Day 8 - Eye of the Crane
by ephln

Comment:
I looked at the picture before I read the title, and went "Wow! What the heck is *that*?" The perspective is excellent. Is this lit with bright sunshine, or a flash? In either case, it appears to be dead on in front of the eye, and is a bit harsh to work really well.

Day 9 - Mellow Yellow
by ephln

Comment:
I like the same things about this shot that you do. The light is really lovely and soft, and the DOF makes the front flower stand out, even though there are other yellow flowers directly behind.

Ocean-Beach-8-45-AM.
by sfalice

Comment:
I'm wondering what you'd get in this same location at dawn or sunset. I like the shadows and horizontal light on the poles, but I'm wondering if a little softer light might be more effective.

Ocean-Beach-girl
by sfalice

Comment:
I like this one, the composition is simpler than the others in this sequence, but the lighting is still there.

Rocks-at--GGB.jpg
by sfalice

Comment:
Excellent! The light is amazing. How dare you take a picture at the golden gate bridge without getting the bridge into the shot ;-)

Home & Safe at Dusk......
by NikonJeb

Comment:
Of all the ones in the post mortem thread who are questioning their scores, I think this is the one I would choose as being underrated. I think it's a lovely image. Maybe the noise in the sky or the halos around the plane hurt the score. Not sure.

Melting Metal
by Quigley

Comment:
It's a good start. The main problem is that not much of him is visible. If there were more horizon, so we could see all (or at least most) of him, I think you'd have a really good shot.

Sunset
by booboo_goon

Comment:
I didn't vote in this challenge, but I think what hurt your score the most was the post processing on the sky. The contrast in the sky has been increased so much that it's really posterized (the banding and blobbiness). The increase in contrast also caused the noise in the dark part of the sky to really show up. The sky in your outtake is quite a bit better.

Hope this helps.

Mimosa Beach, Cyprus
by pix-al

Comment:
Also responding to your post mortem...On my work monitor, which is actually a little bright, 1/2 of the screen is pretty much totally black, except for a couple of blobs in the lower left.

Another issue is the sky. Where the sun is is completely blown out, and the rest of the sky has a lot of posterization. Posterization is usually caused by going too far with the curves. Or, now that I'm looking at your editing steps, posterization can be caused by using the brightness and contrast tools. Don't use brightness/contrast. Curves and levels can be used to adjust brightness and contrast, and are much less destructive to the image.

Your reedit is much better. The people become the subject in the reedit. In this one, the sun is the subject.

Hope this helps.

Martini Blue
by PhilipDyer

Comment:
Fun! I like the contrast between the glasses in the back, sitting there quietly, with the action in the front.