Take-Off
by cpanaioti

Comment:
Positives:
Interesting minimalist composition. Technical quality combined with a good stop action capture are it's main strength. Nice bright backlighting framing the bird.

Technicals:
Solid technical quality. Color, lighting are fine. Looks like you maximized your camera settings to get as good of stop action as possible under the lighting conditions. That is tough when you have to anticipate the action like in a shot such as this.

Despite the shallow DOF the background still looks more mottled than smooth and that is slightly distracting.

It is generally better to capture these shots from the front rather than from behind. That is it's biggest compositional defect. Its a very solid image, though.

The Challenge:
This image scored middle average for the challenge. Voters thought this image was run of the mill. I voted this one 9, which is well above average by my scoring. I like the capture, general technical quality and framing. If taken from in front of the bird it had got a 10.

Suggestions:
You might consider doing a rough selection of the bird and applying some gaussian blur and/or noise reduction to the rest of the image to smooth out the background.

Next time try to capture that bird flying toward you. LOL!!!!

Prom Night
by LN13

Comment:
Positives:
Pretty pose and good facial capture showing quiet beauty and personality. You've captured a good expression.

Technicals:
Nicely composed to the rule of thirds, background works well for a natural setting environmental portrait. Background color is fine but you model looks slightly pale. That might be natural for her.

Don't know what you used the healing brush for but you must have done it well since I don't see any healing tool artifacts.

You don't say if flash was used but it does not look like it. Backlighting in portraits is tricky and this image needs added facial lighting, particularly in the eyes which are darkened. Your model's necklace is pretty but the edge is right at the edge of the frame and that acts as a distraction. The image is very slightly oversharpened in a couple places: there is a touch of "jaggies" in her hair in front and along her shoulders.

Camera settings seem fine for this composition.

The Challenge:
Your score of 5.2 was .4 lower than the challenge average. Voters thought it below average for the challenge but not "bad".

In free study compositions voters generally look for higher technical quality than in other challenges. This one was different because it operated under Expert rules so technical expectations were even higher. That probably negatively affected this image in voting. The technicals are not bad, but any little defect nixed images in this challenge.

Probably the lack of facial lighting hurt this image more than any other single factor.

Suggestions:
When taking backlighted subjects you generally need some sort of lighting source to fill out lighting on the face. Reflectors and flash can be used. You could also place you subject in shade for better lighting balance.

Filler flash technique
There is an easy little trick for respectable filler flash that doesn't wash out your subjects face in backlighted situations. In manual mode turn on your flash and set camera settings underexposed up to 1 full f/stop on your subject's face. When you take the picture your camera will automatically adjust the amount of flash to make your exposure "right". That works effectively as filler flash for strong backlighting. If you don't set the camera underexposed on your subject's face the flash will not fire because it determines it doesn't need to.
End Filler Flash Technique

Adjust skin color
You can adjust skin color with another simple technique. Add a "Curves" adjustment layer, scroll to the red channel and then simply drag the center up toward the word "red" to add more red color to skin or drag it away from the word "red" to reduce the amount of red in skin color. A surprisingly small adjustment will have a dramatic impact on skin color. Use a selection if you only want to affect skin color alone. In your case you might consider dragging upward to add some color to her skin.
End Skin Color

You might consider cropping your subject a little tighter to eliminate the necklace distraction right on the edge of the frame. Your subject will be larger in the frame, you can still preserve your rule of thirds framing and the necklace will exit the frame above it's edge thus reducing it as a distraction.

Lastly, you might consider using the blur tool gingerly to remove the "jaggies" in the hair and along the edge of your subject's shoulders.

Japanese Dragon Boat Festival
by sabphoto

Comment:
Positives:
Nice concept to use selective desat to make your main subject's traditional garb stand out even more from the other western clad people in the image. It makes for a nice photographic metaphor.

Technicals:
Good job with the selective desat(DQ?). The fact her leg is behind and between the legs of the girl in the foreground makes the desat an even stronger component of the image.

Unfortunately her face color is a bit over red. It is a touch oversharpened (like I usually do) which adds some digital artifacting to the image in borders with sharp contrast. Black and white tones are weak.

The Challenge:
Meets the challenge. Your only commenter hit the nail on the head when he said, "Good looking picture but i would have liked to have seen the boats". You have boat in the title, but no boats in the picture. This is one of the few images where the title could seriously downgrade the score. Your image looked to be heading strait toward middle scoring based on the beginning votes it got before DQ.

I'm guessing that creating the desat, which is the best part of this image, is what also what got it DQed.

Suggestions:
Correcting a red face is easy and basic challenge legal. Create a "Curves" adjustment layer, select the red channel then grab and drag the center down away from the word red. It will have a dramatic impact on face color with a very small adjustment but will slightly weaken all reds.

Tonality is the smooth transition between shades of grey in black and white images and shades of a single color in color images. The smoother the transition the better the tonality of the image. Your image does not have smooth greys. Reducing the contrast and/or changing the black and white points of the image might help. Subtle adjustments in a "selective color" adjustment layer in the blacks and greys can allow you to retain better tonality without making the image look flat.

A different title, like "Sagawa Festival", might have worked better if it had remained in the challenge.

The Safest Place On Earth
by mia67

Comment:
Positives:
Sharpness of and color in the animal's face is it's most attractive feature. Touching image and the composition is good.

Technicals:
Having the eyes as the sharpest part of the image is its greatest technical strength. The rest of the image is a bit softly focused which isn't a bad thing.

The white spots are a major distraction in this image. The white on the side of the main animal's face is overexposed and the white area at the upper right is also a distraction, though lesser than the others. Colors are a little weak with a slight blue color cast. (that might have been by design or from being shot through dirty windows :) )

The Challenge:
Your image finished almost smack dab in the middle of the pack. That means voters felt this image was average for the challenge. The touching aspect of the capture counteracted its technical flaws. Voters were kind to this image. It is almost as if most did not see the white window spots or simply overlooked them. I did not vote this challenge but would have given your image a passing but below average score because of the technical flaws. My score would have been a 6 which, ironically, is higher than it's group average. If I'd have agreed with the group I'd give it a 7.

Suggestions:
The most important suggestion is to clone out the horrible white spots on the windows. Don't know if the overexposed area on the right side of the face is recoverable, but if it is then it could be corrected with dodge and burn. Darkening the blob in the upper right corner will reduce it as a distraction in the composition. A subtle vignette might look nice as well and direct even more attention to the animal's face.

Table lamp: Me?!...Haircut?! NO
by HighNooner

Comment:
Positives:
Generally good technicals. Creative and interesting to look at. The refections off the back wall adds considerable viewer interest to the composition.

Technicals:
Lighting, exposure and color are very good. Centered framing with a strait on perspective is fine. The backlighting with the wall shadows and reflected light is the most eye appealing part of the image.

The white ruffle on the right "shoulder" is a slight distraction. On my sharpness sensitive LCD monitor the "hair" on either side of the "face" has a small case of the jaggies, but otherwise the sharpness is top notch.

There is a slight amount of noise, probably due to shooting at ISO 800.

The Challenge:
Meets the challenge well and somewhat creatively. That, the nice shadowy background and generally good technicals is why it scored about .5 higher than the challenge average. Voters thought it was good. I scored this one 8 which, in my grading scale, essentially means I agreed with the group assessment. I consider 8 to be "B" level work - it is above average but not the top tier.

Some voters might have felt your composition was a bit contrived and faulted you for that. That is probably where the "1" came from.

Suggestions:
This image is well conceived and the technical processing is good so there is not much to suggest other than cloning out the white ruffle on the right shoulder and smoothing out the "jaggies" in the hair. Noise could have been reduced by shooting at a lower ISO number and increasing the exposure time. The image is static so a longer exposure time would not have been harmful assuming you are using a tripod.

Perhaps taking the image from a different angle from the "strait on" perspective might have added enough viewer interest to garner a higher score and given it a more dramatic voodoo doll look, especially with the very interesting background wall lighting.

Kalahari Dance
by LynnS

Comment:
Positives:
This image shows the simplicity of African life very well. Strong silhouettes of the children and adults captures a moment of play and the background sky contributes to the overall feeling.

Technicals:
Solid dark silhouettes. It appears there are foreground grasses that are out of focus; due in part because of shooting at f/3.2. The out of focus grasses act as a viewer distraction. The composition is unbalanced with the people clustered on the left side. There is a lot of dead image space both on the far right and the top that contributes little to the composition as a whole. Sharpness, which is critical in silhouette images, is OK but could be crisper. The sky is on the dull side compared to what it could be.

This image has a very unusual luminosity curve. It has three spikes on the right side, one for each RGB color, that is not expected and highly unusual. Also, the luminosity curve is severely truncated on the right side. That should never happen. It has a large luminosity spike on the far left typical of silhouette compositions, but that is expected and not at issue.

I suspect the unusual luminosity curve resulted either from underexposing the picture, some sort of camera settings and/or from post processing. I suspect the spikes resulted from post processing though I don't know how. You were probably adjusting sky color or trying to make the silhouettes blacker.

The Challenge:
The average score in the challenge was 5.44. You placed 24th out of 87 submissions with a score of 5.7. By DPC standards that is above average and most likely is because of the silhouettes. Though it was taken at a multi-cultural event that is not apparent to casual voters and that may have held down the score slightly.

Suggestions:
There are a number of technical changes that could be applied to this image to enhance the silhouettes:
1-A simple levels adjustment would add considerable brightness and color to the background sky. Just drag the rightmost white triangle left to touch the luminosity curve. That is a standard levels adjustment. The sky will become much brighter and its color much richer with just that simple adjustment. You can also make the silhouette "blacker" by simply dragging the middle triangle to the right a little. It will also add color to the sky.

2-Crop the image different. Make it a much tighter crop on the people. They are your main subject and you should devote as much image real estate to them as possible. Crop off the top and left sides of the image. It will improved balance, better highlight the people and get rid of some of the distracting out of focus grasses at the same time.

3-If shot at a higher f/number than f/3.2 you would have greater depth of field and could get better focus in the remaining foreground grasses. Your shutter speed was 1/450th so you had room to work with to increase your depth of field while still having a fast enough shutter speed to get stop action.

4-Sharpen for a sharper edge to the silhouettes without adding haloing. Sharpening is an artform that has to be studied and practiced.

Your picture would not have scored so well if it weren't good to start with. The above suggestions will just highlight its best features more, that is all.

Into the Millions
by Zoomdak

Comment:
Congrats! The Zoom Man in back!

Waterplay
by angelfire

Comment:
Positives:
Non-traditional but creative tryptych approach, particularly with the inverted look for the lower right image from its "background". A Child at play is a good subject choice for a tryptych and is nicely arranged.

Technicals:
Generally OK but with a few rough spots. Focus is very good on the two smaller images but your central image shows "out-of-focusness" because of movement by your subject. The problem with its sharpness is that it is in never-never focus land. It should either be totally stop action or show more motion blur, but not be where it is.

The wall in the lower right tryp is level to the frame but in the main image it is not. That is a bit of a distraction. Viewers generally want symmetry with things so closely related like that. You have plenty of light but there is nothing eye catching about it. The background of your main image looks flat and lacks texture.

The blend in the upper left tryp is a little weak.

The Challenge:
Yours placed absolutely middle of the pack but about .3 below the challenge average. That means that the group felt there were a lot of very, very good tryps at the top then the rest, like yours, melted away into the background.

The technicals held back your entry more than anything. The lack of focus of your model in the main image and the bland background and lighting were the main culprits.

Suggestions:
You would have to do a reshoot to address the problem with movement by your subject in the main image. In that case you want either a shorter shutter speed for stop action or a longer shutter speed for more motion blur to better capture the feeling of a child at play. The second one is harder to do.

The bland, textureless background can be addressed in post processing. Dodge and burn could be used to good effect to add texturing to the background and give it a feeling of depth that the image lacks. Vignettes can contribute to that as well. Additional color saturation would add even more depth and texturing.

Overall lighting is a different issue. Taking it earlier or later in the day with more raking (side) lighting would add more viewer interest to the composition as well.

With some effort you could modify the upper left tryp to make it perfectly blend with the middle image, as if it is actually part of it. That would make viewers surprised for a moment when it looks like it is part of the same image yet has the same model. That would be rewarded in voting.

Nature's Omega
by yakatme

Comment:
Good to see Horseshoe Canyon getting more looks. Yours is taken from exactly the same place I've taken it from, I recognize the near foreground rocks, except you have a better lense for it than I did. Nicely processed to!

round and round we go
by dcb300

Comment:
Positives:
This is an improvement over your other submissions. It lacks color noise and sharpness is better and you are working a little shallow depth of field into your photography.

Technicals:
The closest part of the ball is slightly out of focus. Perpective and background are still uninteresting, though. The top of the ball is cut off and the bottom comes to close to the edge of the frame.

The Challenge:
The fact your ball is not really round and that it lacks precise symmetry will probably hurt the image in voting. Symmetry can be achieved in a photograph in a wide variety of ways. There are good examples in the challenge. Looks like the picture was taken with flash and voters typically vote available light images higher in these type situations.

Suggestions:
Instead of just pointing the camera at your subject and taking a picture think about taking the picture from unusual or different angles to make it look more interesting to the viewer. Use available light, like that through a window, whenever possible for a more natural look. There are different ways to frame your subject that will add more viewer interest. Look at the other challenge entries and see if you can learn some of them from the other photograph entries.