Hi Everyone! Last month we tried something new, instead of the coaches doing individual critiques we had the community provide critiques for each other. It was a big success and a lot of fun to review all the photos and comments. Over 480 photos were submitted with literally thousands of critiques posted. Everyone that participated deserves a prize but we only have a few awards to hand out. Here are the winners as decided by the ON1 staff. 

Best Individual Critique Category – Awarded to the member(s) that makes the most well-thought helpful single critique.

Photo by William G Thomas
1st Place – $100 – Christian Zuern:
“What a nice natural smile! Sadly for me the picture is cut in half by the sand and so a little bit too much in balance. When you put her face in the center (which is totally ok here, because she smiles directly into the camera) I would have set the line of the sand higher (to her eye level). By this the bright face would be surrounded by a darker background and glow even more. The green grass in the back would even compliment her greenish/grayish eyes! I would also consider to remove the drawing on the t-shirt. For me it distracts from the face, especially because you see only part of it and start guessing. And the story is definitely the beautiful smile!!!

Photo by Duane Denson
2nd – $50 – Frank:
“Nice waterfall, great exposure to get the silky waterfall. The walls are very interesting around the waterfall, too, adding to the scene. HDR was a good choice. I definitely like the scene overall.
Few thoughts
-Great to pick a foreground element. You might want to get even closer to the rock with a wide lens and tilt up a bit. Try different amount of rock.
-If you walked over to the right some, and possibly found another foreground element, you could effectively put the waterfall right in the rule of thirds position. The benefit of that could potentially be showing less of the uninteresting grey gravel.
-The greens are overly enhanced to the point of being unreal. I see quite a few photos with this amount of enhancement, but I prefer enhancing to the point where it looks natural but still is enhanced.
-Enhance the white/exposure of the water. It is a bit grey/bluish.
I’ve heard the suggestion that it can help to leave a photo for a few days or weeks, and come back to look at it. When you do that, you could find that you may pull back on some of the sliders. I know I can initially over-edit and then pull back on the editing. Not sure if you would make any changes when you look at this again, but I looking at a photo with fresh eyes and imagine what other people’s first impressions would be.”
 

Photo by David Clark
Honorable Mention – Charles:
“Great light, great moment and great composition! In a perfect world, can you make the mountain in the light even more of the star of the show? Perhaps painting a brighter, warmer version over the mountain and reflection would make it stand out. And painting a cooler, darker version around the perimeter of the warm mountain would make it pop more. You might consider some highlight dodging in the clouds and snow in the light and burning the shadows in the darker sky. Finally, if the green in the mountain reflection was more of a warm color, it might again make the mountain the star. You captured a fantastic moment!”
Best Post Processing Suggestion Category – Awarded to the member(s) that makes the best suggestion for improving the photo in post-processing.

Photo by James Brooks
1st Place – $100 – Ray Mackaway:
“Hi James, What great subject matter. Thanks for sharing. I also found the rich red of the barn wall pulling my attention out of the photo. The righthand top corner of the photo is very white. I placed the photo in ON1 and tried the following adjustments. For the red barn wall I added a Color Enhancer Filter. At the bottom of this filter is the Color Range:. I selected Red and reduced the Saturation to -70. For the top righthand corner I added a Local Adjustment set to Darken. I used a Exposure of -1 and set the Feather to 51 and the Opacity to 31. I used the mask to darken the left top corner a little then went across the top and wiped the brush over the top righthand corner several times. There is lots of detail in the righthand top corner and this helped to bring out some detail and reduce the white. These are just suggestions.”

Photo by Patosan
2nd Place – $50 – David Gavin:
“An excellent photo with good composition. The second person in the back adds depth, the muted tones match the mood of the picture. Some styling ideas I would try:
– You have three main color points in the picture: the lantern, the Geisha and the plant on the right. I’d try to emphasize each of these by adding a bit of saturation while reducing the color palette to yellow, red, green.
– It could be interesting to make a smaller crop and remove all colors but red.
– Perhaps a bleach bypass effect at 25% would add a bit of local snappiness (and would also emphasize the colors a bit).
– Just for fun play around with some LUTs, sometimes an unexpected effect works just right.
But these ideas would just be to play around, the picture works perfectly as it is.”

Photo by Stuart Jansen
Honorable Mention – Wayne Gallagher:
“Wonderful portrait, super sharp, and a very nice composition. I like the black background. To the left, at eye level or so, there is a pair of circular dots that are lighter on the black background, and caught my attention more than once as my eyes scanned the photo. Cloning those out with the perfect brush would keep the eye from moving to them. Wonderful detail, great exposure and nice catch lights in the eyes. Well done.”
Best Critique-ers Category – Awarded to the members that provide the most helpful critiques, measured in both quality and quantity. Thank you for leaving so many positive and thoughtful comments.
1st Place – $100 – Gilles A. Marchal
2nd – $50 – David Brown
Honorable Mention – Romie Miller
Thank you everyone for opening up and sharing your photos with the community, and thanks to everyone that provided feedback for others. Feel free to continue to leave your comments and critiques on the critique gallery here.
Congratulations to everyone that won a prize, please send me a message and I will work out the logistics with you.
Watch Matt and Hudson’s Highlight videos previously recorded:


What did you think of the first every community photo critiques? Do you like this format? Leave your comments below.