March 05 Contest Votes

[T Paul]

Voting will run from 24 March to 31 March.

Only those with entries may vote.

Vote for the 5 best entries in order.

Note you cannot vote for your own image.

Check this out!

Originally Posted by Vikki

I've loaded all the contest entries into one gallery.
The numbers on the images corresponds to the thread number the owner posted in the contest at RetouchPro.
http://www.pbase.com/vhansen/contest

THANKS Vikki!

[T Paul]

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

Remember that you cannot vote for yourself. If you do, your votes will be deleted.

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

[T Paul]

This thread will remain closed until it's time to vote (24 March to 31 March).

Voting will close at 5pm EST on 31 March so that the votes can be tallied.

[T Paul]

Confused how to vote…

Ro came up with this excellent suggestion

I'd suggest inventing some categories and giving points in each, something like:
Clean-up:
- Noise reduction (cleaning);
- Sharpness;
- Preserved details;
- Overall lighting.
Colourizing:
- Skin tones;
- Other objects;
- General Choice of colours.

Give each one a score (1 to 5) and add them up - if you want it more complicated, give a weight to each.

The key is to view all images at their full size and use the same voting method for all.

Another good suggestion for viewing the images was provided by Gary:

Regarding viewing the images. As each comes in I save it to a folder on my hard drive using a number and author as file name. Then I add a number in the top left corner of each image.

I then view them as a slideshow, allotting points on various categories. All I can see when I view them is a number, that way they stay anonymous to me.

Each image is only 100K in size, so it takes up little disk space.
After the contest I just wipe those I don't want to keep and study.

Important Reminder:
For those of you downloading the images, you may want to wait until after the deadline to ensure you have the most current entry, or at least go through the thread and see if any entries have a “last edited” comment at the end of their post. This may mean that they have updated their entry since you downloaded it. I just want to make sure that everyone is voting on the same image!

[T Paul]

Okay, it’s time to vote! For those that don’t want to download each photo, here is another option.

Determine your scoring process and then go through each photo online, one by one. Remember to view them in full size. Take a paper pad and right the name and score and move on to the next. This may take a while, but just remember all the time you put into your entry. It’s only fair that you take the time to view everyone else’s entries. You would want them to take the time to view yours, wouldn’t you?

For added viewing and a final critique you might download your top ten to your desktop to view as a slideshow and rescore them to determine your top five.

The process is up to you. Just be fair and remember to take your time. The challenge of this contest was to restore and colorize the image. That is what you are judging.

Restoration: an act of restoring or the condition of being restored : as bringing back to a former condition. The restoration process covers a number of stages. Some examples are:

• removing dust and scratches
• general cleaning of areas
• removal of tears and sticky tape lines
• contrast improvement
• etc.

Colorization: to add color to a black-and-white image by means of a computer

You have until 5pm EST on 31 March to submit your votes.

[T Paul]

P.S.

When you do vote, it might be helpful to include some things you especially liked about your choices…what made them stand out, what impressed you, etc. This is a learning experience!

[terivon]

First off, let me say, I had a VERY difficult time with these choices to be honest. Initially, I narrowed it down to my favorite 12, and then really battled to get that number under 10. There are exceptional works here and beautiful perspectives all across the board. For everyone who entered this contest, I want to thank you for the experience, I've learned alot from viewing this young lady through your eyes.

Here are my choices and my feedback:
1.) Flora - Flora's photograph is just exceptional, hands down. There was a terrible battle over 1st, however, what won flora for me, was she never lost sight of her subject. When you look at the photograph beyond the soft filter, she has handled the shadow issue and the color balance with finesse and brilliance. Beautifully done Flora!
2.) TPaul - I REALLY had a difficult time placing this one second, and spent quite a bit of time with my two top picks side by side. What I love about this photograph is the remarkable clarity of the subjects features, and the captured mood of this beautiful lady. The eyes are so remarkably well done, that it is difficult to not sit and stare at her.The skin tone is beautiful, rose is georgeous and believable, which isn’t always that easy when colorizing a flower. I LOVE the hair color, yet found myself wishing there was just a bit more detail here to balance out the detail that has been so painstakingly placed in the rest of the photo. Very Well Done!
3.) Vikki - Vikki has a exceptional eye for play of light as well as reflective hue variations. Her skin tones are an interwoven mixture of the many hues that would occur naturally. I believe however the backlighting that she applied behind the hair of the subject TRULY showed off the varying depths of color, allowing the soft touchable effect of the subject’s hair to be remarkably well done! The soft effect reflects the romantic nature of the subject matter. Very well done Vikki!
4.)Cedwar: (I mispelled your name Cedwar, I'm fixing it now. I apologize) Cedwar’s color choices are drop dead gorgeous, making me wish I had chosen his pallette for my own work. The clarity of this young lady’s features combined with the color pallette makes it a VERY good piece of work! If I could change anything, I would wish to be able to see her eye colour a bit better, and have a bit of a truer rose blush, as it seems to lose a bit of the battle to the naturally occuring shadow in the subjects neck region. It is right up there with my favorites, and was equally difficult to place in 4th.
5.)Wood Bender - This one was so difficult! If I could have changed just a few touchups here and there, this photograph could have easily been among my first choices! The rough texture of the tuille wrap, and the missing detail of the eyes and play of light on the subject's hair is the only thing that really kept me going back and looking at this restoration and battling. Because I tell you, the skin tone is just exceptional, the color pallette is dead on, and the antique angel face rose (I grow these in my garden) which the subject is holding is a very difficult color to capture and be believable. It's a well balanced photograph and remarkably beautiful.

Those are my choices. It was SO HARD! Good luck to everyone!!
Teri

[T Paul]

Teri,

Excellent voting review! I hope others follow in your footsteps with similar detailed remarks! You obviously took a lot of time in this and it is greatly appreciated!


~T

[righthanddesign]

Well I vote a little differently. I like a photo where you can't tell there has been anything done to it. To me a good colorization job is one that isn't at first noticable. I want to see the picture first then the color not the other way around. I have never liked blurry retouches it is a first dead give away something has been done to it. I have never seen blurry skin in real life. To me old pictures are beautiful with the slight textures they have and I wanted mine to preserve that. With that said I will be voting on the ones that look the most real as an old colorized picture.
1. Vikki - the most unnoticable retouches very nice and clean.
2. T paul
3. cdwar
4. Wooden Bender
5. Flora - great job on color just didn't like the blurry cloudy feel
sorry I have to go to work I don't have time to write about each one I will later. Great job everyone!

[Sean2]

As with Teri,

I too would like to congratulate all of the participants and premise my vote with the following:

Prior to T Paul pointing out that senior members may be, relatively speaking, new to photoshop, while new members may be seasoned hands, my vote may have gone very differently. However, with that in mind, I tried to account for many of the points raised by Ro and others. Art and colorization being an highly subjective medium, I came up with five choices that were based on my admittedly new foray into art in general and digital specifically.


1.) Cedwar - This picture is inspiring. The masking and blending is excellent. The hair has a slight bit of untouched material, but the precision and sharpness of the picture was a visceral draw. It looked like a little bit of grey may have been left between teeth and lip, but in looking closer it appears as lip "shadow" in the close up. I could find little wrong with this picture, that was not compensated for by its ability to draw the eye. First Class! Would love to know how this was masked/ blended so seamlessly

2.) Flora - A lovely picture, good tone and softness on a beautiful portrait. The face could have used a little more sharpness, but the blending was excellent here as well. Color choices were soft and compelling and despite the comprehensive softness, it led the eye to focus on the primary target. Would like to have seen a reduction in the eye shadowing, as much of the initial shadow was removed, but other than that, Excellent work! This too I would love to see a tutorial or descriptive summary for.

3.) Cazubi - This was another favorite of mine, and where it seemed to lack the substantial impact of what we see as "skin tones", it was this, not porcelain, but rather delicate skin that really helped with this picture (for me). Masking / colorizing was good and the background complemented the picture without being over-powering. Keep at it Cazubi

4.) Wooden bender- What an unusual handle. However, this was obviously the work of someone who has been reading or had lots of hands-on experience in photoshop or other digital medium. Perhaps a technician. The overall skin tones are attractive, the masking is excellent again. The purple rose was a bit of an oddity, but compelling with the overall color scheme, none-the-less. I liked the smile and the picture. Well done WB!

5.) T Paul- I wasn't at all sure about this picture. As easy as the first 4 were for me, the 5 th was the one that took all of the time. With so many wonderful entries, it seemed that I would not be able to come up with a decision. In the end the choice was made because of the "strength" of the color tones, the vividness of the rose and the adherence to the restoration artifacts as they were on the original. A great piece of technical work, that somehow did not compel me as did the first four.

My apologies for selecting and positioning pictures on how they struck me viscerally, perhaps more than technically, but I could do nothing else. Any explanations on how these colorizations were achieved would be absolutely and unreservedly welcome.

Sean

ps - I hope I have the right pictures - never know when you get the names mixed up with someone else's work. If something seems amiss, please let me know and I will compare my 5 with the entries once again (admittedly, I have already done this over and over again already :-)

[Gary Richardson]

Before I cast my votes, may I just commend everyone who entered this contest for the high standard of entry. It was very difficult to choose a top five from them.

What I did was first of all judge each individually and allocate points. From these I selected the top ten.

I then compared each to its neighbour. The one I preferred, I moved to the left. By repeating this process over and over, I finally put them in order of preference.

I then took the top five, and reviewed my choices. Then I went away, had a coffee and reviewed them again with fresh eyes.

All were done blind, the only indication I had was a number which I’d allocated to each entry.

From this, my choices were as follows.

1st Flora This was probably the easiest choice. Her overall treatment of the image was complete. The restoration was superb, and her skin colouring had depth and subtlety. I liked the soft white vignette, giving the image a soft romantic feel.

2nd Terivon I really liked the choice of colour in this one, it had a fresh light feeling. The combination of hair, skin, eye and rose colours just worked for me. Had the restoration been a little more subtle, and the skin tone had a little more depth, this would have been my first choice.

3rd T Paul Lovely skin tones and beautifully done eyes put this in 3rd place for me, it was really tight between this one and Vicky’s. I think the general retouching of the background is what separated them.

4th Vicky Wonderful skin tones and variations of light were what I chose here, however, I felt the background retouch let it down slightly.

5th Cedwar Another lovely colourisation. Again, nice eyes and depth of skin tone. However the skin colour was a little too pink for me, and the overall impression was a little pale.

All the above are outstanding pieces of work, and I would be more than happy had I produced any of them, I would appreciate it greatly if any or all of them could give a breakdown of their technique after the contest.

[T Paul]

Great reviews so far…keep the coming!

Originally Posted by Sean2

Prior to T Paul pointing out that senior members may be, relatively speaking, new to photoshop, while new members may be seasoned hands, my vote may have gone very differently.

Actually it was TwinbNJ and Gary Richardson who pointed that out (smile)...

[Vikki]

I've loaded all the contest entries into one gallery.
The numbers on the images corresponds to the thread number the owner posted in the contest at RetouchPro.
http://www.pbase.com/vhansen/contest

[T Paul]

Thanks Vikki, that is very helpful and extremely nice of you!

[cazubi]

I really want to compliment everyone that entered the contest and to say that I learn so much by participating in these challenges. Reading all of your comments and seeing your work is all part of this learning process that I am enjoying so much.
I love vintage photos, and I like to see the subject look natural in the environment that it is in, and that the colors fit the time period of the photo.

Here are my votes:

1. Vikki- I think that you did beautiful job. Your image is soft and natural and kept the integrity of the subject.

2. Flora- I love the soft romantic feel of your background, as well as the nice natural colors that you achieved.

3. wooden_bender- your color is very nice and your work looks very natural.

4. T Paul- I like the drama that you achieved with your darker background and bold colors, while still keeping a vintage look to the photo.

5. soleah- I just kept going back to this one. I think I just like the color and overall look of the work. Nice job.

Although this was a contest, I think that everyone who participated is a winner if you look at what we each learn from the experience.

Cathy

[Vikki]

Judging was difficult!!
It was a tough decision all the way. In particular for 1st and 2nd.
1 - righthanddesign: This looked to me like the most natural looking coloring and most closely kept the original image intact.
2 - Flora: This image just looks good. There is a wonderful softness about it that suits the image. The coloring is wonderful. The only thing that kept this from being 1st was the white vignette.
3 - Wooden bender: Very nice sking tones, and good application.
4 - TPaul: Nice coloring, especially on the white netting.
5 - Soleah: The coloring looks good and gives the image a nice vintage look. Clean up is good, although admit maybe a touch blurry.

[kiska]

It was close, close, close!

1. Vikki
2. Flora
3. Doug Colwell
4. Graphx
5. Erivon

kiska

[Legacy~Art]

I am not very good at critising peoples work, so i shall just add the names.

1st. Flora
2nd. Mark Adams
3rd. Janet Petty
4th. 1stlite
5th. Soleah

If the people i have chosen would like to know why i shall let them know by Private message.

[Janet Petty]

1. Vikki: I liked the bright, vibrant, realistic colors.

2. Flora: A very, very close second to Vikki. What put it in 2nd was the vignette.

Vikki and Flora both did an exceptional job although on my monitor at least they were both a tad too dark to distinguish the hair from the background very well.

3. TPaul: Again almost too close to call. The work is outstanding.

4. Mike Tex: Good coloring. Easy to see. Just a tad yellow on my monitor.

5. Saby: Nice coloring. Nice execution. Nice contrast.

If there could be a 6th, it would go to Migates. Although the picture was smaller than the others in size, from what I could see, the job done was very nice.

[MargaretM]

This was tough - so many good entries.
My strategy was first to establish a group of finalists based on skin tones. Then I went through these and eliminated those that were too touched or unnatural looking or too dark. Then looked closely at lips and eyes.
My vote is
1st: #16 Vikki very natural and soft.
2nd: #33 Byron liked his use of color and again a soft light look.
3rd #40 Soleah -great coloring just had a bit of trouble with the brigt green leaves.
4th: #35 Wooden Bench - Nice coloring - eyes a little too touched maybe?
5th: #15 Mark Adams - nice lush rendering. Had trouble with this spot.
Overall a great contest- let's do it again.

[Duv]

Great contest!

I had Vikki in first place all along mainly because of the eyes but now it's because of the eyes, I'm putting her in second behind Flora. In comparing the original Flora is bang on faithful with the shadow in the eyes, nothing added, nothing taken away and great skin tone. Have to agree though with the vignette. So here's my picks:

1) Flora
2) Vikki
3) Cedwar
4)TPaul
5) Doug Colwell

Cheers
Dave

[cdudding]

Wow, a lot of great entries! It was very hard to decide between the top three on my list - each has exceptional features. Here are my choices:

1. Flora - just the most pleasing to my eye. A little more "artsy" than some others, but the color was right on.
2. TPaul - the eyes are amazing. Excellent clarity. A very close 2nd place.
3. Vicki - The face (especially the mouth) have a beautiful natural glow.
4. Wooden Bender - love the blending on the skin tones - smooth.
5. 1st Lite - color looks natural to me.

Thanks for a very interesting contest!
Chris

[TwinANJ]

1) Soleah Smooth merge of colors and lighting. Hair and skin tone very natural. Fine detail work.

2) Cedwar Good color transition. Kept going back to this one and I continued to put a number 2 with it.

3) Vickki Nice lighting and the hair has wonderful highlights. Smooth on the skin tones. Background work shows fine detail

4)Wooden Bender different use of colors that make for a nice contrast (lips vs flower vs chiffon). All blend to be pleasing to the eye.

5) Ro This rendition gives the feel of the era. Wistful with an eye to the detail. Clean

This was very difficult to choose the top 5 but fun to really take a close look.
I downloaded the pictures with out knowing who's was who's and just kept going with the eliminations.
It is also neat to see everyones choices.
Look forward to more events like this one.

Jean
PS forgot to put the #4 on Wooden Bender and had to edit

[TwinbNJ]

I downloaded the images and went through the elimination process - as I got down to the last 10 it was very difficult.

Here are the picks:

1 - Cedwar
- each time I did a slide show in different order the richness of this image stood out each time.

2 - Doug Colwell
- rich color, I like that the sahdows were left on the face. Very natural looking.

3 - Soleah
- I felt this had a soft look without too much blur. The colors and skintones caught my eye also.

4 - Vikki
- Very clean with rich skin tones and lighting

5 -Wood Bender
- Soft, clean and nice colors

[Vikki]

View all contest images here: (numbers correspond to contest image threads)
http://www.pbase.com/vhansen/contest

[CJ Swartz]

Originally Posted by Vikki

View all contest images here: (numbers correspond to contest image threads)
http://www.pbase.com/vhansen/contest

Vikki -- that was a VERY NICE thing for you to do!!! Thanks MUCHO!!!

I was doing as Gary had suggested, but I got behind (being a procrastinator), and I was going to have to download a bunch before I could start my review -- you've made it easy for everyone.

[Mike Tex]

Really great contest

Here are the picks:

1 Vikki
2 T Paul
3 Flora
4 Woodenbender
5 Cedwar

[Doug Colwell]

1.Vikki - this is the one I kept going back to again and again.
2.Flora - closest to the original (1st if not for vignette).
3.TPaul - great detail work even at high zoom.
4.Terivon - bright and nicely recovered details in the shadows.
5.Wooden_bender - nice skin colouring and faithful to the orig.

[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
2) #9
3) #40
4) #4
5) #35

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

[Doug Nelson]

Let's not make more work for T than necessary. Take a minute to look up the names.