and did not vote, please tell me why. Was it a lack of technical ability, creativity (after seeing Hal's post I admit that mine was quite similar to his), humor, boobs , votes or something else?

I'm not ticked that I didn't get more votes or anything, I just want to be better (although I was glad to keep my outstanding 2.0 vpp ). Maybe my question should be... how would YOU have made this entry better?

FYI: I spent over four hours on it, but I'm still finding my way around PS. I did a rough chop to figure out how I was going to go about it and then did a second. I used quick masking with the brush to cut out the glove and fingers, copied & pasted finger tips to round out the knuckles and then transformed the thumb and pinky to my liking. I used PS's drop shadow effect as well. I'm most happy with how the thumb turned out.

A couple things come to mind now... I could have put an arm on the hand and played with the glove color somewhat.

Anyway, feel free to hack away at my entry, I've got thick skin

Thanks a lot!

Here's my entry:
http://www.photoshopcontest.com/view-entry/70259/display.html

This is the other source I used:
http://www.binkydognose.com/personage/surfer.jpg

That pic was borderline for me, zed. In fact, I had to check whether or not I ended up voting for it.

What lost it for me was the way that the fingers were too perfect/symmetrical/whatever, as well as where the little finger joins to the rest of the glove just not looking real (I mean there should be some creasing there or something).

The idea itself was decent enough, although the connection between the glove and surfing was a bit loose, to say the least.

Anyway, keep it up. This is how we learn, and my VPP was about 2 for quite a while at the beginning too. It's a happy time, believe me. Getting 3 actually improves your VPP. Ahhh.... those were the days

Ya know Zed, I can honestly say I'm sorry I didn't vote. I like it! I like the way ya put that little curve in the tip of the thumb ( my thumb does that too, ha! ). And I think the idea is clever. But I think maybe you just posted it too late. Sad but true timing has a lot to do with it. And you never can tell what people will vote for. I'm sure most will agree, sometimes the more time you spend on a chop, the less votes ya get!

Plus this was a tuff contest to be original, I mean how many things can ya do to a glove?

I for one can't put your skills down at all, but maybe checking out the tutorial for using the pen tool for masking things might be good. Not that your masking is bad, but I think using the pen to draw a mask is quicker once you get used to it. But that might not always be the case, like on your first post, using the pen tool to mask out the spokes I think would have driven me to drink ( more, ha! ) so using quick mask would be better for that in my opinion.

And last but not least, I know getting a lot of votes is fun and makes you want to come back again and again ( and again and again and again etc... ) But for me at least, it's about learning from the MASTERS and improving my skills.

So keep up the good work, but POST MORE OFTEN!

Good point screwloose. I forgot to mention that. It was a particularly tough contest. There were a lot of very good entries, meaning that yours had to be even better.

Zed, I have to say I did not view your entry (shame on me)

Your image with the surfer was posted quite late (lots of low quality stuff is being posted late) and the thumbnail suggested using a previous daily pic on a quick look so I didn't click (I don't like reusing daily pics).

Now, on a closer look, the glove is pretty well done, using paths for cutout would help, the edges are little jagged.

But the image makes no apparent sense, there's hardly any link between a surfer and a work glove.
Having a picture with border on white bg and then something on top of it is a quite overused idea, it will not attract attention itself, and blurring the image in frame does not serve a special purpose as well.
Also, there was an image with the glove making a gesture posted already (pacoperez's).

So - chopping on the glove is nice, but the image theme was unclear.

Keep it up , you started out fairly well, pick themes for your images so that they would ring a bell, and post early (advantage helps when you're at work at the time daily image is posted).

I agree with the above. Sometimes the idea of a post is just too arcane to be grasped quickly and with the number of entries in each contest a post has a much better shot at votes if the idea just grabs the viewer right off, especially if it is posted late.

Truthfully, I still cannot fathom what your post says.

It is obviously a statment about Radiation and Mutation Tidal Waves, and the downfall of the American System of World Justice.

Any 1st level philosophy student can see that!


You kids just aren't DRINKIN' enough Ya-Ya Juice!

Or it might be about lack of Quality Control at the glove factory.

I am, of course, only guessing here...

It says, "Shakka, braddah!"

Or, to the Pidgin-impaired, "hang loose."

(It was the rough edges and blurriness, for me.)

Thank you all for your thoughts, I appreciate them.




Very true, the fingers look very similar in length and shape. Good point about creasing.



Ya, I don't see many surfers wearing work gloves!



Will do. I did see that tut there and it is one of the next on my list to do. Those spokes in my other entry sure turned out bad. That was done before I knew about quick masking, heck, I hadn’t even heard of the term 'masking'. Get this... I used the magic wand with varying levels of tolerance and then the eraser here and there. It took quite a while and produced poor results.



I know, I've been working on developing some skills but have to start applying them here. I'd say I'm fairly creative but I do have trouble coming up with good ideas. Part of that is because I don't know all that PS can do or how to do it.



Looks like a technique I'll have to pick up!



When I started chopping the glove I knew I wanted the hangin' loose pose, I finished the glove and then though... Huh, now what! I wanted to get my entry in so I figured I'd throw a surfer in there. That was probably a mistake as it does come through as a half-assed effort.



When I posted it I thought I was posting pretty quick. I'd guess that is was 30-35 hours after the contest opened, which sounds quite reasonable on a 3 day contest. Things are not always as they seem.
I've been considering Advantage. $30 a year is more than reasonable, this site and JMH deserve the support for all his efforts.


ReinMan - your first analysis was pretty close although I think you missed what I was getting at through my use of the completely white background . It should reflect the black boarder's ability to hold the water back from seeping everywhere. Just as today's national boarders contain their respective fluids.

(I got the 'out of frame' idea from you, I've read you mention it a couple times here)



Cynn, you sound like quite the surf bunny!
Surfz up! Grab your plank and catch some gnarlatious heavies for me (cause I'm just a poser )





Have a gas!!