near future. Your work is excellent and it is just a matter of time.

Mandy

Québec
by Louison

Comment:
wow.....this is going in my favs for sure.

Sympathy
by sprite777

Comment:
*Critique Club*

Well, I have to hand it to you! Congrats on the high score! There were so many flowers in this challenge and what makes your entry stand out is it simplicity. I love the fact that the flower just fades away into the background. It looks so soft, I can almost smell it. Flower pictures can be very boring and predictable. Your image is not. Wonderful job you did here. I would definatly buy this greeting card. This could be used for many different themes.

Mandy

Thinking of You
by irika

Comment:
*Critique Club*

This is a great greeting card for the "Thinking of You" section. The colors are really nice. The border is rather large but considering the theme, Greeting Cards I find it acceptable. Borders that larger are very common with greeting cards. I like the flower in the top right hand corner. It looks very nice there. I don't think that you should have been voted down for the border for this shot, and I think that is what happened. Another reason why you might have rec avg scores for this entry is because of the lack of focus. I guess you used a macro setting for this shot? Great mode to use, but it resulted in only a small portion of the flower being in focus. The background needs to be blurred, but not the flower petals, since it is the flower that is the main subject of the photo. Maybe not everybodies cup of tea, but I liked this entry. Good Luck in future challenges!!

Mandy

Mounds of Grounds
by sapple

Comment:
WONDERFUL! WONDERFUL!!!

Gothic Mausoleum
by md8speed

Comment:
OMG this is fantanstic!!! I can't believe this is the first time I have seen this! I love it!!!

Thanksgiving
by Louison

Comment:
*Critique Club*

I like photos with negative space. I like photos that are simple. Your picture is both of those things. I think that it was a gutsy move for a Greeting Card challenge. You went out of the box and shot something no one would expect and it didn't go your way. This happens to the best of us.

Is this a cherry tomato? One single tiny cherry tomato does not say Thanksgiving to me. Thanksgiving is usually represented with an abundace of food, families at the dinner table, etc. I think that it where you went wrong as far as the theme goes. The shadow is a little harsh and the overall placement of the tomato is not appealing to the eye. Good Luck in future challenges

Mandy

Bon Voyage
by joansuzy

Comment:
*Critique Club*

I am going to be flat out honest with you. I want to help you out. Not trying to be mean at all. The photo quality in this picture is horrible. I am shocked that you even rec a 4 something score. It is not what you took a picture of, it is the photo quality. You had to have seen the entry when you downloaded and saw all of the flaws in it. You had to have!

How are you resizing your photos? I noticed that you have a 4mp camera. You should not be having this problem with your pictures. Please ask a friend or PM me for tips on how to resize a photo for entry into a challenge. I noticed your last couple of entries have also been too small and you had the same problem with quality with them also.

Girlfriend, you really need to fix this problem. I think that when you do, you will see a BIG change in your scores. You have great potential. The land and tree in this photo frames the picture very well. I can tell that you have a pretty good eye for photography. But the way that you resize the picture or process your photos, I am not sure what happened here needs to improve. If the quality was greatly improved and the boat was bigger, this would have rec a great score.

I hope I haven't upset you. That was not my intention at all. I am not a mean person. I just wanted to really point the problem out. I noticed that voters have commented on the photo size in the past but you continued to enter small pics. I hope this was helpful and not insulting.

Mandy