"I think the main problem with having your work criticized here, is that this critiques are usually made right in the gallery, right under your beloved pic, so that any passer by will see the picture, then read the critique just after and they will think "this needs a lot of improvement" whereas they would perhaps have thought "wow ! Great !"." WHOA. That is terribly selfish. Criticism benefits not only the maker of the image, but other viewers as well by raising their awareness. Heaven forbid we should have viewers who understand what they're seeing? The better the viewer, the harder we work, the better we do.