I just looked at the finalists for the newest wwyd challenge. As always the edits were grand and creative and very well done. But I couldn't help thinking back to a time when the challenge was really about editing the picture itself to make it better, more interesting or just different and not a Photoshop contest about who can edit the funniest or most creative parts into the picture. Please be assured that I'm not talking about the finalists or anyone in particular and that I'm not trying to stigmatize or offend anyone, especially as I have done the same things when entering the wwyd challenge lately.
I just want to give a little food for thought. Wouldn't it be nice to go back to basics, especially as it would enable beginners in editing who don't necessarily own expensive editing programs to join in the fun as well? Moreover, wouldn't it be nice if we only used parts from pictures that are actually our own instead of taking it from pictures we don't possess the rights to, in order to show that we honour the original artist's work?
If you don't agree, that's fine with me, and we can just carry on like we do at the moment. If you are offended by this post and think it is directed towards you, you have misunderstood my intent.
Heyy Janna, what a lovely suggestion! I completely agree with your views regarding the actually meaning of WWYD!! Though I have not entered the challenge anytime, the primary reason being the expensive photo editing programs & secondly I thought I would rather learn this skill first by watching the entries & voting for them before giving it a hand! Thanks a lot for making me aware of the old basics of this challenge. I think if this suggestion of yours is accepted & followed, the WWYD will surely be having a couple of more entries!
WWYD=What Would You Do. I like how there really are not any strict rules or limitations. I understand that it might feel overwhelming for beginners, when the Photoshop gurus do these awesome edits... but I hope that translates to motivation rather than intimidation.
I look for creativity and out-of-the-box thinking in this challenge (when entering or just browsing), rather than awesome editing skills. I just hope that when finalists are chosen, a bit more emphasis is put on the creativity and less on the technical execution. But, that's just my personal opinion.
I like the thought of using your own material only, but I feel that shouldn't be a strict rule either. Maybe more like a thing that we should "encourage" (when voting / selecting finalists... ) ?
I think I'm a bit bias in this. I think I've almost never joined one, because I'm not that great at editing and I think it's more about a great photo than the edit.
But with all that said, I really enjoy those amazing edits! I think that the creativity really shows.
And I'm all with you on the: 'use your own material' I think that that challenges us to use our photographic skills as well as our editing skills.
I hope that somehow this challenge can return to the more open challenge it was in the beginning, if you know what I mean.
@jannaellen great topic....I keep thinking how wonderrful it would be to have more participants...a lot of us keep encouraging people to take small chunks of time and learn by watching tutorials...I have zero artistic background/training and I just dabble till I learn...that being said...I haven't spent a dime on software...I used to use picnik and picassa and now I am heavily into gimp and its plug ins...all free...you can do amazing things free....ok back to topic....this challenge is open ended and not really a bragging competition...there is absolutely no reason everyone on 365 on can come and play with us...we actually desire more...a lot of us live to see what others can inspire us with....I think I know why this challenge has evolved in the manner it has...you can do basic photo enhancements/tweaks etc but a few dozen people eventually will exhaust a lot of the same avenues such as sepia, black and white treatments, dodge and burning, etc...in a nutshell perhaps a lot of very very similiar looking edits morphed into people injecting a bit of fun/humour or just plain art into keeping the challenge interesting :) I see it both ways...a lot of challenges sort of fizzle out from inactivity over time so perhaps all the shenaigans have in fact actually kept this boat a float for as long as it has....I have to admit I look forward to each and every challenge because it just keeps me tapping into my creative energies and like I said above there is really no rules (i.e you can do basic tweaks or you can tweak a photo into morphzilla) I love so many of the photos as well as the tributes to them...that is all they really are to be honest....this really is not a bragging contest but more of a community celebrating art which has no boundaries...I want to see more participation by everyone who should really think of it in terms of its really not about hitting a top 5 or winning but LEARNING the craft and supporting each other :)
I've never entered the WWYD as its not really my cup of tea but I have enjoyed looking at the entries on ocassion. Now this is just a rambling suggestion but could there be room for two competitions? One for a more prosaic processing of the original image and one for the more wild reimaginations of the original? I've no idea where you'd draw the line between the two but then that would be up to the two people hosting I suppose? @peterdegraaff Yeah used to like them. Thinking about a vague plan now
I always thought on a photo site that doesnt allow photos you didnt take that you had to use your own in these. Obviously its not that way. I would like to see two voting segments- one for edits to improve photo and one for edits to express the photo?
@rich57@peterdegraaff
Artist challenges were very interesting, and I'd love to see those coming back. How do you feel about it, should it be more about creating an original image based on the techniques and style of the artist... or, is it about trying to recreate an existing piece of art ?
@rich57@janmaki@mastermek@lesleyallen@janmaki Either. I prefer the first though but second can be fun. It is getting late here so if you start a new thread count me in. Have always liked the idea of an artist challenge based on Max Dupain btw.
All I can say is that I didn't bother with the latest WWYD challenge because of some amazing photoshop edits that went up right away. I only have elements and not cs5 or cs6 and even in elements, my skills are not advanced enough to be able to compete with what was going up without spending several hours on it... and I don't have several hours to spare right now.
@jannaellen This also highlights entries/finalists in other challenges where the photo was not taken during the week of the competition, to be fair I really think that this should be a rule unless otherwise stated.
When I started the WWYD challenge, my intention was to have people show me their processing style. We were originally using a drop-box to put the RAW file into so people could get the most out of the photo they were editing. Turned out that a lot of people liked to photoshop. A lot. Here's a link to the WWYD#1 entries: http://365project.org/tags/wwyd-1 and thread: http://365project.org/discuss/themes-competitions/3324/new-competition-wwyd-1
It has just morphed into something entirely different, which is great if that is what people want to do with it! I enter from time to time and usually keep my edits minimal because that's what I do in general.
I think if someone else wants to start an entirely different competition that outlines the goal of enhancing the photo, that would probably have more participants than WWYD! :)
I dunno about this. I agree, and I disagree. Where do you draw the line?
BEGIN RANT.
For example, should it be that you can only use tools that will alter the brightness, contrast, hue, saturation, vibrancy, sharpness, etc? But you cannot make any changes to the content by adding new material? Does that mean you can't alter the image in anyway whatsoever?
Yeah, this sounds great and really "purist," but also sounds a bit too high brow and boring. I can't imagine people examining each image, and saying, "Oh, this entrant dodged the tree slightly, and added a little yellow to the leaves. How nice! Oh, but look here! Tut, tut! They've gone and given the water a slightly greenish hue. How ghastly!"
I respect the subtleties of editing. The real subtleties. In fact, all of last week I took off of cat pictures, and all I did was subtle edits of landscape shots, and was super thrilled with the results. Despite that, the digital realm offers so much more. Why limit ourselves?
If people aren't going to get into the nitty gritty of photo editing, and ponder the intricacies of the craft, then that means you're probably just going to dump your picture into Picnik or Picturemonkey or whatever the hell it's called, pick a preset or two, give it a texture layer and a light leak, and call it a masterpiece. Yeah, you drink that awesome juice. (It's actually monkey sperm. I bet you love it now.)
There's no work in that. There's no artistry. WWYD? You didn't do anything. The program does everything, and you just click-click and drag the intensity slider from left to right.
And it's not just the accessibility of the software. Please, don't blame the software. If Photoshop was free and everyone had it, I guarantee half the folks on here wouldn't use it because it requires time and knowledge and a little bit of skill and a whole lot of patience. Photoshop can do just about anything so long as you learn to manipulate it correctly, but (and I admit) it's a hell of a lot easier to slide some shit around on a cookie cutter program. But it's not even half the fun, and there's certainly no growth in doing the same shit over and over.
So, yeah, I really feel like a competition with such restrictions will give people a reason to dump their work in the HDR machine, crank up the microcontrast, and spit how some horrific image that everyone else will probably love, and vote as the winner. I think we've all seen that happen all too often.
END RANT.
Perhaps the answer exists in dividing the competition into two. One WWYD without content changes, and one with content changes. I really hope the former bans preset programs so the entrants are actually forced to decide WWYD.
@jannaellen Great topic! I’m with @loztsoul there are only so many edits one can do without adding something to them (and yes maybe we should be using our own photos, but if you have a idea in mind and no photo’s to match that can hinder ones out of box thinking and discourage a person’s creativity as well, Stock images are free maybe that can be another way to go about editing) If this is about software Gimp is FREE and I know at least 3 out of the 5 top 5 use gimp me being one of them.
Creating two different WWYD’s might get confusing for new people to the site. I have no idea with how you would split it into two at this point without the winner feeling like they won but lost at the same time would they post a photo for both? Or would someone else start the new one?
WWYD has always been about learning to me finding new way of improving my editing skills. (I have learned how to use layers and masking among so many other things because I went to youtube to find out how to do them) If we want people to improve we should start a thread about how to use editing software and how to find brushes and plug-ins for the software not letting people search for hours to find it on their own. This site has always been about learning or so I thought but it is really changing into something different lately with people being attacked on threads and so forth. (I’m really not sure if I’m going to continue on this site much longer for this reason)
To add to @gurry point brushes should be limited to only the basic brushed that come with your program or the ones you make then and by no means should a person use backdrop images they bought on a cd or asked people on flicker if they could use!
@gurry The editing side of Pixlr.com (not the Vintage Effects part, but the actual editing area) also has an interface that's surprisingly similar to Photoshop. Also free.
I agree that many people may not have the skills to do some editing with me included. When I decide to participate in a WWYD I look at it as a personal challenge. I've learned alot by reading and you tube videos and learn something new everytime. It does take time but I spread it out over a couple of days and really enjoy it. It's easy to move a slider or click a filter to change the effects but that only goes so far. I enjoy looking at all the entries no matter how hard or easy the editing was.
Personally, I don't do the photo manipulation that is generally done on the WWYD threads but It's open to interpetation. I don't see where the problem lies in that. Maybe what you are seeing are the top photos for the votes are always new highly photoshopped renditions of the photos. This has been the trend since the thread started. It's up to the person who starts the thread to choose the pictures.
There are quite a few free editing programs online that will give some interesting edits.
The whole premise is for the redo to be done on the same picture. If we started a different thread where we posted our own pictures that would be hard to follow. We would need to see a before and after. Some people would do that but others won't .
I would not change the WWYD at all. It's up to each of us to decide what type of editing we would like to do. It's been a fun thread and people of all levels are encouraged to participate.
I have actually done both with some of my WWYD entries - I think I have entered 5 and 3 I have done minor manipulations - changing colour, an out of bounds and another colour change but with copy and paste. Of the 2 other entries I used a prism over my camera and took a photo of the image and adjusted the hue slightly for 1 of them and for the other I copied and pasted the original into 1 of my images.
A suggestion; How about adding a specific type of editing challenge into some of the threads? Again, it's up to the person who starts the thread. Or start a new thread for specific editing challenges.
@sdpace Interesting how the challenge started and where it is now. Seems it started in a way open to all and WWYD as what would you do if this was yours. I like that. I still think two styles could be run.
This was a beach one that I did...all I added was the spaceship and the tractor beam. The rest is just a color change. I don't think it was excessive, even if I did add 2 new elements:
I think I should of pulled the kids out of school for the day spent the $60 for the gas tank for the hour drive to the zoo plus admission(for all 6 of us), and a ton of banana's to eat in front of the gorilla's to anger them enough to growl at us. Then me pose as if King Kong was about to attack then go brake a window (calling the repair man right after) all so @loztsoul could of used his own photo's (that would of been fun day why didn't I think of it before now)
Thank you for all your input! I'm glad noone was offended :). @gurry , @janmaki and many others are of course right in saying that the contest should not be pre-limited because that would curb the creative energy that makes it so fun to look at the finalists. You are also right in saying that there are enough free programs out there to play with for people who can't afford photoshop. I admit I hadn't considered that.
I really like the idea of splitting the contest that @rich57 has suggested. Of course, this poses new problems about the organization but there could be at least one in the finalists that hasn't put anything into the photo - kind of like a quota. On the other hand, that might be too restrictive again. And, as @gurry rightly pointed out, where are the borders? Is putting in a leaf or cutting off a part of the photo already considered altering the whole thing? But I will just give the responsibility of that choice and also the choice about choosing someone who worked only with the photo for the finalists or not to the person hosting the challenge at the moment and that is @loztsoul (congratulations :)).
Maybe the person running the thread should pick 6 top photos 3 classic editing with basic tools and 3 wild and crazy PhotoShop ones and let the public decide ...I did my very first wwyd challenge and did everything I know how to do to the photo and I got railroaded by the PhotoShop gang ...personally no that doesn't make me want to try harder it makes me not want to play at all
@photodreamm : I would like to give this responsibility over to the person hosting the new challenge (see above) as I have no right to choose finalists not having won the challenge. Maybe we can leave this idea as a suggestion for the next hosts to try to include more "pure" edits (I can't find a better word) in the finalists but in the end it is up to them. If you want to, you can host your own "pure edit" challenge though with a picture of your own but you will have to give it a different name - maybe wwye - what would you edit? Or something like that.
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Thanks again!! :)
I look for creativity and out-of-the-box thinking in this challenge (when entering or just browsing), rather than awesome editing skills. I just hope that when finalists are chosen, a bit more emphasis is put on the creativity and less on the technical execution. But, that's just my personal opinion.
I like the thought of using your own material only, but I feel that shouldn't be a strict rule either. Maybe more like a thing that we should "encourage" (when voting / selecting finalists... ) ?
But with all that said, I really enjoy those amazing edits! I think that the creativity really shows.
And I'm all with you on the: 'use your own material' I think that that challenges us to use our photographic skills as well as our editing skills.
I hope that somehow this challenge can return to the more open challenge it was in the beginning, if you know what I mean.
I can see a lot of people get into it, it is just not my thing. I prefer to enhance the image and not take away from it, but hey that's just me.
@peterdegraaff Yeah used to like them. Thinking about a vague plan now
Artist challenges were very interesting, and I'd love to see those coming back. How do you feel about it, should it be more about creating an original image based on the techniques and style of the artist... or, is it about trying to recreate an existing piece of art ?
@mastermek @peterdegraaff @lesleyallen
@peterdegraaff Artist challenge? That really grabs my interest, please tell more! : ))
It has just morphed into something entirely different, which is great if that is what people want to do with it! I enter from time to time and usually keep my edits minimal because that's what I do in general.
I think if someone else wants to start an entirely different competition that outlines the goal of enhancing the photo, that would probably have more participants than WWYD! :)
BEGIN RANT.
For example, should it be that you can only use tools that will alter the brightness, contrast, hue, saturation, vibrancy, sharpness, etc? But you cannot make any changes to the content by adding new material? Does that mean you can't alter the image in anyway whatsoever?
Yeah, this sounds great and really "purist," but also sounds a bit too high brow and boring. I can't imagine people examining each image, and saying, "Oh, this entrant dodged the tree slightly, and added a little yellow to the leaves. How nice! Oh, but look here! Tut, tut! They've gone and given the water a slightly greenish hue. How ghastly!"
I respect the subtleties of editing. The real subtleties. In fact, all of last week I took off of cat pictures, and all I did was subtle edits of landscape shots, and was super thrilled with the results. Despite that, the digital realm offers so much more. Why limit ourselves?
If people aren't going to get into the nitty gritty of photo editing, and ponder the intricacies of the craft, then that means you're probably just going to dump your picture into Picnik or Picturemonkey or whatever the hell it's called, pick a preset or two, give it a texture layer and a light leak, and call it a masterpiece. Yeah, you drink that awesome juice. (It's actually monkey sperm. I bet you love it now.)
There's no work in that. There's no artistry. WWYD? You didn't do anything. The program does everything, and you just click-click and drag the intensity slider from left to right.
And it's not just the accessibility of the software. Please, don't blame the software. If Photoshop was free and everyone had it, I guarantee half the folks on here wouldn't use it because it requires time and knowledge and a little bit of skill and a whole lot of patience. Photoshop can do just about anything so long as you learn to manipulate it correctly, but (and I admit) it's a hell of a lot easier to slide some shit around on a cookie cutter program. But it's not even half the fun, and there's certainly no growth in doing the same shit over and over.
So, yeah, I really feel like a competition with such restrictions will give people a reason to dump their work in the HDR machine, crank up the microcontrast, and spit how some horrific image that everyone else will probably love, and vote as the winner. I think we've all seen that happen all too often.
END RANT.
Perhaps the answer exists in dividing the competition into two. One WWYD without content changes, and one with content changes. I really hope the former bans preset programs so the entrants are actually forced to decide WWYD.
Creating two different WWYD’s might get confusing for new people to the site. I have no idea with how you would split it into two at this point without the winner feeling like they won but lost at the same time would they post a photo for both? Or would someone else start the new one?
WWYD has always been about learning to me finding new way of improving my editing skills. (I have learned how to use layers and masking among so many other things because I went to youtube to find out how to do them) If we want people to improve we should start a thread about how to use editing software and how to find brushes and plug-ins for the software not letting people search for hours to find it on their own. This site has always been about learning or so I thought but it is really changing into something different lately with people being attacked on threads and so forth. (I’m really not sure if I’m going to continue on this site much longer for this reason)
There are quite a few free editing programs online that will give some interesting edits.
The whole premise is for the redo to be done on the same picture. If we started a different thread where we posted our own pictures that would be hard to follow. We would need to see a before and after. Some people would do that but others won't .
I would not change the WWYD at all. It's up to each of us to decide what type of editing we would like to do. It's been a fun thread and people of all levels are encouraged to participate.
I really like the idea of splitting the contest that @rich57 has suggested. Of course, this poses new problems about the organization but there could be at least one in the finalists that hasn't put anything into the photo - kind of like a quota. On the other hand, that might be too restrictive again. And, as @gurry rightly pointed out, where are the borders? Is putting in a leaf or cutting off a part of the photo already considered altering the whole thing? But I will just give the responsibility of that choice and also the choice about choosing someone who worked only with the photo for the finalists or not to the person hosting the challenge at the moment and that is @loztsoul (congratulations :)).
@marybeth : The link to the new wwyd challenge is here: http://365project.org/discuss/themes-competitions/12253/wwyd-51