tainkc wrote:
Please forgive me on this, but I can not hold back. First, to soften the blow, The subject matter and composition are very good. It is a very cute picture. You know that I am not a mean person and hopefully you can see a little humor in what I am trying to say. So, please bear with me. Here goes:
The actual quality of the photo itself is bad. There are blocks of over pixelization well evidenced on her shirt. It looks like an over cooked HDR photo like we see so often here. Her skin tones are all messed up. It is way over sharpened, blah, blah blah. It is pretty obvious. It is terribly over processed. It is nothing like your usual quality. I bet you have your reasons. I am willing to bet you started with a bad photo and did your best to make it work. But this is not my point.
My gripe is not the quality of the photo myself, but rather the comments that people are posting. They are telling you that is a great pic and some even saying what a wonderful job in post. You know better than this. But why do people insist it is a great photo when it isn't? I am talking strictly of the processing, not the subject matter.
I am not concerned with you posting a crappy quality photo because I know your work. But other, less experienced photographers post even crappier pictures and they still get high praise. How are they supposed to learn if people don't call a spade a spade? You know what I mean? It is perfectly alright to say a photo is a great capture, which yours is. But to say it is a great photo is just being detrimental to the photographer. I see this sort of thing way to often on UHH.
People would rebut me by telling me to post on the critique forum. Well, this too, is a critique forum. That other forum is so misled that it has become a running joke. How sad.
A couple of weeks ago, decided to give that other forum one last try. I posted a rather funny self portrait and they deleted it. Yes, it was funny subject matter, but I wanted a real critique of technique hopefully by some folks who know what they are talking about. Instead, it gets deleted. Go figure.
Anyway, I posted a similar photo on this forum and I actually got some real feedback; some saying what was wrong and how I could improve it. Perfect!
Just the other day, I posted a series of which some people said that some of the photos were pure crap. One person even came down on me with a vengeance! Nothing wrong with that! After further inspection, I found this guy to be right! Fine with me. I did not take the harshness personally. I used it as a learning tool. It is just the false praise that strikes a nerve in me.
Still, I think your picture is cute and it made me laugh because if I ever tried to put a leash on any of my cats, I would end up with more stitches than if I tried to imitate a Japanese chef!
Tom
Please forgive me on this, but I can not hold back... (
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Tom, I agree with you completely. And you are right, I had a compelling reason for doing it this way, though the effect that I used doesn't work well on people or animals, and I don't think I'll try that ever again. The subject of the photo was cute so I posted it anyway, but I shouldn't have. I'll answer your PM to tell you what my reasons are!