About these photoshop contests

[Up_All_Night]

Now I enjoy a doing good photoshop with the best of them, but with these contests I have not being inspired at all. Wouldnt pictures to edit be better? these have done well in the past have they not? When you know what you are editing its alot easier to think of something. Or a more defined topic. Make someone Invisible. Saying, something spiderman.. well i looked at heaps of spiderman pics ont he ent and couldnt think of shit all to do. Maybe i am just having a blank. But i am trying to help to get contests that lots of people will go in.

[flow]

I'd like to remain silent this time :)

[tikdoph]

Originally posted by Up_All_Night
Now I enjoy a doing good photoshop with the best of them, but with these contests I have not being inspired at all. Wouldnt pictures to edit be better? these have done well in the past have they not? When you know what you are editing its alot easier to think of something. Or a more defined topic. Make someone Invisible. Saying, something spiderman.. well i looked at heaps of spiderman pics ont he ent and couldnt think of shit all to do. Maybe i am just having a blank. But i am trying to help to get contests that lots of people will go in.Personally, I have no problem coming up with my own source material. Google image search is often great for this. Admittedly though, this can often be difficult if you can't find a quality source image to use. Personally, I think that starting with a preset image usually results in entries that are little more than copying and pasting something onto the picture. I'd rather see something truly creative like druid's cannibalism cookbook than a picture of someone's head superimposed onto the Mt. Rushmore monument. But hey, that's just me.

In addition to this, I see several issues affecting the photochop comps thus far...

1. The winning entry should be decided by all entrants having a vote rather than just one person.

2. These are photochop comps, the key element here being "photo-chop". Taking an image and doing little more than putting a funny caption on it doesn't really inspire the masses. Photoshop has some truly amazing capabilities... use your imagination and experiment with those capabilities. Your skills will improve the more effort you put into using them.

3. The posting of non-eligible entries should stop. i.e. People posting pics that they didn't do themselves. If you didn't create the pic yourself or it's off topic, post it in the "Random Picture Thread", not in the competition thread.

4. Entrants should put at least a modicum of effort into describing how they put their entry together. This helps other people who may not have as much experience with Photoshop learn how more experienced photochoppers get the results they do. The more people learn, the better everyone's results will be, and the better the quality of entries we'll get.

So far as the choice of topic goes... hmmm... that's a tricky one. Maybe everyone could include a suggestion for the next topic with their entry and everyone gets to vote on that too.

Originally posted by flow_aus
I'd like to remain silent this time :) It's a pity you didn't.

[DexX]

Hey, whoever wins a round and runs the next one can set up whatever topic and rules they like. If you have a cool pic and want everyone to photoshop it, that's just fine.

[DexX]

Originally posted by tikdoph
1. The winning entry should be decided by all entrants having a vote rather than just one person. I had thought about getting the judge of each round to pic a handful of finalists and putting them in a poll to choose the winner.

[dilligaf]

Originally posted by Up_All_Night
Now I enjoy a doing good photoshop with the best of them, but with these contests I have not being inspired at all. Wouldnt pictures to edit be better? these have done well in the past have they not? When you know what you are editing its alot easier to think of something. Or a more defined topic. Make someone Invisible. Saying, something spiderman.. well i looked at heaps of spiderman pics ont he ent and couldnt think of shit all to do. Maybe i am just having a blank. But i am trying to help to get contests that lots of people will go in.

agreeed. We need to post a pic and get people to photoshop it.

[tikdoph]

Originally posted by DexX
Hey, whoever wins a round and runs the next one can set up whatever topic and rules they like. If you have a cool pic and want everyone to photoshop it, that's just fine. If you want consistently good entries, it makes sense to keep the rules consistent. Chop and change pics, not the rules. KISS.

The current Spider-Man photochop has, so far, had only four out of 3,600+ members submit original entries. Now tell me there isn't room for improvement in the way the comp is currently running and that the current way of doing things is the most conducive to producing the most successful photochop comps possible.

One more thing... simply giving the prize to the entry that's the most humourous isn't a great way to encourage participation. How do you think people will feel when they produce an entry that obviously takes quite a bit of time and effort and they're beaten by an entry that obviously took just a few minutes? I think that this is a contributing factor to the current comp having a mere quarter of the entries we had in the first comp.

So why limit entries to being humourous? What if someone does a very clever, well-crafted and artistic entry that's serious or thought-provoking? They don't get a look in?

I'll go with skill/effort over humour any day.

[Up_All_Night]

yeah well i dunno my point is just, these contests, i have gone got a shitload of spiderman pics, and shit, and really only though of 1 idea. Chop Doc Oct as a sentinal from the matrix with spiderman, and meh thats pretty crappy in itself.
I love doing photo edits but yeah i am uninspired by these comps. THinking back to ones on the board that have made lots of people enter, were always edit these pics. Chop my van, ect.

[tikdoph]

Originally posted by Up_All_Night
yeah well i dunno my point is just, these contests, i have gone got a shitload of spiderman pics, and shit, and really only though of 1 idea. Chop Doc Oct as a sentinal from the matrix with spiderman, and meh thats pretty crappy in itself.
I love doing photo edits but yeah i am uninspired by these comps. THinking back to ones on the board that have made lots of people enter, were always edit these pics. Chop my van, ect. If it was done well, I think that would be a great entry... maybe not "humourous", but definitely worthy of being in the running to win best photochop.

[Up_All_Night]

yeah i should do it. i need better source pics for both though. What i have isnt good enough. I dunno its like yeah its a decent idea, but doesnt really inspire me to do it. Personally i work well with a more defined criteria. and what first jumps into my head

[tikdoph]

Originally posted by Up_All_Night
yeah i should do it. i need better source pics for both though. What i have isnt good enough. I dunno its like yeah its a decent idea, but doesnt really inspire me to do it. Personally i work well with a more defined criteria. and what first jumps into my head When unable to find a decent source pic on Google, I'll sometimes just do a screengrab from a suitable movie I have on DVD.

[MoleTeaser]

Originally posted by tikdoph
When unable to find a decent source pic on Google, I'll sometimes just do a screengrab from a suitable movie I have on DVD.

OT, but when I try to get a screengrab from a DVD, it just comes up as black. What's all that about?

[druid]

Originally posted by MoleTeaser
OT, but when I try to get a screengrab from a DVD, it just comes up as black. What's all that about?

Depends on how you do it. PrintScreen probably won't have access to the layer where the video is being played. I use PowerDVD's capture button (have to turn HW acceleration off iirc).

[hazza]

u can screen grab using virtualdub / nandub



:)