Generically..I can see where you might have interpreted that personally ..but that was not my intent. I see many many awlful pictures posted..and no one except for a few will say..my God man what were you thinking! Its a fine line we tread..and certainly no one wants to hurt feelings although I have seen some pretty cruel opinions posted..not many I am glad to say. Art is very personal..but there is a base line in which I think we can address with some ..like read the freakin manual..learn how to get a proper exposure..study composition by looking at images and seeing what grabs you..hold off on a critique until this is the very best you can do..we are getting bombarded with crap..perhaps because it is basically a newbie forum..not the likes of others where you have to be approved in order to even show your work. It is a tough medium..Kind of like Hockey in the respect that first you have to learn to skate..then you can learn to play hockey. First learn the freakin camera..learn some basics of good photography..then ask for a critique. I don't see a lot of question specific to what did I do wrong..its more like FIX IT FOR ME. We have some very talented editors on the board..but even they are not magicians. How about try getting it right in camera. I see the critique as "did this image grab you? How can I improve my perspective..etc in order to make a this image better. I stopped by to learn..and will continue to read the threads etc as there is some good info being spread..but the critiques..forget it..waste of my time.

Generically..I can see where you might have interpreted that personally ..but that was not my intent. I see many many awlful pictures posted..and no one except for a few will say..my God man what were you thinking! Its a fine line we tread..and certainly no one wants to hurt feelings although I have seen some pretty cruel opinions posted..not many I am glad to say. Art is very personal..but there is a base line in which I think we can address with some ..like read the freakin manual..learn how to get a proper exposure..study composition by looking at images and seeing what grabs you..hold off on a critique until this is the very best you can do..we are getting bombarded with crap..perhaps because it is basically a newbie forum..not the likes of others where you have to be approved in order to even show your work. It is a tough medium..much like the sport of Hockey in the respect that first you have to learn to skate..then you can learn to play hockey. First learn the freakin camera..learn some basics of good photography..then ask for a critique. I don't see a lot of question specific to what did I do wrong..its more like FIX IT FOR ME. We have some very talented editors on the board..but even they are not magicians. How about try getting it right in camera. I see the critique as "did this image grab you? How can I improve my perspective..etc in order to make a this image better. I stopped by to learn..and will continue to read the threads etc as there is some good info being spread..but the critiques..forget it..waste of my time.

I think this whole discussion went right over you little small- minded head. I was quite clear as to why I am no longer interestng in the critique section of the forum. My point ..in response to gessman..why are we critiquing peoples photos and fixing them when they haven't got the slightest CLUE about the basics. I am astonished by the stupidity of some..and the pure laziness..read the freakin manual. Don't post some half a**** picture and expect one of the experts here to go through the entire gamut of their knowledge so you can take better shots of your dog Fido..we are here to learn..to critque images that have some thought or show some knowledge of the shooters ability with his camera. So I repeat..I am here to learn..but I am not wasting an hour helping someone who refuses to help themselves first. There are folks here... GOD Bless them for their patiance..who will spend hours explaining etc..not sure why..as they appear to be competent photographers..but not me. Been there done that ..I call it enabling. I am just too old to teach people how to read! The other problem is over reactionary folks like yourself who go off half cocked..have not read the post thoroughly..and then attack..that how wars are begun. I wonder why you get so defensive...its it the naure of fourums..or your lack of intelligence..not sure as you are an annoymous figure in cyber world. Perhaps if we were chatting one on one this woudl been a totally different scenerio. Best of luck..

We're having some, I don't know, confusion, conflict, in the forum that I think may be due to differences in people's monitors. It may be leading to some misinformation in some of our critiques. Suppose I send out what on my monitor looks to be very well exposed images with good contrast and colors, tone, saturation, etc., and some folks are coming back saying I need to do this and I need to do that. Then I see some of their pictures and I have nearly an opposite reaction to their images.

The problem is how it may affect the person being critiqued and render the value of those doing the critiquing virtually useless and actually damaging, especially with lessor experienced photographers. It might be nice if we could add some caveats to our critiques rather than blasting others images as though it were the law. I don't mean to pussyfoot but perhaps it would be good if we at least allowed for some monitors to be off and allow that to be the problem with the images and not dis everything from a persons camera to their editing software, to their ability to see straight, and approach it in a more advisory manner rather than so much a matter of fact.

It might not be a bad thing if we were to adapt a procedure for trying to determine what the problem is. For instance, if you, as I did today, submit some images and someone critiques you and tells you that you ought to punch up your color and darken your images some and then you go critique them and your response is that they need to lighten theirs. I think you just solved a problem there. Maybe we could have a little three person committee to review and critique the same people to see if they have a consensus about the appearance of a persons images. We're not talking composition and "eye" and stuff like that. We're talking color, saturation, focus, etc., things that can often be explained in terms of differences in monitors by different manufacturers. As it now stands we all have different monitors and we're all seeing room to criticize others based only on what we see. Can that really happen and be considered to be beneficial? If it were only monitors, there are often profound difference in the way graphics cards handle the information in images. I'm seeing comments on some people's pictures and I'm not seeing what I'm hearing that person say - potentially very harmful stuff and maybe unjustified. How about some ideas on this one? What do you think? Do you see any benefit and what would you suggest about how to go about it?

We're having some, I don't know, confusion, conflict, in the forum that I think may be due to differences in people's monitors. It may be leading to some misinformation in some of our critiques. Suppose I send out what on my monitor looks to be very well exposed images with good contrast and colors, tone, saturation, etc., and some folks are coming back saying I need to do this and I need to do that. Then I see some of their pictures and I have nearly an opposite reaction to their images.

The problem is how it may affect the person being critiqued and render the value of those doing the critiquing virtually useless and actually damaging, especially with lessor experienced photographers. It might be nice if we could add some caveats to our critiques rather than blasting others images as though it were the law. I don't mean to pussyfoot but perhaps it would be good if we at least allowed for some monitors to be off and allow that to be the problem with the images and not dis everything from a persons camera to their editing software, to their ability to see straight, and approach it in a more advisory manner rather than so much a matter of fact.

It might not be a bad thing if we were to adapt a procedure for trying to determine what the problem is. For instance, if you, as I did today, submit some images and someone critiques you and tells you that you ought to punch up your color and darken your images some and then you go critique them and your response is that they need to lighten theirs. I think you just solved a problem there. Maybe we could have a little three person committee to review and critique the same people to see if they have a consensus about the appearance of a persons images. We're not talking composition and "eye" and stuff like that. We're talking color, saturation, focus, etc., things that can often be explained in terms of differences in monitors by different manufacturers. As it now stands we all have different monitors and we're all seeing room to criticize others based only on what we see. Can that really happen and be considered to be beneficial? If it were only monitors, there are often profound difference in the way graphics cards handle the information in images. I'm seeing comments on some people's pictures and I'm not seeing what I'm hearing that person say - potentially very harmful stuff and maybe unjustified. How about some ideas on this one? What do you think? Do you see any benefit and what would you suggest about how to go about it?