Feb 06 Contest Votes

[byRo]

Voting will run from 22 Feb to 28 Feb 2006. Deadline for votes is 6pm GMT 28 Feb 2006.

If you did not enter the Feb 06 Contest, but would like to comment on an entry, please post your comments to the Feb 06 Discussion Thread.

-> Vote for the 5 best entries in order.

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

small print stuff.....
-> 5 points will be awarded for a first place mention, 4 points for second place...

-> Whoever totals more points at the end of the voting is declared the winner.

-> In case of a tie, the winner will be whever received more first place mentions. If the tie persists the second, third places (etc.) will be considered.

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

-> You cannot vote for your own image. If you do, your votes will be deleted.

-> Only those who have submitted valid votes will be considered in the final results.

This thread is now open.

And as always, when you vote try to include some things you especially liked about your choices…what made them stand out, what impressed you, etc.

This is a learning experience!

[twinkissed]

Ok I'll start off the voting I guess but I can't really get into why I liked the entries because they were so close. A lot of them were equal so I just went by the ones I thought looked like a professional newly taken photo. Not too technicolor, or too painted, or too unclean. This was a really really really hard one and I think everyone who gave it a shot did a great job. I'll probably wish I voted different in about 10 minutes LOL because this was such a close running.

1. SWEngineer
2. TwinbNJ
3. videosean
4. Cassidy
5. palamino

P.S. Did I mention it was close?

[RL Design]

Great job to everyone who gave this challenge a try. I voted based on overall retouch, retaining all of the main subjects, and photo realism.

1. RooB
2. Asimo
3. Cathsaigh
4. Videosean
5. Peth

[OnAir]

If I understand the rules correctly, I have to make a choice between the quality of retouching and photo-realism, so I made it for more balanced works.

1. Videosean
2. HannibalVector
3. Cazubi
4. Lorraine
5. Gary Richardson

[palomino]

another tough contest=another tough voting process...I too am basing my votes on photorealism in compliance with the guidelines...clever workarounds to distract from the 1/2 head while still keeping it Also the use of more natural colors and a lack of obvious airbrush/painting earned points. Great work and interesting ideas from everyone who gave it a go!

1. videosean
2. twinkissed
3. twinbnj
4. peth
5. cazubi

[TwinbNJ]

This was very difficult - went through my list several times.
All of the below are based on restoration colors and clarity of the image.


1. Videosean

2. SeEngineer

3. Cazubi

4. Cathsaigh

5. Lorrainne

[RooB]

My votes are cast based on the ruleset + "make it look like it just came out of the camera".

1. videosean.
2. cathsaigh.
3. Lorraine.
4. asimo.
5. cazubi.

[PhotoB]

HanibalVector
Gary Richardson
TwinbNJ
Shalford
videosean

[Peth]

Lorraine

VideoSean

HannibalVector

Cazubi

Cathsaigh

Nice work guys... tough ask!

[SWEngineer]

My vote took these factors into primary consideration:
* playing by the rules - no Mom, no votes
(I didn't like keeping Mom in either. See the discussion thread - this caused me a lot of )
* restoration effort - color was a huge problem here. If you went the B&W route, that was the easy fix. Again, no votes.
* I considered all other entries with:

Points off for cutting Mom's hand off at the wrist - an ugly look which also dodged a key restoration problem.

Points off for fake looking (non photographic) retouch work, especially on the baby.

Extra credit for mimimizing the ugly composition problem from Mom's head

I'm perhaps being overly critical in my comments. Please take them as constructive suggestions for that is how they are intended.

My vote:
1st - HannibalVector. Great job getting rid of the noise and grime and keeping all the detail in the baby's face, blanket, and Mom's hand. I think you must have created some of this (esp. Mom's hand), but it looks very natural and real (like a photograph). I think the color, esp. skin tones needs work, and maybe the hand detail is a bit too perfect and so a touch out of place. A few minor details - the wall / floor edge and Mom's sleeve - have room for improvement as well. I think the original was a bit out of focus & somehow, you've fixed this. That clinched my 1st place vote. Now, confess - how did you do this?

2nd - videosean. Very true to the original and very "fresh" looking. Eliminating the noise left it a bit soft, however. And I find Mom's teeth & lips too bright and thus attracting the eye to this photo's big problem. The ugly black lines on the wall to the left also need improving. I like your final color more than Hannibal's but the sharpness in his is just too impressive. You did a great job with Mom's sleeve, btw. 2nd place, but near first, so well done.

3rd - Cathsaigh. Color (esp skin) isn't quite as good videosean's, but better than most. Great job on the floor/wall joint to the left. But I think this large, empty space still hurts the compostion. Overall, a great job on a tough project. You should be proud of the image you produced here.

4th - Cassidy. Probably the best entry keeping Mom's head, but not having it hurt the image. The baby looks good, with lots of detail. I'm ok with the noise, but less so with over smoothed area in the forehead. Overall, it's one of the nicer images to look at, but you solved a lot of the restoration problems by just cutting them out, so I'm not scoring this very high.

5th - Cazubi. I like the yellow blanket, but don't care for the dingy pillow & bed sheet. Great job keeping lots of detail while really cutting down the noise. The skin color doesn't seem quite right, and the bright red lips on Mom again draw attention to the problem.

honorable mentions: Jay Henry & TwinBNJ came very close to grabbing 5th place. Sorry I couldn't quite give it you either of you. Lorraine - beautiful image, but too obviously "painted" to qualify as a photograph in my opinion.

[Lorraine]

My top five selections were based primarily on the realism of the retouch/restoration. Minimizing the focus on the mother’s face was secondary, but still an important, factor in my decision.

1. Videosean – The clarity and colors are exceptional. It looks like the photo was “taken yesterday.”

2. twinbnj -- A great job all around. Good restoration, nice colors and wonderful soft fading of the edges of the photo.

3. Cazubi -- Very realistic. Keeping the entire photo intact helped to take my eye away from the missing mother.

4. RooB – Nice restoration, crisp looking and good colors.

5. Cathsaigh -- Another nice restoration. Crisp and clean. The vibrant pink of the mother’s gown, however, kind of takes something away from the photo.

I really like Peth’s version, but the baby’s eyes are closed in it, and they aren’t in the original. RL Design’s and HannibalVector’s are also favorites.

Great work everyone. I wish I could have voted for all of your entries.

Lorraine

[Gary Richardson]

First to explain why I voted the way I did.

This is a Restoration and Portrait Retouch: The final imge should look like it was shot yesterday, by a professional photographer, straight out of the camera

This was the spec given to us by Ro, and I'm sorry to say that I had to disregard some excellent entries because they did not fit with the spec given.

My favourite picture of all was by Peth, but cannot be in my votes because of the reasons just stated.

So here are my votes.

1st Cazubi Good colour rendition, has been softened, but not enough to lose detail. For me the most life like.
2nd Videosean Not sure about the date stamp being legit, but overlooked it, as it was a fine effort. Lost some of Cazubi's detail, hence 2nd.
3rd Shalford Liked the vertical crop, good detail on the baby's wrap, bit blown out on the whites.
4th Roob Bit over smooth for me and again top end whites a bit blown, but nice feel to the picture.
5th Hannibal Vector Contrast a little high for my liking, but again, good colour and didn't over soften.

I have to say in closing that Ro is a sadist, and obviously must count Torquemada amongst his forefathers. This was a horrible picture, and anyone who attempted it is to be commended. I don't know that anyone got it to look like it was shot yesterday by a Professional photographer, but there were some valiant efforts.

[philbach]

I ranked higher those that did not do aggressive cropping on the toughest part of the image.

My votes:

1.) VideoSean
2.) Cathsaigh
3.) Roob
4.) Doug Calwell
5.) Hannibel Vector

[byRo]

[HIJACK]

Originally Posted by Gary Richardson

I have to say in closing that Ro is a sadist, and obviously must count Torquemada amongst his forefathers.

At first I amost thought that you were talking about the guy from the Spanish Inquisition ("No one expects....."). But aside the fact that I now speak Portuguese, my blood is generations-old blue!

Then I discovered (thank you, Google / Wiki) that you must actually be talking about Edward (Bill) Powys Mathers, the father of today's cryptic crosswords, who's puzzles (under the name of Torquemada) ran from 1926 to 1939 in the Observer.

So must I infer that you are, in fact, praising the "cryptic" nature of this month's competition and wishing that this be the first in a long line.....

I thank you, and assure you that your wish shall be attended.
[/HIJACK]

Rô
(P.S. Only kidding (?))

[Gary Richardson]

[studioj]

1. Lorraine (first place)
2. HannibalVector (second place)
3. Shalford (and so on...)
4. Videosean (and so on...)
5. Cathsaigh (and so on...)

[studioj]

LOL, I downloaded all, did my choise, and never read "if you don't enter the contest, your vote will be deleted". Shame on me !!!

[byRo]

No problem, the vote won't be counted.
But next time enter the contest, OK

(actually, voting is the harder part )

Rô

[studioj]

Yes, I downloaded the pic and start working on it, but RP it's huge!!!, and I where in the Tutorials all month, so no time to work on the baby.

And I agree, this contest was sadist

[Cassidy]

Well a re-read of the rules pretty well invalidates any picture with a frame as this takes away the 'wet pixels' aspect. This also nicely culls the valid entries from a discretionary point which is both a help and a shame. So based on this I think I have found 5.

1. Cazubi (I think looks most natural)
2. Videosean (slight plasticity look and date detracted, sorry)
3. Lorraine (looks plastic to me also, sorry)
4. HannibalVector (baby too dusky for my liking, would be looking for an oxygen bottle.
5. ajava (shame about the distortion)

This is in no way a knock, but I don't think anyone actually managed a 'professional' looking photo but given the material to work with, everyone deserves great praise and acknowledgement in my mind....was trully a hard ask.

As a final note, twinkissed, beautiful on my monitor but unfortunately you made my cull list.

[videosean]

1. SWEngineer - I like your detail and film-ish looking grain (in the baby's face in particular) and I think that's what made me pick this as what I thought was the best one. I also like the subtle difference between the whites of the mother's clothing and the blanket the baby's wrapped in. I'm not crazy about the frame/border but I like a darker border rather than a lighter one for this image. I'm not crazy about the restored hand but it might be the best restored hand of all of them IMO. I think your hand could use some stronger/darker shadows on the southern edge of the thumb.

2. cazubi - Your linens look dirty to me and I don't like that but I kept coming back to yours. I'm not sure why but there's something I like about it. It could be the baby's face having some strange color variance to it... it's hard for me to tell if it's on purpose or not and at first glance I thought it was a bad thing, but then I thought about the pictures I have seen of newborns minutes after birth. They do have blotchy looking skin sometimes (for lack of a better way of describing what I mean) and when I thought about that it didn't seem so unnatural to me anymore.

3. RL_Design - A great image, but it doesn't look like something that could be taken for fresh out of a camera to me. I think it looks maybe like a colorized black and white print and a very good one at that.

4. Gary Richardson - Quite true to the original image I think. There's grainy detail that I like but the overall color is too yellow for my taste. You have a blue headboard(?) for the bed... having been in very few hospitals myself I don't know how likely it is that it was blue but I like it.

5. Cassidy - I like the treatment with the soft/frosted glass looking frame. Of all the borders added to this image I think I like your style the best. I think I can see some smudged pixels in the baby's forehead though and in general the skin looks a little smoother than I like. There's also some jagginess here and there - in between the baby's earlobe and fingers being the strongest example - those could be jpeg artifacts or pixels that didn't get the same level of blurring or smoothing as the rest of the image.

Overall I think anyone who attempted this deserves credit of some kind I'm a total noob here but I can tell from the comments that I wasn't alone in thinking this was a great/terrible challenge. I actually see old negatives quite often where I work. Very, very few people have ever looked at their prints from these old negs that I would put in a category with this one and asked for a restoration and I'm quite alright with that.

[cazubi]

There are some very nice images in this contest with some nice enhancements, but I made my picks from the ones that I felt most tried to adhere to the rules.

1. Cathsaigh
2. Videosean
3. Lorraine
4. HannibalVector
5. roob

Nice work everyone.

Cathy

[cathsaigh]

This is my first time voting. I have been philosophically against the whole idea of voting, but since I received some votes - I felt complelled to fully participate. Anyway, here are my votes. I tend to like simplicity, sharp over soft, and clean lines (the complete opposite of how I live my life).

1. HannibalVector: I would kill to learn this sharpening technique. The one weakness: the lady appears to have a case of "man-hands".

2. VideoSean: Next best.

3. Cazubi: (In the spirit of honest and complete disclosure, I would have voted myself here in this spot). I like the yellow blanket and the gentle "hand" used for the retouch

4. Ajava: After the first three, it became very difficult for me to choose. Liked this one; however.

5. SWEngineer. Although I think the border wounded the picture, I think the re-touch was excellent.

[Doug Colwell]

1.Gary Richardson - best salvage of original (though still a bit yellow).
2.Videosean - nice and clear (not sure about the date).
3.Cazubi - very natural look (a bit of a green tinge overall).
4.Roob - good colouring (a little blue around the teeth).
5.Cathsaigh - nice work on baby clothes (not sure about the pink).

[HannibalVector]

One of the most important thing for me was the facial expression and recognition of the persons in the photo.
The purpose of retouching this kind of photo is that family,relatives and acquaints have an anhanced piece of memory that reminds them of how the person looked several years ago.
Some of you did a realy great job on the colors (where I had a lot of trouble with) but made alterations on the facial expression and recognition. I think that by some pictures even the mother is not able to recognize her own son. Sorry, no votes.I also think that the B&W route was the easy fix. No votes either.

my votes:

1 Cathsaigh:
Overall image looks great, especially the colors.

2 SWEngineer:
Great colors also, don't like the border.

3 VideoSean:
Colors look excellent, very fresh looking image, but you changed the eyes.Looks almost as if the baby has blue eyes, in the original they are brown.

4 Cazubi:
Overall image looks good, colors not so good as the ones above.

5 Asimo:
Overall image looks good, good colors, only a bit to blurry.

But I think everyone else did een pretty good job on this sadistic challenge.

[ajava]

1. Cazubi - close with my number 2 spot...both seem to honor the contest guidelines very well and the color/sharpness look great

2. HannibalVector - see comments above...hard to choose whose I liked better

3. VideoSean - really looks like a photo taken yesterday. Nice job

4. SWEngineer - this was my first choice, until I really started reviewing the entries. Great color, wish Mom was kept in the photo more

5. TwinbNJ - a bit too old looking (dark coloring, I think) but really looks like a portrait to me.

Overall, I thought this was a great contest! And, as my first contest and first try at a restoration, I don't think I could've asked for a better learning experience. Nice job, folks!!

[asimo]

arr! near miss the deadline. my ranking:

videosean
Lorraine
Peth
HannibalVector
cazubi

[Shalford]

1 Videosean
2 Hannibalvector
3 Cazubi
4 Cathsaigh
5 SWEngineer

[byRo]

Thank you for voting folks.

I'm not sure if this is some sort of record, but our runaway champion this month recieved at least 1 vote from all participants.

Congratulations Videosean

Here is the top five:
1) 80 - Videosean
2) 45 - Cazubi
3) 38 - HannibalVector (special newbie welcome! )
4) 31 - cathsaigh
5) 22 - SWEngineer (beat Lorraine by 1 vote)

Rô