Thanks everyone!
So many great entries. I feel honored to have won.
Is there a current list of the previous topics?
Here is the list of previous topics used.
You may repeat a topic, but only if it has not been used within the previous 12 months.
2022
December-Outdoors
2023
January–Skies
February–Animals
March–Water
April–Transportation
May–Flowers
June–Reflections
July–Summer
August–Home
September–Shadows and Light
October–Trees
November–Cold
December–Cosy
2024
January–Bugs
February–Big or Small
March–Patterns
April–Change
May–Still Life
June–Night
July–Bridges
August–Flight
September–Flight – Non-Human
October–Moody/Atmospheric
November–Food
December–Texture
2025
January–Blue
February–Motion
March–Gritty
April–Smooth
May–Nature Macros/Close-Ups
June–Colors
July–Patriotism
August–Eye or Eyes
September–Doors or Gates
October–Spooky
November–A Whole Lot of _____
December–On the Road
2026
January–Fire or Ice
February–Snuggles
March–Delicious!
April–Ancient
And if you are in need of inspiration, here is a list of previously-suggested topics:
Accidental Weirdness
Action
Architecture
Backlit
Beauty
Black and White
Childhood
Cinematography
Color (one specific)
Contrast
Handmade (non-food)
Holiday/Season
Industry
Invisible
Jump!
Less is More
Man-Made Object(s)
Moonlight
Operate
Out of Time
Over the Top
Repetition
Stone/rock
Unexpected
Vintage
Weather
Windows
A pretty cool old truck. What’s amazing is that it still runs - or did at the time I took the photo, which was a long time ago.
A superb selection of entries, and a well-deserved winner.
So how did you achieve that super-sharp contrast? That’s what drew me most to the picture.
Who are you asking?
The topic for next month’s challenge is “Graffiti."
Love that!
mmm
This should be fun!
May, 2026 contest, “Graffiiti”, is right here.
mmm
I think I have one photo that could qualify, it’s interesting for the text of the graffiti but it is not otherwise out of the ordinary, I wonder if I should use it or try and take another…
Berlin, 2010, Eisenacher Strasse, that graffiti was one of several, about 25 cm x 25 cm. Never found out whether they were original or fake. Long gone.
Other example (please don’t tell me it would have gotten more votes!):
You. Your shot of the Forum looked almost unnaturally sharp, which was what drew me (and probably a number of other voters) to favor it. So, how’d you do it?
Ah.
First of all, a bit of discussion:
Digital photography is inherently unsharp. Not only is there aberrations in the lens, but the aperture adds unsharpness due to diffraction. Then, the sensor compounds that by capturing colors in a matrix. So, even if the sensor has 45,000,000 pixels, it really only has around 1/3 of those for each color (there are usually more greens). The image is built up by comparing adjacent photo sites, and making a guess as to what the color and intensity actually was. And, there’s another problem. Because the sensor is a matrix, it will tend to cause annoying moire patterns when capturing data that has content that is repetitious at approximately the same frequency as the sensor array (this is very common, and is usually seen when photographing fabric (clothes). To minimize this, some camera manufacturers put an “anti-aliasing” screen above the sensor, which serves to blur the image even more. The upshot of all this is that digital photographs are often somewhat unsharp right out of the camera. Most modern point-and-shoots fix this by applying built-in sharpening when converting to jpeg. I shoot “RAW,” so the images need to be post-processed.
Everyone is familiar with Photoshop, and that’s what I used to do my post-processing in. But, it’s gotten too expensive, so I’ve switched to a rather nifty program called Luminar Neo. When I edit my images, there are a handful of tools I use:
- “Develop” - this allows me to adjust the overall exposure, boost shadows, knock down highlights, adjust the saturation, etc.
- “Enhance” - hard to describe what this does, but it somehow applies intelligent contrast to the image. Used judiciously, it can help an image.
- “Structure” - this one is the real winner. It applies a filter to small differences in contrast, and sharpens the image without leaving ugly halos. It’s easy to overuse this, and make the images look unnaturally sharp.
I used to be a real purist, and try to present my images as-shot, but I have come to realize that the camera is not an eye, and vice-versa. When I think back on the day that I took that photo, that is how the scene looked - the sky was a vivid, Italian Summer blue, with striking clouds. The columns and stonework were rich with detail. So, that is how I processed the image. The human eye can see a tremendous amount of detail and tonal range. It’s rare that a digital photo will look “real” straight out of the camera (this is why so many novice photographers are so disappointed with their photos- they just don’t look as sharp or vivid as they remembered). Post-processing allows the photographer to correct the image to be what they remembered the scene to be. It’s a great tool, but like all tools, can be used badly.
Hope this helps.
BTW:
(They are pushing it’s AI capabilities, and scene replacement (skies), but I don’t use any of that stuff, although I do use their wonderful power line removal tool)
Ah was going to recommend PhotoLemur but see it has been merged into Luminar.
Because it makes the resulting photos much larger I only use it for special cases where I want an enhanced result …and at times it is very very effective…especially clearing up skies/clouds and bring out colours without over saturating.
What camera or phone did you use?
That was taken with my venerable Nikon D70. A whopping 6M pixels.
For @Chad_Sudan 's picture all I see is an error message that says, “imgbb.com uploading this content requires registration”.
I am also not seeing Chad_Sudan’s submission.
On Edge browser.
mmm