April 2008: Voting thread

[byRo]

Voting will run from 24 Apr to 30 Apr 2008. Deadline for votes is 5pm EST.

Only those that entered the contest may vote. All other votes will be deleted. If you did not enter, but would like to comment on an entry, please post your comments in the Feb 08 Contest Discussion thread.

Vote for the 5 best entries in order.

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

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!

[crazyfly1]

Such a fun contest! I thought all of the entries were good and I ended up with a file full of about 10 that I had to narrow to 5.

1. Cassidy.
Your layout sold it. The work on the face is good but the color palette and brushes were the perfect touch.

2. CathyH.
Your work with the hair is astonishing. How did you do that???

3. altivan.
Tough call, I liked that you were one of the only people to do away with the shadow on the face. I like your design too. I had to go with 3 though because the hues in the face are gone.

4. afrazier.
Just an overall good job. Love the warm tones, nice retouch on the face, good cover design.

5. laura.
Again a real tough call, could easily have been anywhere in the top 5. You were one of the only people to take out the coat and rebuld the face. Fantastic job too. I also really like the composition.

Great job to all! This is sooo much fun, can't wait for next month.

OH, and johndiablo would have sqeezed in the top 5 somewhere had it not been for the extra text.

[dataflow]

1: GiMiNi_M
2: enhancer
3: LonK
4: Mike_Abbott
5: Photomaster

[AFrazier]

1: LonK - Good work on the hair, as well as the touch-up. The hair was the choice maker in this instance.

2: CathyH - Only second to LonK because the touch-up, though good, was a little rough on the edge of the right cheek/jaw (i.e. there was evidence of a retouch). Otherwise, 1 & 2 would have been reversed.

3: artofcmarie - I thought the cover design was nice ... nothing too overdone. The eyes were still a little bright in the top two images, so I put this at #3 since it lacked that "real" quality of a natural eye color/contrast.

4: PhotoB - Great retouch, fantastic graphic design on the title. However, her skin tone was still a bit uneven on the right side of her face. I thought that could have been a little better.

5: The Enhancer - The touch-up itself needs some work. It's very rough. But I thought the cover theme was really good. It was very down to earth, and it sort of added a hint of quiet adventure, if that makes any sense. Walking the pier ... walking a trail in the woods ... both easy-going pass times.

[The_Enhancer]

Great work, everyone! Overall, I was most impressed with solutions that clearly communicated (visually) the idea of retouching, in the context of a magazine cover. My choices were the designs that told that story effectively. Here's my top 5:

1. artofcmarie - Your use of the 'Four Seasons' type theme (four environments?) really communicated the visual idea of retouching, and the retouching was well done too.
2. Mike Abbott - Wow! Looks like Bon Appetit for the eyes! The lush, spare but artful cover treatment is strengthened by the effective retouching of the model herself.
3. K_Gimini - simple framing of the retouched area sets off the contrast of untreated to treated area, and is compositionally sound as well.
4. cadd_97 - The picture-in-picture immediately communicated the idea of before & after, and set off the retouched image more effectively than if it were on its own.
5. Photomaster - I love how the flipped image brings a new energy, and the picture-in-picture was helped by the slight angling of the 'before' snapshot. Nice color overall in the retouched image, as well.

Good work by all - looking forward to May's challenge(s).
Kerry

[saby]

1st PeterS
2nd Gilbert
3rd LonK
4th Laura.lala
5th Artofcmarie

[Gilbert]

Apart from from selecting No.1 for the original hair style change, the other positions have been really difficult

1. Lonk
2. Frank Lopes
3. Cassidy
4. Artofcmarie
5. Saby

[Mike Abbott]

Well done to all, selecting my top five was a tough call. I weighed my choice much more on the retouching of the model, rather than the cover design. Personally, I was looking for a realistic retouch of the supplied image, rather than 'illustrative' style. Here are my top five:

1. afrazier
2. Photomaster
3. altivan
4. CathyH
5. PhotoB

Mike A.

[johndiablo]

Here's my votes: Quite tough to decide I must say.

1st - Cathy H - The great natural looking hair replacement was a clear winner
2nd - Gilbert
3rd - MikeAbbot
4th - PhotoB
5th - PhotoMaster

Well done everyone!

and I would have removed the my little bit of text if someone had mentioned it :-( Some people added barcodes so I added date to make it look like a cover, oh well....

[CathyH]

Here are my votes, as always a very hard decision.

1. Cassidy - very nice retouch, she looks natural and I liked the eyelashes
2. Johndiablo - I really liked the softness.
3. Gilbert - she looks very natural and clean.
4. K_Gimini_M - I love the design and you did a good job on the makeup.
5. Photomaster - nice retouch and I like how you cleaned up her eyebrows.

everyone did a great job.

[Out_Of_Focus]

1. Lonk
2. CathyH
3. Mike Abbott
4. asims28
5. K Gimini M

[pixeltek]

1. LonK -- Love it!!!
2. CathyH
3. Cassidy
4. Frank Lopes
5. AltIvan

[Cassidy]

Geeze this is in my too hard basket, but I went for magazine cover number 1, so marketing my angle, but I could change my mind in less than 5 mins too

1. CathyH, looks more natural to me
2. Mikki Mi Cole, love the tones
3. Lonk, the change of hair looks great, but a little fuzzy in the face for me
4. artofcmarie, fair bit of work there, looks good
5. K_GiMiNi_M

[K_GiMiNi_M]

1cassidy the picture is crisper and the mackup is nice
2altivan i picked yours because she looks nice
3mike abbott i like the crispness of your background
4mikkimicole yours looks natural
5enhancer i like her eyes

[mikkimicole]

1. artofcmarie
2. Lonk
3. Frank Lopes
4. Cassidy
5. Peter S

All great entries, tough to judge this one..
cheers
mikkimicole

[PhotoB]

My votes were on a "natural" look vs. the "it has obviously been photoshopped" look.

1. CathyH
2. LonK
3. Cassidy
4. AFrazier
5. Gilbert

[0lBaldy]

When I started the selection process I noticed that a lot of folks (myself included) took extreme liberties with the "RetouchPRO" Logo, Brand, Title Bar, Header or whatever you want to call it and my editorial days kicked in, the red pencil came out and the delete file suddenly grew huge.. Just my opinion but if I worked hard on a logo and decided to put out a magazine I sure wouldn't want my logo or established recognition/brand changed unless I specifically asked for a revamp

Any way thats what my interpretation is and what my voting criteria was based upon, even though there are some art works and retouches that are much better than some of these.

BTW even if I judged just on quality.. In my opinion..
LonK is still #1!

1. LonK

2. enhancer

3. crazyfly1

4. e-six

5. Out_Of_Focus

[Mister8]

I have realised that doing amazing things with the
hair really works as CathyH and Lonk have illustrated.
I thought that losing the jacket collar was essential in
this retouch - they didn't and it still works.
I enjoyed laura.lala and samoflak although they were
quite scary! Asims28 is good and well stylised.
My vote:
1:CathyH
2:Lonk
3:K.GIMINI
4:dataflow
5:OlBaldy

[laura.lala]

Challenging contest but now with all the good entries is even more difficult to vote only 5 covers...and also give them an order...

1. OlBaldy - I liked the total change of the girl and the idea in general
2. Saby - Nice work, very much like a magazine cover
3. Cassidy - Another true magazine cover
4. Artofcmarie - One can see what it can be done with the Photoshop
5. CrazyFly - I liked the colors and how you took out completely the shadow
on her face

[LonK]

1. CathyH -- Excellent real hair replacement; nicely balanced layout with appropriate space for additional teaser text

2. Cassidy -- best facial retouch (though I preferred your first version without the distracting "add-ons")

3. mikkimicole -- best layout composition. The face painting grew on me. The hair over masthead area could use some blending work

4. K_GiMiNi_M -- best "glamour" presentation -- pleasing composition. Lips look somewhat "chapped"

5. altivan -- best "artsy" rendition. Decent facial retouch even if somewhat flat. Not sure why you chose to emphasize the tree growing out of her head?

[asims28]

1. CathyH
2. LonK
3. Mike Abbott
4. 0lBaldy
5. Out Of Focus

[Photomaster]

1. CathyH
2. LonK
3. MikeAbbot
4. OlBaldy
5. Cassidy

[byRo]

Many thanks to all who entered.
Glad to see such a good turn-out.

This month the voting was tight and I had to double-check.
and the winner is....

LonK

PRIZE:

PhotoTune 2.2, donated by onOne Software
http://www.ononesoftware.com/detail.php?prodLine_id=27

PhotoTune 2.2 is an Adobe® Photoshop® plug-in that provides professional quality color correction in an easy to use plug-in. PhotoTune 2.2 incorporates ColorTune technology (formerly known as 20/20 Color MD) with its patented color correction process and SkinTune technology, developed after more than two years of in-depth skin color research. PhotoTune 2.2 makes the tedious and time-consuming task of color correction simple and straightforward to improve your post-processing workflow.

The top five:
LonK - 54
CathyH - 53
Cassidy - 34
Mike Abbott - 21
artofcmarie - 20

Next month you're free of me, T's back !!

Rô