Ok so here is a picture that i submitted in a recent challenge and it did badly. only 5.1
Personally I think its a nice picture. So considering i only recieved two comments and they weren't critiques, i would like to receive some now. Please just comment on the photo's page. I would just like to know why it got the score it did.
My "first glance" reaction is to say that it looks a little front-focused, and a little lacking in critical sharpness and detail. The front-focus observation may or may not be entirely accurate, it's hard to really tell. The intervening glass may have something to do with the lack of very fine detail.
All in all, I too think it's better than a flat 5. If I had to guess at what I thought it would score, I'd put it at about 5.6. It's a nice portrait, and I like the choice of toning. I might have placed her (him?) just a hair higher in the frame, but that might not have been possible, at least without a re-shoot.
I like your portraits but this image is not very interesting. The focus is not perfect, the white areas are strange as if you fixed them with shadow/highlights. Moreover this is not a subject that score well is a Free Study. Perhaps in a different challenge it would score 5.5, but not much more than this :)
I didn't end up voting on it, but I would have given it a 5. I love the idea of it. If I could actually see more of the drops on the window like the ones at the bottom, it probably would have been absolutely wonderful. It would have given a reason for the soft focus, the blown highlights, etc. But my lousy eyes only see the drops at the bottom, and it doesn't really add anything to the picture.
So, as it stands, it's more of a portrait of a cat than a portrait of a cat through a rainy window. As a portrait of a cat, it's nice, but the soft focus, the uncomfortable closeness of the framing just don't really add to it. If we had more visible rain drops on the window, it would be an intimate peek into the cat's world. The soft focus would fit, the framing echos the window, etc.
So close, but not close enough to make it work for me.
Sofia, IMHO, the problem isn't that it did badly. The problem is you are used to scoring high. I gave this a 6. It's cute, it's thoughtful, but it's not really special. It's a view most cat owners are used to seeing. A 5.1 isn't a bad score. It's a very average score.
Thank you everyone for taking the time to comment on this picture. The basic edits were done in Camera RAW so i tried to recover the blown out portions there. anyways. Thanks again! Back to human portraits i go!!!
