Yeah I agree with you man. I was so rushed for time on the GT-R that I had to put something together that would hopefully get some votes. Luckily it was enough to get us through the round. With the CR-Z I didn't do too much work on it.
Here are our round 4 and 5 chops:
Porsche 911 Mainly done by the other member of my team:
Base image:
Holly mother of god, really? I mean, I know you did not make all of this, but come ON, that is the level in a worldwide series? Heck, the porsche is absolutely PERFECTLY in good focus. The engine is like it was shot with a manual lens without adjusting. It also suffers badly of the "lots going on" syndrome. Awful.
Round 5: Front mainly done by me (but very rushed)...
Base image:
http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/2438/2010vauxhaulmeriva101.jpg
Reflections on the Meriva look pretty decent, but it also has wayyy to much going on to look slightly real.
The rear is pretty decent., but the door is just too big at it's end, too as if the shot was taken with a wide angle lens, too in your face for the viewpoint from where we are looking at the car. It shouldn't come to be wider as it is closer to the viewer. It's a shame because the work in the scratch-made door is very good. And where is it's shadow? O_o
And heres a pretty recent chop by me. As you can see I went more for realism than the brushed artistic effect:
Base:
Chop:
Click the chops for a larger resolution image of them
Much better, much more to my liking and to what I always do. There are some details here and there, like the absolutely out of place cloud reflections on the rear window that dont look real at all, the absolotely off angle of the clocks in the A-pillar gauge pod, and the reflection in the upper part at the bottom of the wide front fender, which should be almost white but it's a color I don't see anywhere else in the car. Those are the obvious, the other that catch my eye and that can be absolute nitpickings but count as to make a car dont look chopped are the following, and I hope you take these as tips, not as critiques.
First, the rear diffuser looks good, but the carbon fiber wave should be at a different angle when the diffuser turns in different angles. It's not hard to do, you don't even have to make lots of layers, just select the area you want to change and distort it all in the same carbon fiber layer. The "division" caused by it being done in the same layer rather than in separate layers adds a bit of realism.
The reflection of the exhaust tip in the body should be more curved, play a bit with the spherize filter and something should come out of that.
And finally, a bit that really helps when you are working with a noisy picture like this. Look at how the rear wheel looks absolutely velvet-perfect and smooth, but everything else in the picture looks a bit noisy, including the front wheel. This makes stuff really pop, specially when viewed in a screen (in print, this sin't as much of a problem if it isn't done in a very large size). A quick solution is to play a bit with the noise filter, it will integrate your entire picture and it will be very difficult to point what has been put there and what not. Give the rear TE37 a little noise and watch it integrate to the rest of your picture almost magically. I'd do so to the front wide fender, as it also looks obviously brushed as it is so perfect and smooth compared with the rest of the picture.
Also, now that I see it, watch your focus. Your front rearview mirror is more out of focus than your front wheel even tough it is closer to us. Heck, your front wheel is focused and your front fender is not. That is absolutely not possible. also, take a bit of focus out of the front shutline of the door. It's more focused then that rear one, which, again, is not possible.
I really like this one, I just nit-picked all the details I saw here and there, but it is still a very good job, and pretty possible to make it look like it is a photo, and not a chop.
Keep on it bud (: