Some photo related stuff on the web for ya. Too Much Photoshop? Judge for yourself: http://blogs.sun-sentinel.com/click/2009/04/too-much-photoshop-judge-for-yourself.html (in this case, I say yes) Scenes from the Zoo: http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/04/scenes_from_the_zoo.html 50 Great Photographers You Should Know (with portfolios): http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/50-great-photographers-you-should-know-with-portfolios/ (some are better than others)

Re the first link:

Too Much Photoshop?  Could be Photoshop™ and or some of the detail, saturation, contrast enhancing pseudo HDR software at use here.  I for one see the images as way too overworked, two moreso than a third one.  You see the same sort of postwork here but in my opinion done with better taste.

The photos are not pleasing to me at all, regardless of subject matter.  Yet, I cannot say the scenes shown are altered in content, only in digital garishness of that subject matter.

I believe the jury does need to clarify its guidelines even more or admit choices are made on personal likes and dislikes, something not easily defined.    

Yeah, had to agree that the postwork was way out there. I do think the original shots could use a little help, but they were taken to the extreme. That first shot did look kind of cool, in that it really brought out some cool features in the foreground, but then it made it more artistic looking then the "photojournalistic" look the judges were probably looking for.

I loved the Zoo shots!!!!! I could look at baby animals all day long!

Thanks for the links, Kort!

Good point...we do live with traditions of how a certain sort of photo should look.

Well I tend to think it's the end result that counts wether they had to be photoshopped to get there or not...  I do think he photoshopped them a bit too much, but I'm saying this not because I'm a purist, it's just personal taste...

I do wonder though if the judges are going to ask for the RAW files of a few photographers and decide if they'll be disqualified or not based on the differences between raw file and submitted image, why don't they ask the RAW files from all the contestants and base their judgements on those instead?  It seems a bit unfair that they'll only ask a few, you know?  I would be curious to see the winning photos and their respective RAW files just to see how much those have been photoshopped...

Is it depressing when you look at the before and after, and start thinking about how you would do the postwork to get the same end result?