Some of my readers remember my post-process competition “They’re coming!“. I was not sure if anyone would participate, but I am happy to announce that I’ve had 11 participants!

I’ve carefully and closely looked them through in order to give you a final verdict on which picture is the best. I’ve also tried to include a comment on what was good and what can be improved. Here are the results!

1. Sebastian Lindroth-Ahl
2. Tobias Leander
3. Bengt Bjarvik
4. Christopher Roos
5. Martin Holm
6. Claes Feldt
7. Mattias Nordgren
8. Per Olesen
9. Jacob Von Eyben
10. Fredrik Billgren
11. Claes Stråle

Read on to see the photos with my comments.

1. Sebastian Lindroth-Ahl

The colors make the image to me on this one. The face of favourite zombie, in this image being an IKEA employee, has turned green and the background is fading. I like the added film grain. I have nothing negative to say about this image.

2. Tobias Leander

A worn photo of the terrible happening. To me, the post processing is reflecting the harsh moment of the scenery. I imagine a story that comes to play much later, when this photo, a piece of evidence of what has happened, is found.
Storywise there is a gotcha though. I first imagined the the wearing down of the picture happened during the zombie attack. Before getting eaten, the photographer couldn’t possibly have had time to process the picture.
Still, the processing is nicely done and fits the theme to me.

3. Bengt Bjarvik

An unusual edit – a cartoon image. When doing this kind of an effect that is so far from the original image, it has to be convincing in order to look good and not weird. It does to me, with a few remarks. The rain on the background adds a nice touch to the image, but why is there no rain on the main character? Also the cell-shading looks fine to me in most parts of the image, except on the upper arm. I might also think about cropping the image to the left where not much is going on. I like the text a lot!

4. Christopher Roos

This is by far the most altered of the edits.
In this image, our main man is not feeling well; his face badly battered down, his shirt the bloodiest of all the images. This in combination of the cool tone of the image gives me chills down my spine.
The post processing is generally well done, cudos to the yucky eyes. There is a problem with the mouth though, with the head leaning downwards but the teeth actually being slightly tilted upwards. Also I think the textures in the faces of the background zombies look kind of weird, as in “would the bokeh allow it to look like that?”

5. Martin Holm

This photo made me instantly laugh – it’s someone playing a video game! I think the effect is nicely done, looking like a shot of a pixeled big plasma screen. My main problem with this image is the choice of what is made sharp and what is made pixelated. Zombies? Pixelated. Player? Pixelated too. On screen graphics: Sharp?!
Even if it would be a third-person shooter where the player would be represented in-game, I still can’t see how the on screen graphics would be sharper than the rest of the game.

6. Claes Feldt

The only image with a totally different background. Creds for a nice environment which I think fits. I have two remarks; the sign looks superimposed, and the blood does not really look like blood.

7. Mattias Nordgren

The environment has a really cool color tone and that really nice white skin tone that fits zombies so well. This image would rank higher if it wasn’t for the over saturated reds; the blood looks fake and the jacket in the background is distracting.

8. Per Olesen

One out of two photos who are similarly edited, having a black-and-white mask on the background. Per has cropped the left part of the image away, which is good because there is not much content anyways. If you look closely you can see that there is some blue in the corner of the arm, a leftover from the shirt of the redhead zombie just behind.

9. Jacob Von Eyben

This is the second photo using this selective black-and-white effect. I like the punch in contrast, but careful with that sharpen tool on bokeh background. Some edges appear on what is supposed to be unsharp. It can be good to do selective sharpening for this kind of task.

10. Fredrik Billgren

Good punch in the colours. There is nothing wrong with this image edit, but a more daring effect would be required to rank higher in this competition.

11. Claes Stråle

The image is to me presenting the moment before I have been fully eaten, where my damaged brain distorts my vision. It’s a cool idea but it seems a bit weird that the effect would only apply to the background.

Thanks Claes S, Fredrik, Jacob, Per, Mattias, Claes F, Martin, Christopher, Bengt, Tobias and Sebastian for your participation!

Posted June 23rd, 2009 21:19 in Competitions.