This is what I love about Photography no real rules, everyone can disagree and all be right!

beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

I 'developed' both from RAW as an exercise as I am learning some new software.

I tried the crops suggested by gwyn but to be honest I simply didn't like it, I felt it lost the feel of it being 'driftwood' piled up.

Here they are for anyone who is interested, I didn't do a lot just some fine tuning and very minor horizon straightening, and a very light vignette to help draw the eye right down the middle to the lighthouse. After developing I personally much prefer lighthouse in focus.

Reduced res versions below

I'm back in contention as the only entry then

These people are outstanding.

They developed 10 disposable black and white cameras that had been in my cupboard under the stairs for 8 years that every lab we approached said they wouldn't touch and it wasn't expensive either.

http://www.digitalab.co.uk/

Number two for me is the best and all the water at the bottom makes it - without it you will lose the sense of 'loneliness' for want of a better term that the image has, you've lost a bit of detail on the rocks you could perhaps selectively lighten that and avoid lightening the guy or the dog. If anything I would darken the dog to be more silhouette like the human.

Just my opinion, among a sea of differing ones I'm sure

So far all I have played with is ACDsee Ultimate 9. Thus far I have to say that I think it is really good.

The initial building of the catalog took much longer than it did in Lightroom, but now it is 'built' browsing is significantly faster than in lightroom.

The develop module is decent and just working through it in the order they have set it out seems to give pretty decent results. I think for some the linear process might be a bit cons-training though you can jump around if you wish.

And I've found the 'edit' module pretty good too (it's like a photo orientated version of photoshop) and the pixel targeting in edit is brilliant.

I can see how I could develop a really effective and fast workflow with ACDsee. Not sure if I will try anything else or just buy this.

I agree about the all in focus - I haven't gotten around to process it yet so I will try your crop ideas when I do

No i don't mind at all.

I tired this with a small aperture as a third option at the time but winds were quite high and there was a bit too much Camera shake.

I did a quick merge as you did but felt that it made the image too busy, plus it was quite hard work to do a good job as obviously the pier intersects the wood all the way down.

I have always thought portrait blur the background and landscape blur the foreground. The feelings above seem to confirm that - beauty of digital of course is that you can try both as sometimes breaking your rules works out better.

Wandering around Roker Beach today trying out the various controls on my KS-2 I found someone had piled a load of driftwood up in to a teepee/pyre type shape and it made an interesting frame for the lighthouse.

When framing I couldn't decide whether it would looke best with the wood or the lighthouse in focus.

Now I've reviewed them I'm pretty sure I know which is best but wondered what your perspective would be.

I'm downloading ACDsee Ultimate 9 trial now I will have a little play with it tonight with this mornings photos and see what I think.

To mark my first trip outside the house with my new KS-2 my first DSLR I've entered the monthly contest - I didn't go out specifically to shoot something for it but had in mind the subject when I was out.

I know it's not a winner but as they say it's the taking part that counts

A quick question about the competition rules - is it one entry per person?