Okay, now that I'm home and viewing these on a proper computer, I'm going to review each entry.
Please don't feel offended if I don't like your image, personal taste is what it is. I just thought it would be nice to share my thoughts.
Entry review:
Sam48: Interesting agressive shot. The smoke works well for the monotone theme, and the high exposure-induced reflections work well too. F40 is Monza is a good car/track choice. The one thing dragging this image down is the use of the miniature filter, the blur it gives the trees (especially with the sudden cutoff) is hard on the eyes. The road on the bottom right is too blurry too.
Fyshokid: Nice angle, nice motion blur, especially the on the graffiti on the ground. The headlights give this picture a nice mood, and the way the light bounces off the rear quarter of the car looks great. There's a big problem here though: the first is there is simply too much noise. It looks fine in the preview but once you view it full it's too prevalent. I'm sure you were going for that kind of mood but I felt it kind of overpowers the image. The grain is also too defined and artificial looking. If you're using photoshop, I would recommend using the Fade tool after applying noise for a more natural look.
Benmastaw00t: GT-One. A ballsy choice considering it is one of the worst-textured standards in the game. That being said, you did a great job cleaning it up, especially the livery in the front. My favorite thing about this image are the subdued colors, they fit the mood of a rainy race perfectly. 👍 The thing I dislike most is the jaggies caused by the water spraying. Both wheels shown and the wing both have a fair amount, and it detracts from the mood. Maybe you don't have the software to clean it up, but if you did I really think it would help.
aidan8500 Toyota 7. A wise choice, as it is one of the best looking standards (graphically) out there. I like the lighting, the road blur, and the red/white on green colors. The thing that I didn't like about the composition was the car placement. The front is just too close to the border and I feel there is too much road shown on the left. I'm sure you wanted to show the beautifully modeled (for a standard) engine, but I feel you went out of your way to do this at the expense of a good composition.
Raphaele: I like how you timed the shot with the train in the background. It looks like you chose the perfect shutter speed (for realism as well as being visually pleasant) as well. All too often people put the shutter speed to 1/1 and it just looks weird. 👍 That being said, the colors and contrast seem a bit off, which is a serious issue for a realism theme. The tire angle is a bit weird looking. The fact that the car is sitting on the tracks hurts the realism theme as well.
Moglet: Going with the remarkably well rendered JGTC was a good choice. I'm liking the realistic composition, the color tones are mostly good (I feel the greens are too saturated but everything else is just about perfect.) The noise is perfect too. The most interesting thing about this image is the way the light lights up the car. I haven't really noticed many people bringing out this kind of thing but it was an interesting choice. It looks like the highlights were overdone, though perhaps it would go unnoticed if it wasn't.
Nicknamealguem: Right off the bat my favorite thing here is the color toning. It perfectly sets the mood of the setting without being overly flashy or boring. The tilt on the camera is a perfect touch to add a little bit of excitement (let's be honest, buildings aren't terribly exciting
) The only thing that puts me off is the low shutter speed, the ghosts on the top of the steps just look... weird. I don't really see any flaws other than that though
NTX: A great composition of beautiful buildings. I just
love the soft glow and noise across the whole image. The big thing I don't like is the oversaturation. I know it's a colorful setting but it's just too much. I do know that oversaturated images (IMO) almost always do better in polls... it's usually not to my taste though.
Revolution: My favorite thing about this image is most certainly the purple and yellow combination. The way the colors work together (along with the orangish shades on the car) is phenomenal. The vignetting suits the theme perfectly though I feel there are many better textured headlights in the car list. The noise is spot on, and the little lighting details like the highlights on the wheel are excellent.
Zambuca: I wasn't expecting to see an entry showing the rear lights but you pulled it off well. I like the composition and the colors. I find the colorful noise however to be distracting. The other thing (and I admit, this may be nitpicking) but I feel the picture is lacking a mood. It's a little bit generic looking perhaps. Oh, and I also like the sparklies, usually they look like crap but you captured them very well.
Slipztrem: I said in the matchup thread I expected some jaw dropping stuff to come out of this theme, and boy this is better than I ever could have imagined. Absolutely
stunning. I don't know what else to say, it leaves me speechless.
Zerox: I'm loving the focal length, making the tunnel looking like it lasts forever. There's some cool looking lighting here, though the rear lights indicate the picture is extremely overexposed. I was expecting it to be more... abstract though. I know abstract is an extremely vague theme but... I was expecting something different, maybe not even of a car, or something indistinguishable, just a bunch of colors blending together.
ceiling_fan: My pic! Okay, it's overdone. I admit it. I spent a hell of a long time coming up with a good french car/french track combo. I even bought a 2,000,000 cr. GT by Citroen concept but just couldn't get anything I liked out of it. I decided to do La Sarthe and determined that only a super fast car would look really good there. I used a 14mm focal length to further exaggerate the sense of speed. I spent an insane amount of time going back and forth with various color tones, the funny thing is now I feel that the colors on the car are oversaturated.
This was taken in the rain at dawn, which is where the sun reflection on the road comes from. A lot of time was spent dodging all the details on the car, I did this for a stronger, more vibrant image, though it came out looking a bit too stylized in retrospect. My favorite thing here is the trees. I spent a long time getting them to look decent, there were a ton of sharp edges and 2d branches I had to deal with. One thing I wish I could have done was take the sky from a less exposed image as I don't really like the blown out horizon. But I can't do that since I'm only allowed one source image. I appreciate the votes everyone!
Abraxas: I wasn't expecting to see such a cool battle shot on Chamonix! I really like the action here, and (what looks like) a slippery overtake drift. You did an excellent job keeping both cars in focus. And the track lines, mountains and sky are all beautifully captured, and the vignetting really brings it out. 👍 You have my vote
Tangled Web: I said earlier that low shutter speed on the train looks weird and I'm sticking to it. However, the super low (minimum?) aperture setting gives it a really cool looking depth of field effect which came out really well. I also like how only the front of the car is in focus, usually a blurry back half is distracting but you pulled it off very well. The one crazy thing about this image is how :censored:ing CLEAN the car is (same goes with your qualifier entry) If we both win this round we'll be facing off next week, and that's a truly terrifying prospect!
ghostrider: I like the late night city vibe you were able to achieve. However the image isn't terribly attention-grabbing and the composition could be better. The depth of field is a bit distracting on the city lights and the signs on the right side, and the color banding on the barrier is a bit much as well. I think a sense of speed would have really helped this image. The light from the headlights is really well captured by the way.
Phew! I hope you guys found my input helpful...
I wanted to vote for the painting-like picture:tup:
