POTM April '09 Winner!

[admin]

April's POTM winner is

"Kaye"

April theme was "Contrasts". It proved to be rather challenging topic, which made the competition so much more interesting! Just to clarify we were not looking for the tonal contrast (this would be just about every photo with adjusted levels) but rather differences between the subjects. Contrast as the opposite of Similarity. Contrasts in size (big vs. small), color (colorful vs. grey), age (young or new vs. old) or shape (round vs square) etc.

And here is the winning photo:

http://www.proudphotography.com/gallery/watermark.php?file=6176&size=1

Rating: 6.5/10

Direct gallery link: http://www.proudphotography.com/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/6176/sortby/r/sorttime/9999/way/desc

Congratulations!

[treetop]

Well done Kaye

[dkippen]

Congratulations Kaye.

[Kaye]

Well done Kaye

Len, you are really learning your way around now.
Thanks very much for the comment.

[Kaye]

Thanks so much Debbie, you are always on the ball and one of the first to reply. It was just by chance I took this shot in a rush heading for the train station after Jury duty in Sydney a few months ago. I really felt sorry for the church!

[ladyups]

Congrats...Kaye! Now this should up your spirits! It was a great image and a perfect example of the topic.

[Kaye]

Thank you Mary.
Winning something always helps up the spirits a little. (This was with the old camera by the way when I was on Jury Duty a few months ago). Still getting used to new settings on new one, but did take the Cockatoo ones on new one). I will get better. I took some of ducks/natural pond etc. today and most blurred on zoom as I was on wrong settings! I am rushing too much.

[treetop]

Len, you are really learning your way around now.
Thanks very much for the comment.

Thanks Kaye.
I'm trying to categorize my pics so that they are easier to find. Still having some probs when downloading certain pics, they seem to fly off into cyberspace somewhere. I'll soon be a professional though LOL.

[dkippen]

Your welcome Kaye - I'm very glad you took the time as it really is a beautiful shot.

[Kaye]

Hey Len, You could always upload your pics first to your Gallery, and then from there, you can post them to different Threads. Then if you can't find them, they are still in your gallery.
My best answer is:
If you click on your name, and then go to your "statistics", you can find all the posts you have made; and also all the Threads you have started. This does let you keep track of what you have done and where you have posted your pics.

[treetop]

That's exactly what I have been trying to do Kaye. I'm obviously doing something wrong, old age hey.
And I wanted to be a Rocket scientist when I grew up LOL.

[Kaye]

That's exactly what I have been trying to do Kaye. I'm obviously doing something wrong, old age hey.
And I wanted to be a Rocket scientist when I grew up LOL.

You are perhaps no older than me. I am a complete amateur' just as you say you are, and I just won a photo of the month!! You can do this, as your pics are really great. Just listen to a few hints from other members. But to go in the POTM (Photo of the Month), you must satisfy the theme for that month). Next POTM (May)(still open for photos) is "Architecture in an unusual way". You may have more time than me, so just keep going and practising, and learning from the other members. I do know it helps when they speak in normal language, as I am also trying to learn more technology.
Keep up your good work.

[jaydi]

Well done Kaye...this was my favovite pic by far.

[Kaye]

Thanks Jaydi - what a nice comment. I think there were quite a few great pics In April POTM.

[coffee]

A well deserved win Kaye. Congrats.

[treetop]

You are perhaps no older than me. I am a complete amateur' just as you say you are, and I just won a photo of the month!! You can do this, as your pics are really great. Just listen to a few hints from other members. But to go in the POTM (Photo of the Month), you must satisfy the theme for that month). Next POTM (May)(still open for photos) is "Architecture in an unusual way". You may have more time than me, so just keep going and practising, and learning from the other members. I do know it helps when they speak in normal language, as I am also trying to learn more technology.
Keep up your good work.


Your comments are very kind Kaye. I have to admit trying to find my way around this forum is causing me a little embarresment sometimes. I know some of my downloads are going where I don't intend them to go. i.e.POTM and other threads. I bet some folk on here think I'm ready for the knackers yard:D

Still, one of the wisest men I ever met in my life always said "It's always better to have tried and failed, than to have never have tried at all"
So I'll keep trying and keep failing, but at least I'll be failing better.;)

[Kaye]

A well deserved win Kaye. Congrats.
Thanks Joseph. Perhaps a bit of luck having previously shot the right sort of photo which happened to fit the theme.
It always annoyed me that I had to take the church in two separate shots due to the limited distance that I was able to move away from the church, and still get the tall steeple in; hence I could not fit the whole thing in one image. It would have looked much better. I did want to join them, I tried, but am not that clever yet on Photoshop - perhaps not even possible on Photoshop? If you know how to do it, please let me know. I would love to see it in one piece - I still have the bottom part of the church saved as well!

Thanks again,

[Kaye]

Your comments are very kind Kaye. I have to admit trying to find my way around this forum is causing me a little embarresment sometimes. I know some of my downloads are going where I don't intend them to go. i.e.POTM and other threads. I bet some folk on here think I'm ready for the knackers yard:D

Still, one of the wisest men I ever met in my life always said "It's always better to have tried and failed, than to have never have tried at all"
So I'll keep trying and keep failing, but at least I'll be failing better.;)

Thanks again Len,
In my theory, if you are failing better, that must mean you are improving some, and I know that you will improve, as you do keep trying, just like me.
I don't really follow the "stars", but are you born in Aug/Sept??
I never give up. I may waste a lot of time trying to learn, but I need to do it.
It took me a while also to learn the site, and I still get lost sometimes also. The best of us get lost. Initially, I just kept on moving around the site before uploading many images, in order to learn my way around.
Re Your total number of images: If you put them all initially in your Gallery, then upload from there to different threads, you will know exactly what you have. I do not really know how many photos I have here or there, but ones I particularly like I put in my Gallery.
Other members may be better qualified on the No. of photos count. I gave up worrying about it.
Hope you can follow this and good luck.

[ladyups]

Thanks Joseph. Perhaps a bit of luck having previously shot the right sort of photo which happened to fit the theme.
It always annoyed me that I had to take the church in two separate shots due to the limited distance that I was able to move away from the church, and still get the tall steeple in; hence I could not fit the whole thing in one image. It would have looked much better. I did want to join them, I tried, but am not that clever yet on Photoshop - perhaps not even possible on Photoshop? If you know how to do it, please let me know. I would love to see it in one piece - I still have the bottom part of the church saved as well!

Thanks again,

Hi Kaye. You can do this with the photo merge command in Photoshop. Under file, automate, photo merge. Its better if you
have taken both images on a tripod so that they are both taken at the same angle, dimension, etc...I've done this with a couple that a friend gave me and he handheld them and they turned out pretty good. The only place you could tell was a bit in the sky cause the clouds had moved just enough to not quite line up. He wanted it to put on his webpage to sell the land and was quite happy with how it turned out.

[Kaye]

You are a wonder Mary! I will certainly give it a try when I have time to work it out.
I did not take them with a tripod, but they do match fairly closely if I crop to the exact angle. The trouble is now, I have photoshoped the top and not the bottom. I will probably never get it to look the same. I will need to think about this. Thanks so much for the info. It takes so long to find out about ALL one can do with Photoshop. (I only have CS2 - hope it will work on that?)...

[ladyups]

CS2 is all I have too. I've looked into CS3 and CS4 but can't decide which I want to do. I only want the CS3 for the B/W option so not sure I need to go to CS4 but right now, both versions are about the same price. I've heard that CS4 is a big drain on processors and since my desktop is a bit old, I'm afraid it won't be able to handle it. The other reason I need to upgrade is due to the fact that I upgraded to the a700 and now camera RAW can't read my raw files. Thanks to PS not supporting the camera in anything older than CS3...:(

This is a good example of why you should never work on your original files. Do a file duplicate, save the original and work on the dup. Of course, that doesn't help you now, does it..:)

[Kaye]

CS2 is all I have too. I've looked into CS3 and CS4 but can't decide which I want to do. I only want the CS3 for the B/W option so not sure I need to go to CS4 but right now, both versions are about the same price. I've heard that CS4 is a big drain on processors and since my desktop is a bit old, I'm afraid it won't be able to handle it. The other reason I need to upgrade is due to the fact that I upgraded to the a700 and now camera RAW can't read my raw files. Thanks to PS not supporting the camera in anything older than CS3...:(
This is a good example of why you should never work on your original files. Do a file duplicate, save the original and work on the dup. Of course, that doesn't help you now, does it..:)

Mary, it is very annoying when software does not keep up with equipment such as cameras.
When you say B&W option, doesn't CS2 have this - Image/Adjustments/Desaturate ?? Is this not B&W ?
I do still have my original pics of the church top and bottom, but it took me a lot of work on the top bit. I probably did things the LONG way as I am sure that many times I lack the knowledge to edit something the quickest way. eg. I am not that good on masks, but I will learn.
I always work on a duplicate, but on occasions I have started on the original and clicked on Save rather than Save As.... then it is too late!
I just checked out both my images, and the bottom part does not add all that much more on - as I guess I tried to avoid cars, etc. in front of church.