Excellent focus, clarity and exposure. The nicely blurred background keeps the focus on your three main subjects. This image tells a story

The focus and details on everything are excellent. The symmetrical composition works well. There are so many objects that the image appears very busy, although the butterfly in the center gives the viewer’s eye a place to rest.

You stopped the action well. The bird and peanut are in perfect focus. You left room for the bird to fly into in your composition. You have nice color throughout. It would have been nice to see a little detail and maybe a catchlight in the eye.

The sky has impact and the colors in the balloon are nice. The centered composition works well. Love the title! I think this might be a composite. If so, great idea. However, it seems like the lighting on the balloon is not consistent with the brightness of the clouds to the left

Excellent focus and details on the main horse. The blurred horses in the background give it context. The background is a little bright and draws the eye away from the main horse. You could consider cropping in from the left to eliminate the half horse.

Excellent details and exposure. Technically, perfectly executed. You may consider cropping in closer to the cactus and flipping the image horizontally to make the cactus the focal point, giving a place for the views to rest their eye.

Focus is spot-on and the face is tack sharp. The off center composition is a good choice. Like the way the focus on the band fades as it gets farther away.

Nice focus and color saturation on both the butterfly and sunflower Suggest cropping in tighter on just the the butterfly and flower; the rest of the image is somewhat distracting and doesn’t add to your image.

Nice, peaceful scene. The silhouettes have nicely defined, sharp edges and the weeds in the front add depth and dimension to the image. Nice color in the sky.

Great composition and sky. You have an interesting foreground, mid-ground and background which add depth to the scene and a strong composition.

Susan Lewis Christ Statue Eureka
TX 3 The slightly off center statue makes for a good compositon. The statue is tack sharp and the sky behind it adds impact and drama to your image. This would make a nice monochrome image, too.

This is to me a lovely picture. It meets all the criteria for a highly rated image. It is technically outstanding. All that needs to be sharp is sharp, and realistic. All of the “bit players” are softer and do not steal away the eye. It is creative and it impacts the viewer.

It is always a treat to see heron and egret chicks when they are young and vying for the food mom is bringing. The photographer has well captured a bit of the non-stop motion that occurs when mom returns. I think that the exposure and shutter speed are well done to freeze the action. The problem with so many rookeries as I have experienced is that the backgrounds are too busy and steal from the main subject. For me the image has been overly sharpened. I have attached a similar picture of my own as a comparison.

The triad of blues, yellows and reds of this image for me make it pleasing to the eye. To me the “riveted” eyes of the young model take and hold my eyes there and create a great fixation point. The huge strawberry and wispy hair add to the quality of the image. I feel that a bit higher f/stop might have been used as the fingernails on the hand and the ears show a bit of softness. Because the background wood is so small by amount of the image it would have been ok to have everything in sharp focus.

For me the title well captures the idea of the image. I believe that the creator of this image has done an excellent job of exposure and DoF to get details of the snow throughout. Whether in Capture or post the colors and brightness of the sky are realistic and complementary. In the VF I have removed a bit od the neutral space in the foreground and a bit of the sky to bring the arched lines of the snow to the 1/3rd points and to make this more of a panorama. For me this helps accentuate the beautiful lines in the snow.

From my judging experience this is another well done image. The photographer has chosen a fast shutter speed that not only captures the players but and the splash of the wet turf. The emotion on the faces adds to the story. A slightly darker background might make the players stand out even more.

This image is striking from the second it is opened and viewed. Amy has done an exceptional job in capture with the placement of the tree and roots. The image is tack sharp. The DoF provides an interesting background that steals nothing from the main subject. The choice of “near monochrome” (I see some brown in the roots) adds to the mystic of the image. Lastly the image is unique. This is a keeper!

Kudos to the creator for trying a very difficult shot. A bee at this magnification, from my experience, requires absolute precision and DoF. To my eye this is close. That said, I feel that the bee is sharper to the left but loses that detail on the right especially in the critical area of the eye. I have learned from experience that when a wing or other body part extends out of the image it can be interpreted as a near miss on the image. One way I have been taught to fix this, if the sharpness is there, is to crop in even farther. In the VF I copied the left side and flipped it then cropped in farther

For me the first strong feature of this image is the green/purple binary color scheme. I feel that it is very pleasing to the eye. I think that the bee provides a fixation point for the eye as well. From my experience in floral images the petals need to be “razor Sharp whereas these seem to me to be somewhat soft. I also seems to me that the white area in the background to the right of the flower is a possible distraction. The creator might consider reducing highlights in the background.

I believe that the creator of this image used both good technical composition in Capture and very appropriate post-processing to make the image appear period correct. To my eye even the insets in the door and window in the background appear to be correct. Together these add to the impact of the image.