Critique the Community

Composites

With Josh Rossi
Submit your best composite images for a chance to win a free Fstoppers tutorial
  • Submission Deadline: Wed, 20 Mar 19 03:45:00 +0000

    This contest has ended.

  • Voting is closed.

  • Congratulations to the winners!

    View Results

It's time to pull out your best composite images and see what the Fstoppers community thinks of them. For our next episode of Critique the Community, we hope to bring in a special guest who is a master compositor, Josh Rossi

Although Josh has a wide variety of incredible images, he's probably easiest recognized for his Wonder Woman series with his daughter. We are planning on having Josh and Lee provide feedback to 20 image submissions from the community. Two entrants will win their choice of a free Fstoppers tutorial. The first winner will be decided by the highest average community rated image and the second winner will be chosen at random. 

You have the opportunity to enter up to two images for this contest between now and March 19th, 2019. Once you've uploaded your image, we invite you to scroll through the rest of the submissions and provide honest and helpful feedback of your own. The easiest way to provide numerical ratings is to use your number and keypad. If you see an area where an image could be improved, feel free to leave an encouraging comment detailing what you think the photographer could do differently. 

  • Submission Deadline: Wed, 20 Mar 19 03:45:00 +0000

    This contest has ended.

  • Voting is closed.

  • 382 people have cast a total of 17,295 votes on 294 submissions from 201 contestants.
  • Congratulations to the winners!

    View Results

36 Comments

I’m honestly surprised some of these are rated so low. There are some pretty good composites that are rated to not even be in their portfolio. Man, tough room.

This usually happens with contest as everyone low scores each other to boost themselves. Or just trolls having fun. Doesn't bother me. All for fun anyway.

Yeah, I get it. Even for fun though, I couldn’t lowball someone to win. I’d rather keep my morals intact. 😂

There seems to be a statistical approach that could be used here. It's common with data that you need to throw out outliers. For instance, take all people voting and figure the average of all of their votes. If a person's average vote is statistically outside the norm, or below a "reasonable" value like 2.0, then exclude all of their votes from computation of a photo's rating.

A lot of the stuff in these "photos" wasn't even made in a camera...

Ah the can't be a real "photo" if it wasn't done all in camera but will go see a movie that used a ton of green screen and didn't care guy. That fake color, fake sunlight glare, dodge and burned skin wasn't made in camera either. What's your point?

I did not say they arent well done, that they dont take a lot of talent and that they dont look fantastic. Thank you for that big red herring though, as if the equivalency of me watching a movie with visual effects has any relevance. If you think photography is best when most of the picture was generated in a computer then thats fine, I dont agree. What you're saying is I can make a movie with CGI and all the effects, basically the whole thing was made in a computer besides a persons face, take a screen shot of that video and voila its is now a "real photo".

If you're looking at something on the web and it has some form of live action scene in it, IT'S A PHOTO." It's not a painting or a drawing, it's a photo. You could even take a photo of a drawing and it becomes a photo. Unless you just snap the shutter and immediately post then every "photo" can't be listed as a true "photo" so your argument makes no sense.

You don't stop calling a movie a movie because there are other elements in it. Comments like these are beginning to sound like angry people that are mad they don't know how to do post work.

I am not the one who is angry here Mr. David. A lot of the posted photos are incredible. Your everything is a photo argument is ridiculous. Im beginning to think comments like yours are just a cry for validation. Just pecause you use an aspect of a photo in your art that makes you a photographer? Basically youre saying i could call myself a photographer if i went to a computer got all the different components, live action or not, put it together and then saved it. I have made a photo i must be a photographer.

Well considering everything in my images is a photo I took, then I must be like 5 photographers in one image and a graphic designer and a retoucher.

In my opinion, it shouldn’t matter as long as it enhances the image. It’s called being creative. There’s different genres of photography and different styles. Who are we to tell people how they should or shouldn’t make there “images”? I’m completely open to creativity. Regardless of whether or not it was caught in camera. Times are changing. People don’t like change. I get it. I just think people should be a bit more open minded. If an “image” is good and makes you feel some type of way....then it’s good. Don’t dock it because it wasn’t “in camera”. At the end of the day, it’s the results that matter, not the process.

I have never before judged photos here with so many fours and fives like this time. Absolutely amazing work we can find here! Only if the photograph can be associated with acts of violence I have chosen not to vote at all.
My picture has been judged as "needs work". Usually, I would like to know why. The competition is anyway about "Composites", therefore I do not need an answer to the question why. The picture is my first artistic work and is my work of art. The picture is made from color and black and white photographs (taken with a camera). 7 layers has been used in photoshop, one was a classic camera filter with NIK Collection.
Good luck to all!
https://fstoppers.com/entry/348146

according to the rating system basically none of these should be below 2... I've never done a decent composite so itll be fun to watch the ratings

Exactly my point. It’s impossible for any of these to be a snapshot. Lol.

Wrong. There are a few that are not graphic designs :O

We're going to need a translator on this one.

With all due respect to Brandon, I’m going to have to say I agree with David. I’m completely confused by that comment.

Translation, people have submitted photos that are not composites at all.

Ah makes sense now.

mine just got rated 1. lol

Usually if people don't like something they just don't bother with it so seeing so many people voting just to low vote everyone says a lot. Pity that so many out there on a site for Photographers, that celebrates each others work would be filled with bitter trolls, crying over their lack of skills while trying to down others. I've never looked at an image and changed my mind about how I feel about it based off the ratings it has so pretty much pointless. I think it would be funny to show a list of the people that just go around rating stuff one star. See if that boost their confidence.

At first I thought like you, I also think now, but this is for the most part of participant in the community just fun, then you somehow forget about it through time. Life is a miracle :)

Would've been nice to see the before and after for this series. Should have been a condition to enter I reckon.

I thought of that when I posted mine because it shows the work. It's fun to see the magic trick exposed.

I didn’t even think about showing my work when I shot it. Great advice for next time.

It would be awesome to see the before and after of some of this photos, they are excellent!!

Ya I really need to take the time to show my process and such more. Makes it way easier and cooler for people seeing the image. I see these people do timelapses/speed arts of their compositing. It's magical to see it all come together from completely different elements, etc.

Before and afters are the best.

Impressive contest!!

Crap. I’m going to lose to spiderman😂. Rightfully so though. It’s freaking amazing. (No pun intended)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m89wTNo-IvE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwzbThRslHo

A overview of layers for both images I entered. If some of you are interested...

(Video quality is not amazing)

So I've got an idea for this one but I'm not sure if it fits the theme, it's a composite, but not between photo's - rather it's between a photo and a digital art piece, do you think this would fit the theme?

I'm asking since to me this comp reads as if it's for a composite of multiple photos, not a single photo and digital art.
Thanks.

I think it would be fine. Did you already create it? The deadline is tomorrow for entries.

I was part way through doing it but in the end I wasn't happy with the final look of it so I decided not to enter it. Thanks for the response

Composite is a really broad topic like "landscape" covers anything from a sunset to few shells on the beach. By its nature it includes digital art, 3D render, photography all blended together. One composite might be a portrait with a surreal overlay while another might be a full scene composed mostly of overlayed photos. It does make it hard to compare them as each will appeal to different people..

I think some people are confused by the definition of “composite” and just uploaded a random image

UGH! I was on the road for several days on a shoot and missed out! So sad!

Contest Submissions

Click on the thumbnails below to comment and vote on each image.

Click here to learn about the Fstoppers rating system and what each star value means.