April 05 Contest Votes

[T Paul]

Voting will run from 24 April to 30 April. Deadline for votes is 5pm EDT 30 April 2005.

Only those that entered the contest may vote. All other votes will be deleted.

Vote for the 5 best entries in order.

Note you cannot vote for your own image. If you do, your votes will be deleted.

Example Vote:
Pick the top five contest entries and list in order...

1. Entry X (First Place)
2. Entry A (Second Place and so on)
3. Entry Q
4. Entry S
5. Entry P

[T Paul]

This thread will remain closed until it's time to vote (24 April to 30 April).

Voting will close at 5pm EDT on 30 April so that the votes can be tallied.

[T Paul]

Why your uploaded images may not look the same.

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Learn How to Use Automatic Image Resizing

[T Paul]

Judging will come down to your own opinion--what do you think of the photo and how it met the contest challenge:

Your challenge was to transform the wedding photo (portrait.tif) into a polished wedding portrait. You were also suppose to add a smile to the bride and remove the groom’s five o’clock shadow. Then it was up to you to decide what else needed to be done in order to create a wedding portrait that the bride and groom would be proud to hang on their wall. The finally note was that the photo must remain as a photo.

A few things I would look for:

Composition: Does the photo emphasize the bride and groom. Are the horizontals horizontal and the verticals vertical? Has it been over/under cropped?

Retouching: Noise removal, object removal (things that are distracting), color correction (is there a color cast), tidying up (gaps, clothes wrinkles, yellow teeth, dull eyes, crooked ties, hot spots and so on)

Manipulation: Does the added smile look natural? How does the groom’s face look? Do any new elements looks unnatural/out of place?

Final Appearance: Would you be happy with the work if you were the bride or groom?

[Caitlin]

Hi Paul, et al,

In case it is useful to people I have made a web album of all the entries: http://www.tv83.net/retouchpro/aprilcontest.html

Having all the retouch entries on the one page really makes you realise what vast range of options you have when doing retouching work! Such a variety of interpretations!

The thumbnails are a bit blurry I'm afraid, but if you click on one, you can cycle through them all at full resolution. ie. You can move through all the images with the next/previous buttons, without going back to the thumbnails page.

ps. I included the original image as the last thumbnail for comparison.

[Neve]

VERY useful, thanks Caitlin!

[righthanddesign]

I loved this contest and I had great fun. I was looking for the small things. One thing that most people missed was her eyebrows. When you increased the levels you loose the sides of her eyebrows. Also the mans hand on her side. It is very dark and even purple looking. Few people fixed that. I also looked at the mans skin. But the number one thing I looked at was the womans face. Was her mouth real looking? was it the right size? was it the right angle? was it the right color? Did the person use the right nose ( the downtturned one) that matched her face. Did they brighten her eyes? did they keep her laugh lines? The last thing I looked at was the cropping, did they crop it so it was overall balanced. Would it look good in a picture frame small or large. Overall I looked to see if it was a real looking picture. if nothing stood out then it was successful in my book. That is what I tried to accomplish in mine. Good luck to all. I included what I liked and thought needed work. Please don't be offended by what I say. Just trying to help out. I expect people to tell me whats wrong with mine in their mind also. you stare at this thing so long you miss stuff.

1. jaime - Perfect crispness very nicely done but the skin tones seem a little flat and corpse like. Mans checks seem a little muddy or smudged. The veil may be a little bright. But overall great job!

2. soleah - A little hazy and washed out, skin tones are dim also. Great job though very crisp and clean and smile looks real and part of her face. Maybe could have cropped it a little better.

3. caitlin - Clean and nice. Looks real and the smile is believable. The only issue is the coloration of the lips.. Maybe a little dark

4. alteredimage - Some alignment issues with the mouth but other than that great skin tones and I love the cropping and the artistic background. Most artistic of the bunch I think.

5. JohnMc - Liked the cropping, overall tones are good. Could have been number 1 The womans face is believable but for some reason it doesnt look like her. mouth and eyes are just a bit off, cant put my finger on it.

Cedwar could have been considered but his was soo big it was bitmapped to bad. maybe if it was 800X600 it would look better

[Neve]

This was so hard to judge, dare I say a little stressful
It was a revelation to view the variety of submissions. A learning curve and thanks to all of you.

1. jaime
2. RonDon
3. Dreamypix
4. righthanddesign
5. TPaul

[Caitlin]

Well this was really hard to judge - particularly for position 4 & 5 where I had quite a number of entries I liked for different reasons.

Some of the key points I was looking out for:
- Realistic looking smile
- Good facial clarity
- Removal of dark shadows under eyes
- Good balance of emphasis/focus/lighting between background and foreground
- Removal of distracting light cords in b/g (those who cropped didn't need to worry about this, but I notice a lot of people missed it!)
- Stubble removal while maintaining 'strong' chin.

1. Jaime
I think this entry is beautiful. Stunningly clear, facial features look great. A nice subtle contrast between background sharpness and brightness to the figures. I'm impressed that Jamie managed to get such a clear image out of a wide shot - I didn't think it would be possible!

2. alteredimage
I particularly like the artistic background effect on this attempt. The overlay is well suited to the subject - nicely subtle and adding a warm glow. It doesn't distract from the couple though. I thought what let it down a little though was the groom's face - I would have liked to see the dark shadows under his eyes removed, and overall his face is a little blotchy. Also his clothing has lost some detail and is a bit matt black. The bride looks natural and her retouch is effective though.

3. righthanddesign
Very believable facial features, though not as sharp as no.1 & 2. I found the stained glass positioned directly behind the couples head a little distracting and too vibrant, and the veil has been lost from the right had side of the bride’s face.

4. Dreamypix
This was a tough one. I really liked this retouch. The use of the stained glass behind the couples head is very successful - it both made it a feature, but was still toned down low enough that it didn't distract too much from the couple. What brought it down to 4 ranking for me though was that though the bride's facial features looked good, I didn't think they looked like her. The mouth simply seems too wide for her face. If I could combine righthanddesign's couple and Dreamypix's background it would have been great.

5. Soleah
This was a very close call – in fact I changed this vote as I was typing! The main shortcoming I had with this image was the recolouring of the flowers. This to me is a huge no-no particularly in a wedding photo, and in fact in any retouching of a family memory. If I had chosen a bridal bouquet I’d want the colours to be the ones I picked, not the taste of the retoucher! *lol* I decided to put that objection aside though as I thought that the facial retouching was good, and the overall tone and finish was successful. The groom could do with a spot of dark eye shadow removal.
*edit* I just realised that the bridal bouquet in one of the supplimentary photos has pink roses in it. How very odd!

Finally: I’d like to give an honourable mention to endymi0n. He/she didn’t follow the clients request of giving the bride a smile, or removing the groom’s 5 o’clock shadow, and the image is rather noisy, so I didn’t feel could be ranked. But I really like the artistic effect that has been produced with the background. Again very appropriate, not too distracting, and quite beautiful. Just needs a tidier couple!

What an interesting competition. Look forward to reading everyone elses comments!

[corel]

Here are my top 5 picks and it was not easy!
My criteria for making the selections are:
You should be able to recognize the bride and groom
hanging on the wall from several feet away.
And would I pay for this portrait.

1. philbach (#12)
2. grafx (#34)
3. Hephaestos (#29)
4. righthanddesign (#50)
5. Dreamypix (#43)

[Duv]

There was such a tremendous range of ideas that it was difficult to choose. I was surprised more didn't try to adjust his arm which I thought a bit awkward or tilting her head a bit to make them more intimate.

1) RightHandDesign: Heads are nicely framed in the window. Great job on the hands. Really liked the window showing thru the veil. It was really hard to pick out any veil detail on the one side.
2) Jaime: I had a tough time choosing between this and Soleah. Jaime' s is natural with nice light. Pants were fixed but I was disappointed that so many distractions were left on the walls and not removed.
3) Soleah: Really nice job. Edges pretty straight (not perfect), natural coloring except for skin tones which were flat and overdosed with Cyan.
4)TPaul: Very natural but didn't like the removal of the hand as it took away a bit of the intimacy IMHO.
5) Veniveci: I picked this for the Wow factor. Loved the light and the placement of Jesus and his hands. Thought the couple looked a little cutout and could have blended with the background a little better.

Honorable mentions go to Endymion, Alterdimage, Grafx, Dreamypix and Caitlin.

Cheers
Dave

[T Paul]

Just a heads up, I will be tallying the votes as they come in, so edits (votes changes) will not be allowed. Once you vote, that's it.

[cazubi]

Congratulations to everyone that entered and did such a fine job with the portraits. I found it hard to narrow my choices down to five, as there were so many nice entries.

I feel that my five choices all have good composition, look natural, and have good color. The bride and groom are presented in a pleasing way and are the focal point of the portrait. I quess it just came down to personal preference of what I would like on my wall.

My choices are: 1. soleah
2. grafx
3. philbach
4. 1stlite
5. JohnMc

Cathy

[venivedi]

Please take consider of my poor expression skill in English.

And comments are based on my personal taste when viewing on my monitor setting.

composition
1. endymi0n 2. righthanddesign 3. Jaime 4. soleah 5. caitlin

facial expression
1. Racca Iria 2.righthanddesign 3. Caitlin 4. soleah 5. Jaime
(because they want a smile face, especially a matter of 'line of sight' considered)

lighting
1. Jaime 2. endymi0n 3. soleah 4. Caitlin 5. righthanddesign

Overall sharpness
1. soleah 2. Jaime 3. endymi0n 4. Caitlin 5. righthanddesign

skin tone & atmosphere
1. Jaime 2. endymi0n 3. righthanddesign 4. soleah 5. Caitlin

& etc.


Finally...
1. righthanddesign
2. Jaime
3. soleah
4. Caitlin
5. endymi0n

p.s. It took me more than half hour to write down these comments. (already time to go to bed )

[cardmnal]

First, I want to say thanks to Caitlin for posting the photo album . I know it made the job of evaluation a lot easier for me.


I found it difficult to come up with a number one or even a top 5 there are so many good entries. So here they are:

1. Jaime
2. 1stlite
3. Dreampix
4. Grafx
5. philbach

Honorable mention: This distinction goes out to everybody who entered this contest. I think you all deserve a round of applause!!


AP