Disqualified, WOW was I surprised at that and I feel that everyone who left comments and voted, and there were a lot of you, deserve an explanation. When I received the message to send in the original picture file in I figured the SC or someone thought I did something funky in the post editing process. No problem there because I new I didn’t do anything that couldn’t have been done even in basic editing. None the less when I got the message ..."the entry was disqualified because Your submission must be taken after the challenge is announced and before the deadline, based on the Current Server Time (US Eastern Standard Time) etc …" I was ready to do battle with our SC friends because I took this photo during a business trip to Garmisch Germany this past October. Naturally the first thing I did was check the exif time stamp and everything looked OK until I saw the year which was “2099”. What can I say? Actually you wouldn’t want to hear what I said. I figure when I changed camera setting to local German time I neglected to check the year setting or I fat fingered something. I’ll never know. Anyway, to all who left comments thanks again. Overall this photo seemed to be a love it or hate it type thing. Actually technically speaking I wasn’t too fond of it myself because of the graininess (like a lot of people) but my wife loved it because “it looked like a painting” (like a lot of people). So I went with it. If I had a tripod it would have been much better. This picture also would have been a great candidate for HDR. It wasn’t doing all that well in the scoring either, a 5.4 something before it got whacked. In any event this obviously was a beautiful place to behold in person and the picture doesn’t really do it justice. Also I learned attention to details is a must when changing camera settings. Lesson learned.
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Curves
USM
NI
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SFW
Disqualification Details
Your submission must be taken after the challenge is announced and before the deadline, based on the Current Server Time (US Eastern Standard Time) displayed at the bottom of every page on this site. You must ensure that your camera date and time are correctly set to your local time zone before shooting your entry. If the date recorded in your original image file is not within the specified challenge dates, your entry will be disqualified -- NO exceptions!
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Views since voting: 1401 Comments: 42 Favorites: 3 (view)
Ha! Well, it looks like my comment on processing was off-base! I still think it looks over processed the way I described... bah. Shows how much I know...
Oops. My DQ was for an incorrectly set date, too. Take solace in the fact that you'll probably get a lot more views than if you'd been in the middle of the pack. :)
Anyway, it's a beautiful shot, and one that, despite the DQ, should help you remember the joy of standing in that spot. I'm in the camp that likes how it looks like it's on canvas.
a beautiful place, for sure, but there's something horribly pixelated in this image in the trees and water. given the sharpness of the mountains and sky, something just doesn't seem right.
Nicely composed, nicely exposed, nice leading lines drawing the eye into the photo.
However, it seems over processed and that cloud peeping over the mountains is a prime example, also the trees and the water lack any punch, maybe they needed a boost in saturation to liven the shot up a little.
shame about the noise. Look into Neat Image or Noise Ninja. would have really helped here too. It looks like you might not be shooting at the highest resolution. If that is the case, I recommend that you always shoot the highest quality the camera will allow. If this is from a camera phone, then I recommend getting a decent digital camera. The picture is lovely, the image quality is killing it.
This is a beautifully composed photograph, capturing some gorgeous lighting on the snow-capped mountains. It does seem to suffer from digital noise, which rather detracts, and I would like to see a bit more detail in the trees and water - as it is, it appears almost as a painting, and I am unsure if this is as a result of post-processing. I would prefer a more 'photographic' feel, but very pleasing nonetheless.
The middle ground - the trees, seem over-lightened, without bringing the black areas back to where they should be. The light on the mountain tops is fine, but that middle ground lightening causes problems for the sweetness of the entirety.
An incredibly beautiful scene, but a very noisy image. And even worse, there's horizontal structure to the noise, most obvious near the bottom of the image. You could fix it with NoiseNinja or NeatImage, but it would be a lot of work because you couldn't use the same setting for the foliage as the rest of the image.
Holy over-processed! Shadow/highlight (if you used CS2) is your friend; don't abuse your friends! I'm guessing the foreground was next to black at first. You have to be wary when trying to pull details out of the shadows like this, often you will find, as you have, alot of unsightly noise. Also, you've killed the contrast in the mountains. Otherwise, this is a well composed and very scenic photo. Don't worry too much, post processing is something that comes with experience. 6 months ago I was doing this same thing to my photos. It'll come.
Ohmygoodness! I was up on the Zugspitze once when I was a little girl, and I think the awe of that moment and that view is what was the beginning of my love for the mountains and landscape photography! Adding this one to my favorites so I can often be reminded of the memory -- and of course because its a stunning photo :) Good luck!
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