True, but over 100 million sold iPhones does make some people think that it would be advantageous when their site could be displayed on them.

Well, I don't own one, but I have seen some photos on friend's iPhones and it is quite impressive. With 960 x 640 resolution they are certainly good enough for the 600 pixel high PPG pictures.

Prieni

The Welcome message on the artist login says:
So we can start building up the archives for late October

Prieni

Ok, I see. So it seems to be the same thing, really, only for two different cameras.
DNG is an intricate format and it seems that Pentax is putting some of the additional information in the DNG file where Picasa expects image data. This will only be cured when we send some DNG's to them. Have to dig up the address of the guy I had been in contact with when the K20D was new.

Prieni

Charlene, does it happen for JPGs as well as RAW (DNG or PEF)? I have some pink lines on the right in Picasa for the K-5 DNGs. On the up side Picasa shows a little more of the frame on the sides than with Silkypix (the standard RAW converter I use).

Prieni

I didn't take part as I'm off on a business trip tomorrow so would not have time to choose a shot and make sure it can be downloaded.
As it stands I would have had a 50% chance of winning

Nothing wrong with your shot, I think. The challenge is the same whether you like a shot or not, really. Lot's of cropping opportunities and some other PP that I could imagine.

It could be a general lack of time (I know that I suffer from that) or too many shots on the hard disk waiting for PP (true for me as well).

You haven't done anything wrong, just bad timing, I suppose.

Prieni

Dan, I know that it is not a bean counting exercise and that's why I mentioned it.

My take is that if we go with your rules we might as well give sharpening on resizing a miss. (BTW: The interpolation mode does make a difference).

Use of camera filters seems to contradict the original intention of the theme, doesn't it?

Prieni

Well, in an overwhelming majority of cases that is impossible.
As I shoot exclusively in RAW format I guess none of my images qualify. And if I would shoot in JPG then the Pentax engineers would have fiddled with the colours, contrast etc., so that also would not be without post processing...

If I switch off my bean counting mode, though, I do find it an interesting idea.
The question remains, however, where post processing starts/ends for you. Some ideas?

Prieni

A very high standard as usual, Tim.
Reflections in the first are great and I see on of the Lippo towers in the reflections, right?

BoC is my favourite building (unless they have built one that I like even more since 07) in Hong Kong, especially at night. The IFC night shot doesn't look shabby either, though. I guess that some might say there is too much of empty black but I do like that.

Pedder street view has nice toning, I do see some halos around the buildings, though.

BoC building looks cool from every angle, this one being no exception.

Through a window IFC is a good idea well executed.

Love them all but I think the first one gets my vote. I think the contrast between the warm golden and cold blue reflections is what draws me to it.

I'm ready to see more! And somehow I got the feeling I will.

Prieni

Oh no, I got the dates mixed up. Thought it would end today and waited for 1800 UK time. Doh...

Well, here is the judgement...

bforbes - First up is a b&w conversion, interesting. I hadn’t thought of that (but then I’m not very good at b&w). You did lift it a bit but the lower left and right corners are still awfully dark. Interesting effect in the sky with the curly bits. Good try but no cigar.

DigitalCG - A bit over the top it may be but I do like your take. Nice paronamic crop avoiding the problematic corners. I’m often amazed at how much detail there is in a rather dull looking RAW. Well done!

pnjmcc - Pretty impressive considering that you only worked the jpg. (No idea why the download of TIFF and DNG didn’t work for you. I’m sitting at a laptop in a meeting break and had no problems accessing it...
It still is a bit on the dark side but you certainly improved on the original JPG. Seems that you didn’t try treating the bottom corners (or cropping them off).

CoDa - Similar to DigitalCG’s version as far as brightening up and contrast are concerned, but with a different colour style. I do like this but would have stuck with a bit more saturation (see below). The minor niggle is that you have brought out the noise in the sky a bit too much for my taste. Nice crisp look of the buildings, good sharpening. All in all a very good interpretation!

aliengrove - Definitely less noise in the sky here but it also seems to be less sharp in the buildings. This is something, though, that might be more obvious by comparison with the previous entry. I like the brightness and the natural looking sky (I’m pretty sure that it was a bit darker when I took the shot than it appears here).

The good news is that all of you made it to the top five!

It’s quite tricky to pick the winner, I’ll go with DigitalCG this round, most probably the panoramic crop was swinging it this way.
Second goes to CoDa for the colours.

Here is my interpretation, now hanging in the corridor (the grey bits on the sides are, of course, covered by the passepartout). I tried to get the texture out of the dark lower corners a bit more, something that I didn’t see in any of the entries (winning one found another way of getting rid of the dark corners ):

[IMG]http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t5/Prieni/Pentax%20user/IMGP839030x45fcprints.jpg[/IMG]

Thanks for taking part and over to you DigitalCG,
Prieni

If these are the 'first fumbling attempts' I'm looking forward to the confident ones. Seriously, a fine series. But as you are criticising your own work I'm not surprised at such an outcome.
1 and 3 are my favourites and I think I can see what you wanted to achieve in 4.
5 is a fine shot but perhaps the most common view of a wood.

Keep shooting landscapes!

Prieni