alexring

Thanks a lot OldArrow and everybody for your votes!

(nt)

(nt)

Thanks for the comment, I'm afraid you are mistaken. You're rather fooled by the tilting slope in front of the cottage and the (relatively) small size posted here. If you look at it large you can see that the cottage (which is the only thing to be surely straight) is dead straight, and some vertical poles are also completely vertical.

Thanks again, Alex

Thanks a lot, I was not familiar with the work of Eyvind Earle, very interesting indeed! Thanks for the link!

Alex

Thanks a lot! I must say that I've tried similar "recoveries" many times but this was the only one that came out so successful.

Regarding the "original" one, I'm really surprised it finished there ( I'd expect even lower) because if seen alone it's really terrible. But I'm also a bit surprised because I thought that those two challenges were going to be voted in a parallel way (If I'd vote some processed photo for the 1st place, I'd also vote its original 1st too) To be honest I didn't thought we needed an extra challenge for the originals, one challenge where we'd have to submit both "before" and "after" would be enough. I don't find anything interesting in seen (and voting) the originals other than realising what have been done in PP, as these photos were specially selected to be submitted on the sole reason of being crappy enough to need a good amount of PP. If they were any good in the first place then they're not suitable by definition for the "PP challenge"
I suppose that's one of the mysteries of the challenges...

Thanks again!

Alex

This is a great photo, as good as panning gets! It really deserved a better place, maybe even 1st one. In fact it was one of the shots I was really afraid against mine and certainly not the one that came first, which technically is not even a pan, it's tracking. I'm afraid not a lot of people can tell the difference...
Congrats!!

Thanks a lot, yes going there was a dream come true, and the fantastic weather a great bonus!

Congrats Ben!!

Congrats Ian, a really deserving win for a great photo even if some think there's too much sky ;-)

(nt)

Thanks everyone, Peter, of course I'm not dissapointed, on the contrary I'm very pleased!

(nt)

(nt)

Thanks a lot everyone and sorry for the toooo late reply. I didn't even know this forum existed and found it today all by chance!
Cheers Alex

Thanks Peter, I don't take these too seriously but I'm really glad Ian won this with his superb photo.

Thanks everyone for the kind words, I didn't even know this forum existed! Regarding the DR and the vivid colors, the photo was taken so that no highlights were clipped and then the darker parts (that were quite dark as a result of preventing the highlights) were brought up again using Capture NX and CS2. (But with some self restrain as it 's too easy to overdo it...)
Don't forget that there was some fantastic light at the scene which is the No1 ingredient in good photos.
Thanks again!
Alex