Idea for Critique forum

[Ben Egbert]

My "Lets play" post last week got quite a good response and one request for more. That inspired an idea.

I will look through my archive for images that may not be special, but that could benefit from good post processing. Some may need blends, others maybe just careful processing. Then after a few people have taken a shot, we could vote on the best job.

I am thinking for the next one, I am going to supply the unprocessed jpegs and not show any finished version of my own.

The idea here is twofold.

1. Gives people a chance to improve their post processing or simply show how good they are.
2. The vote shows the other forum members what sort of finished product is best received by the community.

I am willing to use images from my archive so long as they are not perceived as my personal best. This way they are just examples. That's why I don't want to do my own version. Also, in time others could post from their own archive.

How to vote on the results is an open question. I suppose we could do a poll afterward.

Jim, does this sound like any worthwhile thing?

 

[JimFox]

Hey Ben,

A really great idea, I had thought of something similar before, or I think we had maybe talked about something like this.

A couple of thoughts.

Instead of providing just an unprocessed jpg, you could provide that and also 2 more, where all you have done is in ACR over expose it 1 stop and then underexpose it 1 stop. Since we are working with jpgs, that gives us an exposure change based on the raw and not from a jpg if we do those 2 adjustments on our own.

The Poll idea for voting is an awesome idea. Certainly something to try. Otherwise we can just use the "Likes" letting people know that a Like = a Vote.

It would be great to pick a day, so then it's consistent.

 

[Darcy Grizzle]

Yes that sounds fun, I like the idea of not having a finished product to view, as then we don't have that in the back of our minds as to what we think it should look like...does that make sense? I will play every time as it just means I will learn that much more....and then all you really good photog's could feedback on what us amateurs did . I may be your only groupie because what I have seen in this Focal World, you all are really good!

 

[Darcy Grizzle]

And Jim what is ACR?

 

[AlanLichty]

And Jim what is ACR?

Adobe Camera Raw. Same basic RAW rendering tool as what is in Lightroom.

 

[JimFox]

And Jim what is ACR?

As Alan mentioned, when you first open up a Raw photo in Photoshop or Lightroom, the program that is being opened is actually ACR (Adobe Camera Raw). This is where you are making your first basic adjustments to your photo before then editing it in Photoshop (hopefully) or Lightroom.

 

[JimFox]

Yes that sounds fun, I like the idea of not having a finished product to view, as then we don't have that in the back of our minds as to what we think it should look like...does that make sense? I will play every time as it just means I will learn that much more....and then all you really good photog's could feedback on what us amateurs did . I may be your only groupie because what I have seen in this Focal World, you all are really good!

Ha ha.... Well, I think you will do good with this. I am glad you want to participate! And as for being a groupie, we can always use a good groupie or two!

 

[Ben Egbert]

Ok, I will fix up an image. Pick a day, maybe Sunday? The contest starts Saturday this week and Monday for later weeks. Friday is Focus day, and Wednesday is waterfalls.

I have one image with two different exposures, either of which could be processed stand alone, or blended. Do you wnat me to find one with more DR challange and then do the +1/-1 steps?

 

[JimFox]

I don't think you need to do the 3 exposures for every image, I think it will just depend on the image you choose to post. I mentioned that only to help with a little better quality for blending. It was an example only. Maybe you have a shot that is really underexposed, you may want to do a +1 and a +2 instead.

So just use your judgement on that. If you don't post a +1 or a -1 and then someone asks for one, it won't be a big deal for you then to go do that and add it to the thread.

Sunday could work for posting. With this, if we want to do a contest with it, maybe we give this a 3 day window? Sunday through Tuesday, and then on Tuesday night we tally the Likes or we put up a Poll and let people vote? I kind of like the Poll idea, I think currently Polls are limited to 10 items, I will have to double check that and adjust that if needed.

Good ideas here, this will be fun!

 

[JimFox]

I added a Poll into an existing thread in the Critique forum. Let me know what everyone thinks?

I used the Post # as a simple way to identify the posts, and I thought maybe it was good not to add the persons name to the poll, and simply keep it as a # identifier. It's also easier to set up.

I also could set up a time limit for the Poll, the shortest duration is 1 day. But that's fine, we allow edits for 3 days maybe? and then let voting happen on Wed? Or just do Edits for 2 days and Voting on Tuesday?

 

[Ben Egbert]

Thanks Jim, I will go check it out.

Checked it out, the vote was easy and worked well. Thanks for doing this.

 

[Ben Egbert]

Hi Jim, I did the first post today and attempted to set it up as a poll, Not sure that works yet as there is nothing to vote for. Maybe you will need to modify it and/or show me how. I made it three days, with voting after that time, Feel free to change that as well.

Hope this works.

 

[JimFox]

Hey Ben,

I just saw that. I will go an modify it for you. I think it works best to add the poll to the thread after people have posted their efforts, that way you will know what Posts to list in the Poll. The Poll has to be set to a specific # of options, I can go over that with you later.

Glad you started the new thread on it, it looks like a good one. And you probably already thought of this, but let others post their efforts on it, and then maybe Monday night post yours so no one is influenced by your work.

Jim