RobynsVeil - oh, definitely don't judge by number of posts.  but yeah, i've been here a long time.  you're no newbie, yourself, though!

the forum still exists, but there's next to no activity. compared to the daily critiques i would see posted to various works and gave, it's in a coma even with this renewed interest.

frankly, nothing's going to work consistently unless you either prime the pump, get people to subscribe to your gallery, or both.  when we started the critique group we first made it a subscription to each others' galleries.  then we switched to a forum, which i warned would kill it.  i was told i had no clue what i was talking about.  it died not long after that, because people only come to a forum with traffic, and when less and less people post, the number of people who falloff exponentially rises.

it takes time and effort to write good critiques.  pretty much no one's going to seek that work consistently.  at least not that i've seen.  you want a certain response, it's the same here as it is everywhere on the Web: get subscribers.  do all the things that people do when they want certain responses to their blog posts: politely ask people for it, and in exchange for offering to comment on their work.  or just comment on their work.  the same social practice that generates so many views for gushers generates critiques.  but if you want feedback from specific people, i'd suggest actually sitemailing them.

just to say, i personally disagree with Spacer_01 about postwork.   for me, avoiding postwork would be like openly admitting i'd worked half as hard (if not even less).   but that's me.  personally, i tend to start with a real world sketch (the reduction really helps), move to posing and composition, add all the lighting and materials (and do lots of research in the forums, then go through 20+ iterations refining lighting and materials), do a final resolution render, do lots of postwork (again, incorporating lots of research), then place the final image in a layout and touch it up design-wise.  and i've now started modeling and morphing with Blender.  so, for me, the things Spacer_01 does are only a fraction of what makes the final product.

the point being, if you're really looking for critique, it's good to do as he (she?) did and be explicit about your limits (what you will and won't do), and respect others' limits.  i wouldn't critique his (her?) work now the way i would have someone else's.  looking at those links, there's loads of things i would have suggested that are pretty much impossible without a new (expensive) tool set.  and even then, i'm not sure, since all of the people i've seen use those tools also use postwork.  so it would probably be best just not to give that feedback, and restrict my comments to those that fit within the program's capabilities.  especially since he (or she?  i'm taking no chances) has expressed an antipathy for that type of feedback.

basically, part of the effort involved with doing a good critique is putting away your personal taste and choices, and responding to someone else's.  there's a difference between suggesting growth in an area and trying to fight their work style.

RobynsVeil - what you say about progressive works is true.  it's one of the reasons in the gallery i'm working on for myself  (back to the grind tomorrow!) i plan to allow multiple images per gallery "item."  here, i'd suggest posting more than one version to the galleries and a forum thread.  the only thing you lose is all the comments in one place, but you lose that anyway if you post to galleries and forums.  forums really aren't ideal for showing off images, in any case.  either you link to the image, which makes it unclear where to comment, or you place the image inline, which can break the forum display and never looks optimal.