Ghost
by Ernir

Comment by ericwoo:
Hey there from the Critique Club

Camera Work/Technical: This is a very neat idea, but the entire image looks a little soft to me. I think that most of it may have been your desaturation technique. The blur in the faces works fine and actually adds to the ghostly feel, but the rest of the image could stand to be a bit more crisp.

Lighting: Nice choice for lighting choice, but your tonal range is very flat. Again, most likely from your desaturation technique. It looks like you simply converted this one to grayscale. As it is, a strong s-curve in a curves adjustment layer would help out a great deal. If you are using Photoshop, give the Channel Mixer a shot. While everyone has their own settings, 45%/32%/30% works pretty well for skin tones.

Composition/Content: I like the centered composition and the mirror feel that you created. Everything looks nice and straight. The only change would be to try to get her level on both sides of the frame. That sounds good, but may be a lot more trouble than it's worth.

My Opinion: You did a very nice job meeting the challenge, but this one lacks the needed pop to vault it into a higher scoring range. The one single change to make to this particular shot would be amping up the contrast. That alone would pull a much better score.

Eric

Barrel House
by Ernir

Comment by klstover:
Greetings from the Critique Club!

First, let me say that I am not a professional or even a very good amature photographer, so you may want to take my comments with a grain of salt.

I like this photo an awful lot. The colors are vibrant and I like the perspective. The person sitting at the bottom left gives a good size perspective. It's a unique shot and definitely a unique piece of archetecture.

However, I think the context you put the house in may have cost you a bit. Because this is an archetecture challenge, I think that the green land and houses and that the sky should have been cropped to be smaller, to put a greater impact on the building. A front-on angle may have helped too.

That being said, though, I think this photo has a great context, a great crop... I really do enjoy looking at it and I think it is a wonderful photo. It is one of those cases where it may have scored much higher in a different challenge (but of course, that is hard to predict). The things I suggest as improvements - the front angle or the cropping of sky and land - are improvements not to this photo but to this photo in this challenge, and these are two separate things.

Another note: the filesize should be as close to 150kb as possible to minimize compression artifacts. If you use Photoshop and are having problems, you can PM me - I know a lot of people have struggled with this at first.

I think you've done a great job since you have been here at DPC. In my opinion, you have a great grasp of color and composition, and despite what you said on your Burned Toast entry, lighting. In regards to the lighting, you may have to work more on controling your inside light, but with your outside shots so far I have seen good examples of using light. I hope all that makes sense. :-)

I look forward to seeing more from you!

I hope this helps! Feel free to PM me if you have any questions.

Burned Toast
by Ernir

Comment by elru21:
Greetings from the critique club,

Congratulations on such a funny and emotive shot. I think this is one of the higher scores I have seen for a shot that is not grain-free and technially perfect ala DPC standards. Here are my comments.

I like that the shot has grain and some technical imperfections. I think it fits the mood of the image. I like the blur on the toast popping up and the somewhat disorganized light sources. It all works really well for this image. Of course, the shadow makes the shot, and it is perfect. I even like the double shadow from the multiple light sources.

I always try to have some constructive ideas for improving, and it was hard with this shot. Although I like the motion blur on the toast, I think that your shallow DOF makes the focus a little bit off. Compositionally, I think maybe I would have cropped off a little more toaster. I think this would look great as a contrasty black and white print.

Please feel free to pm me with any questions about my comments.

Cheers,
Liza

Ghost
by Ernir

Comment by e301:
Given the advanced rule-set's lack of restrictions, I think some work to increase the general contrast of this shot might have helped you: the transparency of those faces is made by the lines appearing through them, not the washed-out quality, and anyway the image is just too generally grey for big impact.

Barrel House
by Ernir

Comment by json:
Hef alltaf fundist þetta forvitnilegt hús þó er þessi mynd ansi meðalmannsleg eitthvað. Alveg rosalegt noise í himninum líka. (I'm pretty sure this picture was submitted by an Icelander, if not then ignore this comment)

Ghost
by Ernir

Comment by BrianR:
Treading new ground....9

Barrel House
by Ernir

Comment by markopella:
interesting architecture, average photo

Barrel House
by Ernir

Comment by Tiberius:
A little post processing would have helped. A bump in contrast, a little noise reduction on the sky. The pic is also tilted, a slight rotation would correct it. Horizone almost in the centre is not a good point. IMO.
Otherwise a pretty good compositon. Good luck!

Ghost
by Ernir

Comment by KGregory:
Interesting concept. Up that contrast!
Also, it would be cool if the girl had something different about her on each side. Different aspects of her personality - like a good vs. evil type theme.
Just a thought :)

Barrel House
by Ernir

Comment by MWitt:
Great Shot!