March 05 Contest Votes

[kiska]

Originally Posted by 1STLITE

Not sure whose was whose but thank you so much for putting them in a gallery - made this a whole lot easier to do.

1) #27 = TPaul
2) #9 = TwinbNJ
3) #40 = Soleah
4) #4 = Flora
5) #35 = Wooden Bender

Great contest and they were all so hard to choose "best". Everyone put in a great effort!

Doug, I took the liberty of matching up the numbers.
kiska

[Flora]

Great Contest ... excellent entries ... great tips and help .... too bad it's only possible to vote for 5 entries ....

1° Vikki .... her colorizing made me want to stare at the image forever ... In my opinion, the image could have been a bit sharper but the accuracy in the details made up for the softness... I think Vikki is the only one who enhanced the lace (half hidden from the veil and easily confused for 'noise') on the girl's top!!!

2° T Paul ... Beautiful!! A clean and perfectly balanced restoration, beautiful colours and enhancing of highlights and shadows ... the only thing missing is the 'dimple' on the girl's chin...

3° wooden_bender .... Great restoration, beautiful colours ... the only 'jarring note' is the complete lack of colour in most of the veil and top ...

4° righthanddesign ... The image is still a bit 'blotchy' and noisy but the colouring is superb!! The detail of the reddish ends on the rose's yellow petals is simply brilliant!!!!

5° cedwar .... muted and vibrant at the same time .... I kept going back to look at it another time ....

Voting was very hard ... all the entries had something I liked very much ... and after having limited my choice to 10 pictures it became even harder ....

[1STLITE]

My deepest apologies for not "taking the time". Hard to do with two kids at your feet. Some folks dont have the luxury of sitting at a desk all day. Next time I will wait til midnight when I have time (but not sleep - lol).

Thanks Kiska, for taking the time to do what I didn't.

Dawn

[soleah]

The restoration has to stay true to the original.

These are my favorites:

1. cazubi - The color effectively evoked the right mood for this photo: feminine and nostalgic. The catch light to the eyes were left virtually untouched, which is just so, since it preserved the dreamy look of the eye. The noise is still very noticeable but it added to the nostalgic feel of this photo.
I think this is what the photo is suppose to look like, the girl just got out of the bed, tousled hair, dreamy look, probably looking at herself in the mirror.

2. righthanddesign – Cleaned up very well, leaving a little bit of noise. The colors are excellent especially on the hair and the rose.

3. Vikki – As usual, outstanding work. The skin tones are great. Cleaned up very, very well.

4. Flora – This is the most lifelike of all restoration. Soft and lovely. Skin tone and colors are magnificent. Very brave in coloring the shawl purple. A perfect balance of noise reduction and preservation of detail. It just looked a bit hazy. But then again, maybe it’s the haze that added to the appeal. For somebody who claimed coloring is not her thing, look what she came up with.

5. wooden bender – The black hair and eyes are so natural looking. Her eyes seem to stare right at you.

Honorable mentions: cedwar, T Paul, grafx – I just have to mention them. Their interpretations are wonderful.

Hopefully, we’ll see more of this kind of contest in the future. I just wish that I do not have to do turn in an entry to cast a vote.

To everybody, great work!

…soleah

[denschneider]

1. Tpaul
2.Cedwar
3.Vicki
4.righthanddesign
5.terrivon
what a job trying to narrow it down to only five. after my first reveiw I looked at my list there were fifteen entries on it thats when the hard work started

[Hephaestos]

Well as everybody who's voted knows by now, this was an extremely difficult contest to judge because there were so many outstanding entries. I did a blind test by putting the entries into iView Media Pro, renaming and randomizing. My main criterion was "if the original photographer had had access to color film and a good method of long-term storage, what would the picture look like?"

Unfortunately for me, as I went through, I found over a quarter of them fit this description. So in the later stages I tried to use the technical criteria posted by Ro the other day, which was difficult and iffy, since I don't consider myself an expert in any of them. The hardest part was getting down to five, although the order of those five was no cinch either. Here's what I finished with.

1. Vikki
2. righthanddesign
3. wooden_bender
4. Xaran
5. terivon

[byRo]

First, congratulations to everyone who participated.
Remember there may be only one winner but there are no losers here.

I did give "grades" for each aspect and ended up with a group of six top contenders. Then I compared each side by side until I got them in the final order:

1) vikki
2) soleah
3) T Paul
4) cedwar
5) Doug Colwell

If anybody is interested, I zipped an Excel file with the whole list...

byRo

[byRo]

Special mentions:
Best Rookies: Doug Colwell, terivon, righhanddesign, wooden bender, sweaz
Best Clean-up: cedwar
Best colourizing: vikki
Best Rose: righthanddesign

Rô

[Duv]

I know it's only the 28th and the contest goes to the 31st but I just had to take this opportunity to personally thank all those who have voted for me so far or plan to do so. It's gratifying to see that when you spend a ton of time perfecting your image so that it is sharp, tonally perfect..in fact a work of art, it is appreciated.

Throw me a bone, will ya!!

Dave

ps. For all those tastless voters out there..Happy Easter!

[newtonwayne]

1. 29 - Janet Petty
2. 16 - Vikki
3. 32 - terivon
4. 19 - mofriday
5. 20 - Peter S

[wooden_bender]

I always hate giving my opinion on things like this, but figure I've put it off long enough. I think i first narrowed down to about 15, then went through and nit-picked over them until i thought i was gonna go crossed eyed, because among the top 10/15 it was hard to narrow down. But with no further delay, here's my top 5:

1) T Paul- I just couldn't find that much wrong with this pic, the only thing that i could say is i showed it to a friend of mine and she said the eyes looked funny, but that's what brought me in to this pic. So i punched my friend and said she was being silly, jk btw i'm a pacifist (jk about being a pacifist too)

2) Cedwar-nothing really to nit-pick over this one either. I thought it was well done and the colors/blending were nice (or whatever it was that was done to this pic, it was done well)

3) Flora-had her at number one til she said mine had a jarring mistake, jk. The retouching and colorizing were done well, and i think she's fibbing about coloring not being her thing, but i'm a noob so what do i know. The only thing i could say is that the vignette distracted more than it enhanced the pic for myself.

4) Righthanddesign-thought this one had the best rose out of them all, the tips and colors for the leaves and petals were done very well. The colorizing around the shoulder and neck seemed to be "bleeding" a little however.

5) 1stlite-just amazed she had time to colorize this with kids running around, lol. Very nicely done. The features just didn't seem to "pop" out as much as the other 4 though.

And finally I'd just like to say thanks to those that have voted for me so far.

[cedwar]

Ive been putting this off for quite a while. I had a tough enough time trying to decide how to restore and colorize my entry, it was 10 times tougher deciding who the top 5 restorers and colorizers were.

First let me cast my vote...

1. Flora - I felt her entry was the best combination of colorization and restoration. While I wasnt sold on the vignette, after a while I started thinking that it helped this picture because the background was so darn dark in the original. I think her restoration was beautiful and her colorization was almost as beautiful (just a tiny bit too yellow on my screen.) I felt she retained quite a bit of detail.

2. Vikki - I believe Vikki's colorization was absolutely the best of all the entries. Her choice of skin color was most appealing to me. I really was impressed with her eyes. The light in the opposite side from the catch light seemed very realistic, brightened them up and drew you in. Only a slight loss in sharpness made the decision for me.

3. T Paul - T Paul's restoring skills were the strength in this entry, only I felt the colorization was a bit too intense. I felt the blending of color was supurb. Liked the red rose and really liked the eyes. The sharpness was also helped me strongly consider it.

4. Soleah - Coloring was also very good, I just felt the green leaves were a bit too bright, so it distraced me slightly. The restoration skills were very strong.

5. wooden bender - Another good job colorizing, restoration was good but I had to place it fifth because it was still a bit blotchy. It still fit my criteria of not overdoing it with color and my opinion of what looked like a realistic color scheme.

I really had a great time working on this picture, then seeing what everyone else did. The best part is hearing all the opinions of what people like and dislike. I hope we can continue this monthly, whether we get a prize sponsor or not. Hopefully this is only the beginning of a series of great contests.

Cedwar

[T Paul]

First off thanks to everyone for taking the time to really comment on your choices. It helps to hear others’ opinions, and I have found the critiques to be very enlightening.

Now for my choices…picking the top 5 was by no means an easy task.

1. Vikki – Simply lovely results. You’ve captured the innocence of this young lady. I especially like the added backlighting behind the hair. This image just radiates! However, I felt that the green on the leaves of the rose she is holding was a bit too green and didn’t seem natural. Whereas, the leaves in the background seem a but more mixed in tone and as a result more realistic.

2. Cedwar –The sharpness to this really makes the image stand out. I especially like how the eyes capture your attention. Nice job bringing out the detail there. The image has a nice even tone to it and lovely blending. The transparency of the dress isn’t as evident, especially in the top areas (you see more grey there than skin tone). But the area that bothered me the most was the mouth. There dark grey outline of the teeth and very dark grey for the shadow on the lips come across too strong and distracting. It just looks like those areas really weren’t colorized. Overall still a beautiful image and excellent work!

3. Flora – I went back and forth on this one. A very hard decision. I love the soft colors you have created, especially the color of the rose. Your skin tone is absolutely stunning too. It is so realistic that this looks very much like a color photo verses a colorization. You definitely have a great skill for creating a pleasing soft appearance to an image. The white vignette however, is a bit too strong and covers so much of the image that it detracts from your lovely work. I think a vignette would work, but perhaps next time just don’t make it as strong and perhaps not as wide. Also the eyes appear a bit too dark and as a result the image looks a bit flat when compared to the rest. I think a bit more detail in the irises would have liven them up. Overall a very romantic image and a lovely restoration and colorization.

4. Wooden Bender –Excellent work cleaning up the image. Some of the shadows that define the face such as the cheek bone have been lost, but she still looks very lovely. The sharpness you added is subtle and helps bring out the image without being overpowering. A couple areas bothered me though. The dress seemed very grey verses colorized and the missing detail in the eyes made the image appear a bit flat. Also the dark grey around her teeth and on her lips is too dark and doesn’t look natural. Overall though, a very nice colorization.

5. Righthanddesign – This one was a hard one to judge. I felt it was a bit heavy in noise, but you did an excellent job in the colorization category. The yellow rose is beautifully realistic and I especially like the different colors for the green leaves. The overall colorization is very subtle, but works very well with this image. The noise however, detracted from your colorization work and from the overall image.

[T Paul]

There are still a few of you out there that haven't voted yet. Don't forget that voting will close at 5pm EST on 31 March!

[jaykita]

Here's mine:

1. T.Paul
2. Vikki
3. Mlgates99
4. Mike Tex
5. Twinbnj

[pjulich]

#1 terivon Excellent color, captured for me the character of the picture.
#2 TPaul I liked the depth that was captured. The highlights in the hair were a nice touch
#3 Vicki Nice shading and excellent cleanup.
#4 Mike Tex Color of the rose was excellent. I liked the overall impact.
#5 Wooden Bender Nice sharpness.

[philbach]

1.) #17-Doug Colwell
2.) #42-Cedwar
3.) #11-IKroll
4.) #40-Soleah
5.) #39-Right hand design.

Posting the gallery was very helpful. Also using the numbers instead of the names helped remove bias. A fun contest and thanks for posting it. Congratulations to the well deserved winner.

Phil.

[Peter S]

So So hard to choose

1) T Paul
2) vikki
3) Flora
4) Doug Colwell
5) righthanddesign

makes me think "I must do better"
Well done everybody.

[grafx]

Sneaking during break at work - no time to elaborate

1. Flora
2. TPaul
3. Rightanddesign
4. Vikki
5. Cedwar

[T Paul]

Voting is now closed.

[T Paul]

The votes have been tallied and once I compare with my double checkers I will post the results!

[T Paul]

The winner of the first RetouchPro Contest and the recipient of a free 1-year subscription to the Photoshop Fix monthly newsletter (a $59 value) is....Vikki!

Congratulation on a lovely entry. Please feel free to include some of your steps in the March 05 Discussion thread.

And this goes for all the participants! Now that the contest is over, please feel free to add your steps/techniques to the March 05 Discussion thread!

As you all know by how difficult it was to pick your top five…this was a very close contest. I look forward to seeing your April Contest entries!!!

P.S. Those that want to know your exact ranking, just send me a PM!

[T Paul]

I've had numerous requests to publish the top five so here they are:

1- Vikki
2- Flora
3- T Paul
4- Cedwar
5- Wooden Bender