First "December Members' Rules" Challenge

Nikon AF-S Nikkor 50mm f/1.4G

12/15/2003 03:53:03 PM · #1

OK, so the first challenge with the (more or less) free-edit rules has completed: What's everyone's thoughts? In particular...

- What's your opinion of the results (not the rankings, but the quality of the entries in general)?

- How did you make use of them? How wild and crazy did you get?

On the results, I can't say I saw an amazing leap in quality, but then I've always thought the top shots, in general, are usually pretty high quality. But maybe my eye isn't as experienced as others. But, we did survive without an onslaught of digital art, so I think it was successful on that front. (Part of me would like to see a couple of entries that flirt with, or eve cross, that boundry, just to see if the voting "punishes" them, as has been suggested.)

The scores at the top end don't seem too out of the ordinary, but having fallen at the bottom end this time around, the low scores were shifted way higher than the norm. My 4.8 score in past challenges would have landed in the 30th to 40th percentile - this time it was the 11th. However, I don't know if that was because "shapes" was a non-controversial subject, so there was more leeway on "meeting the challenge", or if that's a sign that the editing allowed the lower-end shots to be improved to a greater degree then the top end shots.

The primary use I made of the relaxed editing for my shot was in being able to apply adjustments selectively. The biggest problem with my picture was lighting - it was a foggy day, and there just wasn't enough contrast to bring out the shape of the bird as I "saw" it. Adjusting levels and curves on the whole image caused problems where, if I got the bird right, the background looked funky, and vice versa. So I did three different selections and adjusted curves and/or levels seperately on each one. Then I used the clone brush to clean up some edge artifacts that occured as a combination of that and sharpening. Here's the before and after:

I'd love to see others' before-and-after shots. I know some of you, from a standpoint of "presenting your art", feel like the before shot is unfinished and you don't want to show it. But as a learning tool for some of us (i.e. to see how effective digital processing can be), and in the spirit of evaluating the effect of the relaxed rules, I think it would be very helpful.

neenee1999

Nikon D700

12/15/2003 04:14:07 PM · #2

This is my submission for the shape challenge, I found it extremely useful to be able to edit the pearl in this shot, the pearl had a flaw right in the center that I was able to fix,the before picture has not been cropped, after cropping the pearl was larger, making the flaw even more obvious, it made a world of difference to this shot to be able to fix this tiny flaw.I have enjoyed more liberal editing just to make the picture better, I think everyone did really well in keeping it real.

GeneralE

Canon PowerShot S3 IS

Canon 12x IS USM (S3 IS built-in Lens) -- 36-432mm (35mm EQ)

12/15/2003 04:44:39 PM · #3

Overall I was happy with the response, or perhaps more precisely the lack of what I expected to be a "Too Digital Art!" response ...
Before:

After:

brownt

Canon EOS-450D Rebel XSi

Canon EF 70-200mm f/4.0L USM

12/15/2003 05:30:09 PM · #4

I was glad that no-one went overboard with the manipulation of their images. It was good to be able to take out dirt spots, hot spots etc, without making your picture look too digitally enhanced.

ursula

Fujifilm X-T2

Fujifilm XF 55-200mm f/3.5-4.8 R LM OIS

12/15/2003 05:42:42 PM · #5

My entry to Shapes was hardly manipulated at all, but I thought it was funny that at least some voters assumed that there was a LOT of manipulation, to the extreme of assuming that the shadow part of the picture was fake. Oh well.

I think that overall the pictures are not that different from before. The current challenge, "Water", has some quite good entries, but whether they are better because of the relaxed rules or because it is a good subject I don't know. Shapes I thought wasn't all that different from usual. In other words, I can't tell much of a difference so far.

BUT, I very, very much like to be able to edit detail, and to learn and try all the available tools/techniques to make my photography better.

Ursula

Canon EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS USM

12/15/2003 06:37:44 PM · #6

Originally posted by uabresch:

I think that overall the pictures are not that different from before. The current challenge, "Water", has some quite good entries, but whether they are better because of the relaxed rules or because it is a good subject I don't know.

I took more noticable advantage of spot editing for water than I did for shapes. I did a lot of cloning work on reflections and shadows. It seems to have worked, since it's doing well and nobody's commented on bad editing.

An interesting test (how you'd do it, I don't know) would be to have a "traditional rules" version and a spot edited version of the same picture posted, and randomly have some people vote on one, and some people vote on the other, then see what effect spot editing has on the vote.

BTW, I really liked your fork shot. I kinda thought it might be yours, after your fork shots a week or two ago. :)

Imagineer

Canon EOS-5D Mark II

12/15/2003 07:04:15 PM · #7

Ursula - I think that's the tip of the iceberg. Once editing rules are introduced people start questioning photographic integrity, which kills the concept of this site to some extent.

Apart from some minor dodge and burn and shadow/highlight filter, I hardly touched this, but I have no doubt that many presumed I had.

Challenge entry

Original file

Personally, I prefer to find a good, pure photo (and I'm still searching) without much editing which is why I won't miss December's rules.

Spork99

OM System OM-1

Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 USM Macro

12/15/2003 07:09:56 PM · #8

Some of the shots in the Water challenge seem to have an overprocessed look that makes them look more like an acrylic painting than a photo. It doesn't make them less effective as an image, but moves them farther away from photography and more towards computer graphics. That's just my opinion after looking at and voting on about 1/3 of the images.

FWIW, I didn't do any spot editing in my submission (It didn't need it), but I did use layers to sharpen and help attenuate noise.

Message edited by author 2003-12-15 19:11:49.

ursula

Fujifilm X-T2

Fujifilm XF 55-200mm f/3.5-4.8 R LM OIS

12/15/2003 07:51:38 PM · #9

I did edit my Water entry a fair bit more than my Shapes entry. My reason for entering it (besides liking the picture) was that I was wondering how it would be accepted, as the picture looks "unnatural" to my eyes. So far I've had few comments, very few.

As much as relaxed editing rules might move some images more towards graphics, I still think that it is a good idea to be able to use all available tools to improve my photography. I would want exactly the same if I was working in traditional silver based photography. Even in traditional photography there are those who produce works that look like they could be computer graphics, yet they are photos.

I would also like to say that the person (Chris Beller or "cbeller") who left the note on my Shapes entry about whether the shadow was completely photoshopped sent me a very nice private email explaining his reasoning. I thought that was really nice of him, THANK YOU CHRIS :)))

Ursula

cbeller

Nikon D300

Nikon AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 16-85 f/3.5-5.6G ED VR

12/15/2003 09:57:51 PM · #10

Originally posted by uabresch:

I would also like to say that the person (Chris Beller or "cbeller") who left the note on my Shapes entry about whether the shadow was completely photoshopped sent me a very nice private email explaining his reasoning. I thought that was really nice of him, THANK YOU CHRIS :)))

No, thank YOU for understanding. Gee, didn't know I made it into a thread. :-)

Message edited by author 2003-12-15 21:59:59.

Havok

12/15/2003 10:42:34 PM · #11

Didn't really do that much to the photo, but I wished I knew how to edit the image better.

Original:

Entry:

coolhar

Canon PowerShot Pro 90 IS

12/16/2003 09:40:59 AM · #12

It's really too early in the experiment to make conclusions. But preliminary observations are interesting. As I did my voting and commenting I tried to guess which entries took advantage of the "trial" rules but for the most part I coundn't tell for sure. So far, I think I could say with certainty that about 6-8 did, and about the same number didn't but should have (mostly to clone out flaws). If the final verdict agrees with the several early opinions (can't tell much difference) does that make the experiment a success, and the rules get changed; or is that a failure and the rules remain the same? We weren't told much about how these "trials" will be judged.

TooCool

Canon EOS-300D Rebel

Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II

12/16/2003 11:30:46 AM · #13

I personally expect that if you ask this question after the Water challenge that there will be more editing involved. After all, water is a more difficult subject and more likely to want some editing done...

Gordon

RIM BlackBerry Curve

Canon EF 85mm f/1.8 USM

12/16/2003 12:43:46 PM · #14

Originally posted by coolhar:

But aren't the ones that did take advantage but you can't tell, the more interesting cases ? E.g., the second place water drop shot...

12/16/2003 07:55:37 PM · #15

Originally posted by Gordon:

But aren't the ones that did take advantage but you can't tell, the more interesting cases ? E.g., the second place water drop shot...

...which is the whole point of this thread. :)