Us Photoshoppers can see imperfections in an instant. We also have Photographers on this site who have just as good, or better, eyes than we do, and they too may be judging your art. The contest calls for an image up to 3500 X 3500 so you may as well take advantage of that. Your image is 1500 X 1000 and will have to be scaled UP in order accommodate even the lowest resolution desktop monitor they sell today - which is 1920 X 1080. This scaling by itself will add noise, blur, etc, and make the image look worse. In other words, when "we" (the judges) look at it, we are seeing it all messed up looking. In these contest people don't know or care about the reasons you may be using to make your images smaller. We just look at it and determine how well it looks to us.

While you did fix a great deal of noise, there still is "copious" amounts of it left. You did lessen the yucky fringing on the legs, by a lot, but it is still "glaringly" obvious. Now trust me, I am not getting critical here at all. These things that I am pointing out are very obvious. I can and do get very critical when critiquing images, but that is not what I am doing now. These things are still very recognizable, distinct, evident, and clear as a bell.

https://image.ibb.co/eyeuHe/yucky_statue.jpg

Cute idea, the arms are flat and don't look 3d.

There is some real bad white fringing on the far right leg and some on top of the other, probably from a poor cut out. Those blown out highlight areas on the legs are real bad. There is also a ton or jpg atficats everywhere. Very apparent in the clouds, around the shoes, legs, and lighthouse. I don't know why you made this so small or what jpg setting you used, but you need to crank it up a whole lot more.

Very imaginative. Me like.

A little trick to find yuckies that weren't masked properly is to just add a Stroke to that layer. Trust me, it will find them!! I left some garbage on the left, added a Stroke, and you can CLEARLY see them. https://image.ibb.co/d4jVHe/yuckies.jpg

That's possibly a good idea. One the author may want to experiment with. Change the whale to a Smart Object and mess around with some blurs.

I'm not sure I agree. As the author said, "clouds are water". I'm not sure if a whale would have that much water coming off it if it somehow leaped through the clouds as I am not an expert on whales leaping through clouds. Perhaps it would get misty/dewy. Perhaps if it's a rain cloud it would get fairly wet. Perhaps you are right and it would be totally dry. But my final thoughts are that I like the water coming off the whale.

Now we are sending mixed signals to the author and he/she will have to make up their mind.

good job masking the water drops. there is a long line from the fin to the nose just outside the body.

Oh nice! You should have taken me with you.

the hand on our right looks flat. the other ones are a bit flat too but not near as bad.

Where did you go?

1st and 3rd. Hogging all the glory!!

Congrats on 2nd. It was a hard source.

Nice win George55

I'm ecstatic too for you. I wish you would have won to make your accomplishment that much better. I know you have been trying to reach 70, so this is a milestone. I made a milestone dance gif for you!! https://i.imgur.com/sUf8YSP.gif

Nice 3rd DS!!

OMG you did it!! You hit the magic 70. A very close race too!! Like .1% away.

Channel masking and Calculations can save time. It makes "hard" cut outs like this lightning very easy to do. This technique is also good for hair, feathers, and many other irregular things.

I chuckled too.

cute doggy.
https://media1.giphy.com/media/NmGbJwLl7Y4lG/200w.gif
https://media3.giphy.com/media/13LfU4L5PyxtkY/200w.gif

Robo cats. Since they have an engine, where is their exhaust pipe out the back? haha.

Nice but not sure about the black and white..

I like the name. He isn't a K-9, he is a K-9000.

Oh man I had some Thai food last night. Those little Thai peppers have a kick and this ground up stuff they put on the table has a bit of a wow factor too. Congrats on 3rd.

Congratas on 2nd. Hope your AC gets fixed! I don't even have one.

Oooh cool! My brain went away for a few days and I missed this contest. Congrats my Angel.

haha some Space money

wow 1st and 3rd! you're rockin!

Kongrats on 2rd!!

Oh man this contest snuck up on me. I didn't even vote. Good work lchappell. Nice 1st place!!

You can extract that lightening very nicely with "Calculations" set to "Grey + Gray and Multiply". I don't have a mic but I made a video for you to show you how to do this lightning VERY VERY quickly and very decently. Mind you, this is a good extraction, but there is more to it if you want to get it better. You will have to research this more if you want to get into absolute perfection, but what I showed you in the video is very fast and mostly good enough. I advice you to research Calculations (as well as Channel Masking). It is an extremely powerful tool!!

https://youtu.be/9In0YM67gyQ

Also there are "hair/grass" brushes in Photoshop. I think they are #133 and #134 or there abouts. You can use them to mask in the cat's antennae rather than just putting a black dot over them. Hope this all helps.

I like the idea. Good use of source. Needs work on the shadows, particularly the ashtray (incense holder) and the sun. The sun's drop shadow doesn't fit as it creates light "sources" from many directions. Also maybe the ashtray can be darkened a bit at the bottom so it doesn't look like it's floating. Same w/ the lemon. If you are going to work with a light source, make one side lighter and one side darker of all the objects in the Chop. In this Photoshop, since the objects are already "light", you will probably only have to darker certain areas. Make the shadows (and shading) more of a "gradient" as the ones you have used on the ashtray and plate are pretty solid black.

https://image.ibb.co/deTgke/light.jpg

I got a kick outa that too. Good use of that photo LifetimeDamage

Congrats. I knew this one and the other one looked similar.

Honestly I liked this one better than your Water Weight Lifter "The power of water". Just personal taste, but this one to me had more wow. I voted higher on this one.

keep going and one day you will top it. The stars have to align properly is all.

Such a close race!! .14 percent away from each other. Wonderful work BTW. I am impressed.

Hey Z I shuold have noticed this before but maybe this will help for future chops. The perspective of the floor is way off. It looks like you are looking "down" on the floor.

I resized the floor vertically by making it smaller. Then used Edit > Transform > Perspective. The "grid" on the floor should be smaller in the back and larger in the front.

Here is a jpg but ignore the leg distortion.

https://preview.ibb.co/ibYir8/floor.jpg

Congrats lolu

Wow some really high scores for the top 2. Really good work SA. Amazing what we can create from a mundane water spigot.

^

https://media1.giphy.com/media/glmRyiSI3v5E4/200.gif

very nice LifetimeDamage

OMG that's hysterical. good work.

Very nice Zizounai

GJ rturnbow

Congrats man

why is the elephant so green?

3rd place for seestah Zizounai

Nice 2nd Drivenslush

Kongertz SA!!