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Join Date: Nov 2009
Posts: 870
Thanks: 2 in 1 Posts 2 Achievements
Yay, we're waiting on the judges!
While it's sweet of you to suggest that InesMarie, it wouldn't be fair to the other contestants who've submitted their final spreads. Anyway, as Porky and I are level-pegging on actual points (bonuses included), the last thing I'd want is to be crowned winner by default - much better to take our chances and see what happens. It's been a close-run thing all the way through.
No need to use my full name, "Selly" will do just fine.
Join Date: Nov 2009
Posts: 870
Thanks: 2 in 1 Posts 2 Achievements
I didn't mean it like that Porky; you don't "lack talent" at all!
To be perfectly honest, I never expected to be getting such good scores - I'd barely touched photo-editing beyond simple cropping before this, just making sim family trees (and not brilliant ones at that) I'd followed a GIMP tutorial adapted to my own software... I'd always been impressed by what others had made, and thought mine were basic by comparison!
No need to use my full name, "Selly" will do just fine.
I've never scrapbooked before so I learned a lot. I am surprised my scores ar as good as they are. I lacked a lot of digital elements for the pages. What I think is funny is the pages I lied best scroed least and the pages I thought were YUCK scored well. So much for opinions. ;0) Of course I'll make my personal family scrapbook to suit myself and if my relatives go YUCK, they can replace the pages with their own artwork.
I've never scrapbooked before so I learned a lot. I am surprised my scores ar as good as they are. I lacked a lot of digital elements for the pages. What I think is funny is the pages I liked best scored least and the pages I thought were YUCK scored well. So much for opinions. ;0) Of course I'll make my personal family scrapbook to suit myself and if my relatives go YUCK, they can replace the pages with their own artwork.
Here are your scores from our final round, Prom/Graduation!
aUserName 13 (39/60)
(-2) High quality photo (not blurry or crunchy)
A: The photos are very small and all the other elements are crunchy. C: Your photos are good quality, but quite a lot of the background is blurry/fuzzy.
(-2) Interesting Photos
A: Not very interesting pictures at all. The background in the ones on the first page are practically empty. B: The photos on the first page are all pretty much the same, which makes them a bit redundant. It would also be nice to have a little more variety in the cropping; have at least one close-up of the new graduate.
(-1) Good Photo Cropping
A: Every single photo is taken from the same distance away, you don’t have any closeups.
(-1) Realistic Drop Shadows / Consistent Light Source
B: Drop shadows are a bit high.
(-1) Believable Layering/Dimension of Elements
A: I have no idea what the intent was for the book pages, it looks very flat and crunchy.
(-1) Nice Fonts (not Comic Sans or Papyrus)
C: Although in places, like the p1 titles, the font looks very nice, in others it looks very spindly and kinda squished - the curves aren't smooth, the strokes are very very thin, etc. It just looks a little tatty that way, which doesn't fit with the formal style of your layout.
(-2) Cohesive Color Palette for each Life Event
A: What color? Oh, there is a tiny stripe of orange down the side. This page is all grey. C: Your color palette is very dominated by grey and black, in the background and the photos. Grey and black look great when used sparingly; but when the whole spread is grey, with just the occasional splash of color, it's very easy for the result to seem flat and emotionless - remember, graduation is a huge achievement and a reason to celebrate! - which is a trap that, I'm afraid, you haven't entirely avoided here.
(-1) Good Use of Text
A: It might be because of the simlish printed font you’ve been using, but it still looks like the journaling was typed out instead of written on the page. If they had been typed, they would have had to be on smaller pieces of paper that could fit through a printer. The line breaks are also weird.
(-4) Good Mix/Balance of Images and Other Elements
A: You only included photos this time. C: This spread is quite plain - the design of the background is lovely, I like the idea of a book, but it's quite a simple book design and could do with some more elements, either as part of the background or elsewhere, to spice things up a bit.
(-1) Fits and Portrays each Life Event well
B: It's pretty staid for a graduation page. Yes, it's an important event, but it's also a celebration!
(-5) Draws Viewer In / Is Visually Interesting / Judge Likes It
A: No color, no words I can read, no interesting mementos relating to the special day, and no photos that draw me in, rather boring. B: There's no color to speak of, no texture, nothing to draw the eye in. C: I like the book design, and you've chosen good subjects for your pics, but the combination of plain design and the colors you've used mean that I can't in good faith say that the spread "draws the viewer in".
General Comments:
A: You were late with this spread and you didn’t even take advantage of your extra few days. This spread could have been better, and I was disappointed. B: I like the photos on the second page, cute family portrait! C: I'm amazed at how hard you've worked during this contest! You've just got better and better - your designs are creative (it's always a good sign when no-one else has thought of what you've done, which has been the case a few times!), and your general photoshopping skills have been taking leaps and bounds too. Nice one.
leah10006 15 (44/60)
(-3) High quality photo (not blurry or crunchy)
A: Still having compression issues! That’s really too bad. B: The photos and background elements are quite blurry in places. C: Your photos are very crunchy, as is the rest of your scrapbook.
(-2) Interesting Photos
A: Some of the photos are cool, but I don’t really understand the one with the two people standing in front of the two people sitting. C: A bit more variety in your photos would be good - there are a lot of posed group shots, which are fine in themselves, and very appropriate for a graduation, but a few more spontaneous-looking photos would add a bit of excitement.
(-2) Good Photo Cropping
A: The picture of the two graduates is stretched, making your sims look fatter and mis-proportioned. B; Some of the photos are quite obviously squashed.
(-2) Realistic Drop Shadows / Consistent Light Source
B: While there are some drop shadows that are at a nice height, others seem to be absent. On the second page, the far left photo should be affected by the page shadow. C: You have a handful of drop shadows, and those shadows look good - the size and opacity of them is realistic, so that's great. They are quite inconsistent though - only a few elements have drop shadows, and most of the photos are missing them.
(-1) Believable Layering/Dimension of Elements
A: Whoops! Your binding shadow is below one of your photos, it makes it look like that photo os hovering above the rest of the page. I’m also not seeing very prominent drop shadows on the rest of the elements; it’s hard to tell they are there.
(-2) Nice Fonts (not Comic Sans or Papyrus)
A: The font you’ve used isn’t a handwritten one, making it look like it would have been printed, but the page is far too large to be able to go through one, so it makes me wonder how it got on the page. C: The main (white) font looks an awful lot like Times New Roman (it may not actually be TNR, but if not it is a very similar font), which isn't particularly aesthetically pleasing, and the bold doesn't really make it look nicer, and does make it a little harder to read.
(-2) Good Use of Text
A: There are a few grammar errors in your block of text, and some things that shouldn’t be capitalized are. C: Your page heading bits are really nice, but the journaling on p2 doesn't look as good - journaling really does look better on cards, or done in handwriting font, as otherwise it would have to be printed onto the background paper, which is unlikely. The alignment also looks a bit slapdash - justified paragraphs would look better if the text is intended to be printed
(-1) Good Mix/Balance of Images and Other Elements
C: Page 1 looks good. Page 2 has a nice number of photos and other elements, but your photos are all very crowded together in the middle, and the overlap is obscuring large parts of the pics. If you'd grouped them a little more loosely, so that the overlap didn't cover up so much of the photos, the page would have looked a bit better-balanced, and the photos would be showcased better.
(-1) Fits and Portrays each Life Event well
C: There's a big focus on your graduates' family, which is great, but the rest of the ceremony, the other students etc. all seem to be missing.
General Comments:
A: I love how textural all your papers always look. You do a good job of combining them in a pleasing way. B: Nice work with the collage effect on the background, it adds good interest without being distracting. C: We got binding and page shadows, yay! This is a very stylish layout - patterned backgrounds are the 'easy way out', but you've used a combination of different plain backgrounds to great effect - the way they're arranged is eye-catching and interesting, which takes skill to achieve. In fact, that's been your hallmark throughout the contest - although you've struggled with some of the technical elements, your actual page layouts have been creative, clean and stylish. I'm very impressed.
Selly_2009 18 (55/60)
(-1) Good Photo Cropping
C: Here goes Judge Whichever Letter I Am misusing categories again. Your photo cropping is lovely, but some of your elements could be neater - the hats in the background have lots of little white dots around the tassels - I understand what a pain it is to erase dots like those, but in this case you could probably have selected all of that layer and just buket filled it black, to great effect. The two little clipart things could use *something* as well - cropping would work, but would be tedious; a slightly different background would also have worked well. Currently they look like, well, clipart images copy-pasted onto the page, and they don't really seem to 'fit' with the rest of the page.
(-2) Realistic Drop Shadows / Consistent Light Source
A: The light source changes on the photo brackets. I’m guessing you just spun one around to use on the opposite corner. C: Your drop shadows are mostly good, but not quite perfect (and we know you're capable of perfect!). The shadow down the centre seems unnaturally dark, and although all the elements have nice drop shadows, the size and height of the elements isn't always taken into account - for example, the gold frame corners should have wider, darker shadows than the photos, since they're thicker and stick out from the page more.
(-1) Includes Book Binding / Page Shadows Down the Inside Edges Throughout
A: While you have something there, it’s not your best binding shadow by far. It looks like you forgot to blend it out.
(-1) Good Use of Text
A: The text on the first page is super tiny! Add in the fact that those words are mostly names and it becomes almost entirely impossible to read.
General Comments:
A: I really love the black silhouettes of the graduates on the first page. It’s a great way to set the tone. The giant white wall behind the graduation stage was a little jarring, and usually they use curtains of a nice solid dark color to fade into the background. B: Very well-composed photos, interesting and pretty. C: I love the way you've mixed styles on this spread - you've got a very traditional background paper and photo frame bits, combined with very modern embellishments (the silhouettes - I've never been able to spell that word with the right number of consonants - and fireworks), and they blend together seamlessly. The group photos are both lovely, but the combination of the plain white background, and the sims' basic standing poses in the stage pics, make that photo a bit less interesting. I know I've criticized your pic-taking skills a couple of times, but those are big exceptions to the norm. Generally, you've taken really nice, imaginative pics, which clearly define the event in question, but aren't predictable or 'cliché', and you've only got better at doing that as time goes on. Your layouts are simple but brilliantly executed, so well done!
porkypine 17 (52/60)
(-2) High quality photo (not blurry or crunchy)
B: The photos do look kinda crunchy. C: A few of your photos, especially the hug and the school hall on p1, are a bit crunchy around the edges. Your image is only 150kb, so you could have used higher quality photos without going over the file size limit.
(-1) Includes Book Binding / Page Shadows Down the Inside Edges Throughout
A: I can barely tell that it’s there. If it’s that light, it’s not doing its job.
(-1) Nice Fonts (not Comic Sans or Papyrus)
B: That font is alright for a headline, but it's very hard to read full sentences of it. It would be nice to incorporate at least one other, more legible, font.
(-1) Cohesive Color Palette for each Life Event
A: You don’t really have a color palette for this, you only really have one color. You went from one extreme to the other. Because everything is pretty much the same color of blue, it’s hard to see what is important.
(-1) Good Use of Text
A: The font you’ve used isn’t a handwritten one, making it look like it would have been printed, but the page is far too large to be able to go through one, so it makes me wonder how it got on the page.
(-1) Good Mix/Balance of Images and Other Elements
B: For my taste it's just a little too busy. The background is quite strongly textured, and there's a lot of bows. Overall these things distract from the text (I noticed the text last, out of everything), which is a shame because you've got nice writing.
(-1) Draws Viewer In / Is Visually Interesting / Judge Likes It
A: That over-usage of the color blue is just bugging the heck out of me. The quality of the robe recolors isn’t very good either and that’s throwing me off.
General Comments:
A: I love all the little bows; most of them even look perfectly realistic and 3-dimensional. The journaling you’ve done is super cute as well. B: Lovely blue color scheme, I also like how you've got good variety in the size of the photos on the page. C: This is a great spread! I love the text, and the way it's slightly irregular - it looks great on the kinda woven background too. The spread does have a slightly anomalous medieval feel to it - lots of medieval CC, early printed word font, rough fabric background etc. Do I spy a player with a medieval 'hood? Your whole scrapbook is lovely - there's such a diversity of colors and designs and themes, and you've done every one of them justice. Your imagination must get in the way sometimes, what with it clearly pouring out your ears...
InesMarie 17 (52/60)
(-1) High quality photo (not blurry or crunchy)
C: Your photos on p1 are a bit crunchy round the edges - your image is well below the maximum file size, so you could have cranked the quality up some.
(-2) Interesting Photos
A: Pretty typical for photos, but they aren’t uninteresting. C: The composition of your photos is nice, but they're all a bit somber - especially on p1. Of course, graduation robes *are* pretty somber; but that combined with the black curtain, grey walls and grey floors does make the pics seem more dull (in terms of color) than they necessarily needed to be. Some rich, reddish wood colors, colored carpet, or maybe some flowers on the stage (I know my university always has flowers on the lectern for special occasions) would make the pics stand out a bit more. They're not drowned by the surrounding page, since the page is mostly fairly neutral (but beautiful) colors, but they do lack sparkle. The pic on p2 is more colorful, which is nice.
(-1) Believable Layering/Dimension of Elements
A: The chain link fencing should be pushing the photos up higher than they are, making them cast larger shadows.
(-2) Good Use of Text
B: It would be nice to have a little more. C: A little more journaling would have been nice to see.
(-1) Good Mix/Balance of Images and Other Elements
B: There's a lot of stuff going on in the design. Ornate photo frames, stars, fireworks, some sort of lattice detail (looks like chicken wire?), etc.
(-1) Fits and Portrays each Life Event well
A: How does golden chain-link fencing relate to graduating high school? All the elements you’ve chosen work well on the page and together, but I’m not sure how you picked them in the first place.
General Comments:
A: I really love the elegant gold color scheme you’ve created for this page, it gives it a classic yet vintage feel. Very pretty. B: Very sweet photos, they tell the story quite nicely. C: I love this page design! Classy styling! Good use of 3D elements! Beige done properly! Yay! \o/ Your scrapbook has been fun to judge throughout - you have a great eye for layout and balance, and your pages are always eye-catching and vibrant.
Congratulations to Selly, our Round Winner! Also congrats to porkypine and InesMarie who tied with the next highest score! That concludes our contest!
In 1st place, our contest winner, and proud new owner of a spiffy blue ribbon icon is Selly_2009 with a grand total of 92! 91+1/100 (273/300)!
In 2nd place is porkypine with an equally impressive score of 91.6! 83+8/100 (251/300)! While we have been rounding most of the scores this contest, I went back to the original unrounded to make up the final scores and with all the bonus points, porky almost caught up to Selly, but not quite. It was a very close race!
In 3rd place is InesMarie with another very close score of 89! 83+6/100 (249/300)! This truly was anyone's competition! We had some very good spreads the last few rounds.
In 4th place we have jones7659, while she didn't enter the final round, her previous great scores carried her to the finish line with a 70.6! 67.7+3/100 (203/300)!
In 5th place is leah10006 with a score of 70.3! 67.3+3/100 (202/300)!
In 6th place is Croutonian, who also didn't finish, and due to a few late rounds costing her her rightful place as one of our top placers, with a score of 61.6! 67.6-6/100(203/300)!
In 7th place is kisses-for-yooh, also another early drop out, but her excellent scores in the rounds she did enter earned her 55! 53+2/100 (159/300)!
In 8th place is aUserName, the final contestant who finished out the contest, with a score of 53.6! 54.6-1/100 (164/300)!
In 9th place is kateisl33t, another early withdrawn contestant who earned 44.3! 41.3+3/100(124/300)!
In 10th place is PixelDollyLover, who, in her single round, earned 15.6! 15.6/100 (47/300)!
Congratulations to all the contestants, regardless of how long you were able to participate. This was a long and hard contest and you should be proud of what you have achieved. Thank you all for being part of the first contest I have ever run, and I promise you, if I run another, I'll do it even better next time
I really think everyone's image editing skills have improved. Now you should be able to take what you've learned and practiced with here and apply it to other kinds of image editing, like making clothes or object textures.
"On the page, punctuation performs its grammatical function, but in the mind of the reader it does more than that. It tells the reader how to hum the tune." - Lynn Truss, Eats, Shoots and Leaves
Join Date: Nov 2009
Posts: 870
Thanks: 2 in 1 Posts 2 Achievements
I'd had the perfect post just about ready to be submitted, then my laptop screen went kaput once more!
Anyway, I'll see how much of it I can remember...
Quote:
I'd not been online (other than via my BB) for a few days, so hadn't seen that the final scores had been posted. Sees result and jaw drops to the floor
Thanks guys! Accepts ribbon from Phae and after reading Porky's post, teases by dangling it in front of her, just out of reach. Sorry Porky, just couldn't resist!
I truly didn't expect to win - there were some amazing spreads out there. As I said in a previous post, it's been a very close-run contest, and I've seen pages that I felt were better than mine. However it wasn't me who needed convincing. Well done to everyone for making it a success.
Also, big thanks to Phae for hosting (and judging) the contest, as well as the other judges.
Steps down from winner's podium, pins ribbon to profile page, then runs back to her sims, who are feeling rather neglected after a week of being 'ignored'.
What? My gaming lappy's been with a techie friend all week in the hope of being repaired (I can't connect to the Net on it) - I'm Sims-deprived!
No need to use my full name, "Selly" will do just fine.
Join Date: Jan 2009
Posts: 2,246
Thanks: 11753 in 30 Posts 25 Achievements
Congratulations to the our winner, contestants and judges alike! I've been keeping an eye on this contest and am really impressed with what everyone put out there! Thank you judges for the time and effort you put in as well. Thank goodness it wasn't for TS3 as well because I would have had my butt handed to me! :D
Successful thread being closed and locked. Congratulations again everyone!
Feeling like a bit of a chat about creation or just... whatever (not necessarily sims)?
Just installed the Sims 3 patch or about to?
Want to create your own clothes for the Sims 3?
13th Aug 2012, 5:08 PM
aUserName 13 (39/60) 
Your whole scrapbook is lovely - there's such a diversity of colors and designs and themes, and you've done every one of them justice. 
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