Sims 2 Scrapbooking Contest

[leah10006]

im sorry about the pictures being so small i could find any other scrapbook paper that would suit but ill see what i can do

[Phaenoh]

leah, and everyone else. You may not edit your wedding pages anymore. Judging has begun. Please move on to your New Baby pages. :)

[leah10006]

i was just wondering when can i post the baby pages

[Phaenoh]

You can post them anytime between last Monday and when the round is over (see the first post for that). If you want bonus points, post on Friday or this weekend.

[leah10006]

thnkz phae ill post them tomorrow :-)

[porkypine]

leah, thank you for attaching them to your application post. You do know your pages are supposed to be square right? Your pictures are VERY small and VERY blurry. Please try to take more care with following the guidelines for this round.

Sorry to hear all that porky. And the hair on my babies heads is totally a custom job I'll be releasing for my creator anniversary set. My babies hair is GENETIC. /me wriggles with pride. Sadly, the rest of everything for that set isn't ready yet, otherwise I could share, but there is some MTS baby hair you can download (http://www.modthesims.info/browse.php?tag=baby+hair&go=Go&gs=1&f=38&gs=1) instead of making it - must go faster!

I got it up and running again with no loss to the families... except for some oddities... For some reason I had to get them married again even though the game said they were married. lol I did see those baby hair and downloaded them and put them in the game but the parents didn't have the skins so the kids were bald. :wtf: Poor widdle guys! But they have clothes!

Oh! lol... I messed up when 'doing the photoshoot'. Jose, the dad is a cop and trying to get pics of them getting mom in the cop car to go to the hospital was a total mess up. :lol: First time, he took off without her, then he came back, but he got out and left her sitting in the passenger seat. IN this process, the Machado's ended up with TRIPLETS! :P :lol: Ginger's sister is staying with them to help out for the time being. :P

It's been fun and I learned how to recover an 'unsaved' Sims2 neighborhood when the game doesn't start. Unfortunately, the instructions aren't for the faint of heart. Perhaps I'll write them up some day, if they might be of use.

(I might photoshop some hair on the poor widdle bald kiddos.) I tried using Simpe to set the skins on the parents so the kids would default but Sims2 is different than SIMs3...... WAIT A MINUTE! IT JUST DAWNED ON ME! I will sim2 pack the family as sims, and port them into CAS and fix the skins! But that is probably too much work since I will age them to toddlers for the next session.) However, I'd like to know if that will work.... hmmm. There are no infants in CAS, are there? :wtf: (not at my game now) I am not cold hearted enough to kill off the kids , fix the parents skins and pop out a new replacement set of triplets. (lol... In all my years of playing sims, I have not been able to kill any of them, ever. They are all immortal.) I take that back. I HAVE deleted some very annoying papparazzi in Sims3 who were trampling my garden trying to get in the windows. But they were not my families, they were intruders. (Don't tell the cops who's been killing off the papparazzi, m'kay ;)

[Phaenoh]

Wanna know a secret? The babies in my photoshot are Tombstone of L&D drop from the sky kids. I boolpropped mom preggers with her hubby, then speed up her pregnancy then got all these cute shots of her and the other kids in the background (which are the actual twin set, just mirror changed to look like their older siblings did at that age). Then photoshop and my game crashed and I said to hell with it all and just took one photo and split it in half and called it a day. bleah. I just didn't save their game so those babies 'never existed'. :)

[Croutonian]

Just to check back in and let you know that after spending all day on it, I have FINALLY managed to get all the wedding pics in game so should be able to post the spread up within the next 24 hours. My Macbook has really behaved itself thank god! Can't say the same for most of the wedding guests though, they kept snapping out of postion, Francis Roth was a serial offender, as were Isaiah/Ginger Gavigan and Nathan/Mary Gavigan in their couple poses - once I got all of them sorted Gabby O'Mackey decided to have a go! ARGH!!

Anyhow, baby pics should be a LOT easier!
Am wondering, I get that the Firsts spread can use baby or toddler pics, is that the same for the main theme too, or should those pics just be baby?

[heaven]

Just letting everyone know that, since application round is over, I've now moved this contest to the appropriate area. Didn't want anyone getting lost. ;)

[jones7659]

Just had to say OMG PHAE!!!! I just installed your hospital, IT'S AMAZING!!!!! Not that I'm surprised, all your stuff is, but WOW!!! You are a gift to the simming community!

[Phaenoh]

jones, thank you. I needed the morale boost. :)

The 72 hours bonus points window is already nearly 15 hours in, post 'em up soon!

On a related note, we have scores from 1 judge so far (yes, I'm slacking in my own contest, I blame my stroller) so look forward to seeing your scores either Sunday or more likely after Monday afternoon (I present at 1!).

[aUserName]

I’ve posted my pages for round 2.


Wanna know a secret? The babies in my photoshot are Tombstone of L&D drop from the sky kids. I boolpropped mom preggers with her hubby, then speed up her pregnancy then got all these cute shots of her and the other kids in the background (which are the actual twin set, just mirror changed to look like their older siblings did at that age). Then photoshop and my game crashed and I said to hell with it all and just took one photo and split it in half and called it a day. bleah. I just didn't save their game so those babies 'never existed'. :)

My family now has extra sextuplets (all have wrong eye color) and their formally teenage daughter has two immaculately conceived children. They also have a hospital room were their couch used to be.

These kind of photo shoots always seem surreal to me. It’s like creating an twilight zone universe with your families.

[porkypine]

I’ve posted my pages for round 2.




My family now has extra sextuplets (all have wrong eye color) and their formally teenage daughter has two immaculately conceived children. They also have a hospital room were their couch used to be.

These kind of photo shoots always seem surreal to me. It’s like creating an twilight zone universe with your families.

aUsername! :rofl: My family ended up with triplets. I couldn't get the game to pick up the infant hair skin retroactively so I photoshopped their hair. Poor widdle bald kids! The kids in our real life families are never baldies so the game's bald infants always make me sad and a little creeped out. I told Inez what I did last night when she came over to steal my baby cc so she's fixing her infant's hair too.

Oh! Phae I am uploading my baby pages right after I post this. :luff:

[Phaenoh]

As long as you don't save the lot when you are done snapping photos, it won't mess up your family. I'll update the table a little while later. Turns out the printing center won't be open tomorrow, so I have to scramble!

Picture of my baby stroller in action! (http://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/s720x720/601289_10100588248681935_21412230_46861249_891161600_n.jpg)

[porkypine]

As long as you don't save the lot when you are done snapping photos, it won't mess up your family. I'll update the table a little while later. Turns out the printing center won't be open tomorrow, so I have to scramble!

Picture of my baby stroller in action! (http://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/s720x720/601289_10100588248681935_21412230_46861249_891161600_n.jpg)

Good work! What does it look like on a bus?

[jones7659]

My baby pages are up. Not to gripe, but wish we hadn't had to post for bonus before we got round 1 scores :( I guess if I feel I really need to make some changes after we get scores, I'll just give up my bonus points.

[x-kisses-for-yooh-x]

My Round 2 pages are up! I didn't quite have time to do a honeymoon page so we'll just pretend Jessie couldn't afford it on his farmer's wage ;)

I tried removing backgrounds from some of the elements in these pictures for the first time, so they're not perfect! But they're still not too bad!

I also went for a slightly similar colour scheme as the wedding pages (pink and green), but I think it's more cute and fun than the wedding and you can never go wrong with a polka dot! (Or maybe you can? :wtf: ) And I know the birth certificate is out of date and for someone completely different in Washington but I thought the older ones are much more classic looking, and those footprints are just so dang cute! :bunny:

The photos were so much fun to do although I did run into a few difficulties with the final shot of Adelle holding Delilah in the bed. I wanted to do a cute shot of Adelle cuddling her whilst relaxing on the hospital bed, but sadly it could not be done! If anyone knows of a method to do this successfully then please, let me know! Haha!

Sorry for the long post, but I just need to recap on all the ups and downs of this round! It's been a lot of fun! I may makes a bonus page but I doubt I will have time this week as it's half-term for me here in Scotland and I'm going to be spending it out of the house as much as possible after a long month of exams! And I also can't wait to see everyone else's pages! :giggler:

- Kisses x

[Croutonian]

Right, apologies for the lengthy delay in getting wedding spread up, but my Mac has been behaving SO much better over the past couple days, since the UK lost it's heatwave :rofl:

I'm hoping the spread kinda tells the story itself, but I felt a more Pagan inspired ceremony would suit my couple best.

[InesMarie]

I posted my baby page 1 around 9:30. I got carried away putting dragon flies and fussing so page 2 got uploaded at 10:10 my time. And that baby's hair? I photoshoped my nephew's hair onto the baby. His hair stuck straight up! He was so cute when he was little. :)

[kateisl33t]

Porky

you know your baby spread page one says youre having twin girls, and then you have triplets... right?

[porkypine]

Hi Katie, Yes, They were told they were having twins but got an extra one which is why it said SURPRISE! Triplets! :lol: It ended up that way during the photo shoot. Oh yea! I was trying to get the kids to have hair in game. They are actually bald and what I tried didn't work because the parents didn't have the skins and I couldn't figure out how to fix it in SimPE in the time I had so I just photoshoped the hair in. I couldn't kill off the extra one. :giggler: Mine is hand painted but Ines said she got a picture of her nephew when he was little - his hair stood straight up. She copied his hair from a picture and pasted it over the bald kid's head.

[Phaenoh]

Gosh its been a long day. But, I have a commitment to you all and I have a bit of time to breathe yet. Plus, this is fun.

aUserName, that's a very interesting first page. Not so sure how successful it is though. The second page is better, but the scale on a lot of your items seems to be off. The hospital bracelet for one. If it were truly that big compared to your scrapbook, the book would be the size of a small dining table. O.O Your two pages don't flow together well though, when you look at them as a spread the blues clash and they don't seem cohesive.

porky, Your background pattern is really cute, and the paper squares behind the pictures are good. I really like the translucent tissue? hearts. They are a great detail. The letters, however, are badly embossed and the colors of them and your text paper and elephant clash with the really pretty color scheme you've got going on with the papers.

jones, really nice color scheme. I love how everything looks like it has a texture. I like your typeface as well, kinda handwritten without looking over done like some of the more popular fonts. Your shadows on the brick-a-brack and the puzzle pieces, however, is a little too far away; it makes them look like they are floating. And sorry about the judging not coming in sooner, but the bonus points is sorta for the risk takers anyways. We might do better about it next round. :)

kisses, love your bright colors, and yes its totally possible (and usually likely) to go wrong with polka dots, but you nailed it here. The colors are fun and cute. Your shadows for the bows are much too dark/crisp/far from the bow, but the real issue is that the stroke weight on the text makes it harder to read. 'Baby Makes Three' looks like it could be a transfer decal sticker because its a generic enough phrase, but your personal details would be nearly impossible to get like that short of printing, which would be hard to do on gift tags. I'd suggest loosing the stroke and picking a new font for your detail lines. It worked in the wedding spread because it was fancy and formal, but not so much here.

Croutonian, your text is much too small. It would be difficult to actually write that small, and as its a hand written typeface, it makes it hard to be believable. I like that you included the vows, but I gave up reading them barely a line in because it was so small. I do like the color scheme you've got, it works really well with the natury night wedding you had. Very pretty. Unfortunately, you were late and I started taking points off for it 5 days ago, so this will be -5 to begin with. :( I hope you will be able to get your baby spread in on time!

Ines, your background paper seems really formal or dreary for such a happy event. I absolutely love the safety pin detail you did with the word tags and they are very well done, however the font you picked isn't so go. I know that there are very few decent fonts that get packaged on standard computers, and this seems to be the only 'handwritey' looking one available, but please look for a different one next time. I think a few of you used this one, and its not a good one. :( Oh, I almost forgot! Wow, on the baby hair. That is just crazy, very few newborns have that much or that thick of hair. Not sure about that... :faceslap:

I'll go update the table with everyones' bonus points now. Great work everyone! All and all, these look really nice. :)

kate, I nearly missed yours! You didn't let me know you'd posted. Your pages are very well done. The color scheme is cohesive, the fonts are pretty, the pictures are crisp, and all the deco on top is nice. My only critique for you is that your images are actually kinda boring. There is nothing on the walls, the house doesn't look lived in, some of the view angles are off (high and too far). Would you put a picture of you sitting on the computer in a scrapbook about your newborn? Maybe not. Good job with the pages this time. They are much better than the last round. :)

[x-kisses-for-yooh-x]

I've edited my pages :) You were right, the font wasn't right for the handwritten tags so I've changed it and removed the stroke completely! I kept the title though and followed on from your comment about it looking like a sticker and kept the baby name on the right hand page in "sticker-form", do you think this is okay? I also changed the drop shadow on the ribbons! Let me know if this is an improvement, or if anything else needs a tweak ;)

- Kisses :bunny:

[Croutonian]

To be fair, I ended up having to compress those pages (especially the first one with the text) quite a lot more than I had needed to for the cover, so the text IS harder to read on here than the original PSP image on my comp...I would argue the size isn't completely unnatural though, I kinda see the whole book, if it were a real life hardcopy as being a lil bit larger than it appears here, therefore the text would also be a bit larger. Also, I considered changing the stripe around once I'd added the text, but it was after 3am here and I was tired and just wanted to get it up and out the way and avoid losing yet another point for lateness. I will ensure that if any text is added on future pages that I put it on FIRST so I then adjust decorative features around it.

----------------------------

And if people want to read the vows more easily:

Bithiah:
I look to the East to bless our new beginning together,
Where I choose you, Morley, to be my one love
For as long as the breath of life surrounds our souls.

I look to the South for the courage to resist temptation
And to control my passion,
Allowing its flame to burn only for you.

I look to the West, where the sun is setting on the errors of my past,
To heal the hurt that I caused and cleanse my soul of its sin,
Leaving me pure again for my true love.

I look to the North, where my love stands before me,
Solid and stable like the Earth beneath our feet.
I ask you to guide me and give me the strength to be faithful,
To be honest and true to you only.

Let us leave behind the darkness
As we step into the light of our new life,
Our hearts and souls bound together for eternity.


Morley:
My mother is the sun, my father is the moon,
Mother Nature's spirit grows wild within me -
Leafy vines winding through my limbs
Entwining my heart, my spirit, my dreams
Like the cloth binding you and I.

With your hand in mine
I feel your love flow within me -
Meandering like a spellbound stream,
Enchanting my every waking dream.

Follow me and I'll guide you to the light
Where your flame can flicker, glow and burn for me.
I will keep you grounded and close to truth
But let your spirit laugh, fly and be free -
For I am the beauty of the green Earth
And the white moon among the stars,
And together we will be, for as long as they do shine.

[x-kisses-for-yooh-x]

And if people want to read the vows more easily:

Bithiah:
I look to the East to bless our new beginning together,
Where I choose you, Morley, to be my one love
For as long as the breath of life surrounds our souls.

I look to the South for the courage to resist temptation
And to control my passion,
Allowing its flame to burn only for you.

I look to the West, where the sun is setting on the errors of my past,
To heal the hurt that I caused and cleanse my soul of its sin,
Leaving me pure again for my true love.

I look to the North, where my love stands before me,
Solid and stable like the Earth beneath our feet.
I ask you to guide me and give me the strength to be faithful,
To be honest and true to you only.

Let us leave behind the darkness
As we step into the light of our new life,
Our hearts and souls bound together for eternity.


Morley:
My mother is the sun, my father is the moon,
Mother Nature's spirit grows wild within me -
Leafy vines winding through my limbs
Entwining my heart, my spirit, my dreams
Like the cloth binding you and I.

With your hand in mine
I feel your love flow within me -
Meandering like a spellbound stream,
Enchanting my every waking dream.

Follow me and I'll guide you to the light
Where your flame can flicker, glow and burn for me.
I will keep you grounded and close to truth
But let your spirit laugh, fly and be free -
For I am the beauty of the green Earth
And the white moon among the stars,
And together we will be, for as long as they do shine.

I thought your vows were absolutely adorable! They're so creative! Your wedding photos were well worth the wait! :lovestruc

[Croutonian]

Thank you! :)

[Phaenoh]

kisses, that is a big improvement, I love your new typeface, the pink makes it unreadable again. Black would look perfectly fine though. The shadows look much better as well.

Croutonian, you are right about the pages being a bit bigger in real life, but that doesn't make it any less hard to read now. ;) As for your deco stuff and the stripe, I liked it. Yours is a very good style/design going on, keep at it.

[leah10006]

i submitted my round 2 entry :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :D :D :D :D :D :D

[Phaenoh]

leah, wow your pages are day and night from your wedding spread. These are great. You have a nice color scheme, lots of fun deco stuff, but your text is too tiny and hard to read, and your compression is really bad, everything is crunchy and doesn't look crisp at all. Please look for a 'Save for Web' option in your program, that should help.

[leah10006]

leah, wow your pages are day and night from your wedding spread. These are great. You have a nice color scheme, lots of fun deco stuff, but your text is too tiny and hard to read, and your compression is really bad, everything is crunchy and doesn't look crisp at all. Please look for a 'Save for Web' option in your program, that should help. sorry im not very good at this but how do i stop them becoming blurry

[x-kisses-for-yooh-x]

Updated again! I made the text a dark grey colour this time :)

- Kisses

[jones7659]

Phae, just a lil thing, but my total score is not right, I don't care if you fix it right now, you can just wait till the round one scores are up, but it says +2 total, but it should be +4. I may fiddle with my shadows, they are the bane of my existence....lol

*EDIT* Plus fixing it right now would be silly, as it will probably end up +3 cause I'll probably edit it today, lol

*EDIT...again* The "hand written" font is my fav for digi scrapbooking. You can get it here (http://kevinandamanda.com/fonts/fontsforpeas/pea-cathi/) They have other nice fonts too. Lot's of great "hand written" fonts. I think you can submit your own hand writing too! Like if you scan it into your pc and upload it they'll convert it. But that's too much work when they already have a lot of great ones, lol.

[porkypine]

porky, Your background pattern is really cute, and the paper squares behind the pictures are good. I really like the translucent tissue? hearts. They are a great detail. The letters, however, are badly embossed and the colors of them and your text paper and elephant clash with the really pretty color scheme you've got going on with the papers.

Ines, .... :( Oh, I almost forgot! Wow, on the baby hair. That is just crazy, very few newborns have that much or that thick of hair. Not sure about that... :faceslap:


Hi Phae, I swapped out the notepaper for a notepaper torn from the rings and changed the font and color. BTW, the font was not embossed at all. It was just flat so it may be the style that looks embossed or the browser crunching it - I changed the font anyway (but I don't like it as much) and picked blue instead. I hope it's not so bad now.

Oh! And that baby hair is for real. Little babies here on the rez (Fort Hall, Idaho) have stand-up-straight mops for hair. See? Nephew and g-gramma! Lets's see, that's my mother-in-law and the baby is her sister's daughter's-daughter's son. My husband and I call him our nephew but traditionally, he's our grandson. So you can see why we are a little traumatized by the game babies being bald. :p

[jones7659]

Oh! And that baby hair is for real. Little babies here on the rez (Fort Hall, Idaho) have stand-up-straight mops for hair. See? Nephew and g-gramma! Lets's see, that's my mother-in-law and the baby is her sister's daughter's-daughter's son. My husband and I call him our nephew but traditionally, he's our grandson. So you can see why we are a little traumatized by the game babies being bald. :p

porky, my 3 year old had crazy hair too! This is her first christmas, 3 months old. So I think the baby hair is fine too, lol.

*EDIT* Ok, I've fiddled with the shadows, I think they are 100% better, lol. And I managed to find a tear free way of making them! I add them to the element, before I add it to the page. For some reason if I try to add it to the element once it's on the page, the whole element ends up shadowed, and I'm not good enough to hand paint them, lol. Well, I might be good enough, just not patient enough :p

*EDIT 2* Had to add the Bailey Lou Who pic I mentioned bellow. Crazy haired babies are out there!! lol

[InesMarie]

I see we are showing off favorite children today. :)

Hi Phae, I thought that the pastel stripe would be colorful enough without overriding the whole page, but I found some circles which are pretty. The original is a strong color so I made them a little transparent to lighten the color and put a bright white page behind it. It is the same color range as the fine stripes - are the circles more festive? The fonts I have are not all that legible. Does the new one seem better? I have what comes with Office and Photoshop and that's it.

Thanks for the fonts Jones!

[jones7659]

I see we are showing off favorite children today. :)
Thanks for the fonts Jones!

You're welcome! And I can never resist showing off my kiddos ;) But I thought Bailey was another perfect example to support your crazy haired babies, lol. I have one pic of her where her hair is utterly ridiculous, she looks like Cindy Lou Who :D Also Ines, you might want to remove your attachments of your first baby pages. They are still at the bottom, as well as the new ones.

[leah10006]

i edited the font so that it it is readable (sorry i don't think i that's a word) and i changed the photo's so their not as blurry

[Phaenoh]

hey guys, I wasn't trying to say that babies don't have hair, but these are 'newborn' shots. Photos taken the day of the birth, kids rarely if ever have that much hair on day 1. I don't have time to go through and look at everyone's updates right now, but I can tomorrow. Sorry if that will cost anyone an extra bonus point. 15 hours till my presentation!

[x-kisses-for-yooh-x]

Good luck Phae!

- Kisses xx

[Croutonian]

Hope the presentation goes well :)

As for baby hair, I'm fine with the baldy babies...my twin cousins had VERY little hair when they were born, and my godson had such thin light hair he looked bald for ages lol!

Anyhow, I got all my photos taken last night, so will make a start on turning them into pages tonight :)

[jones7659]

Almost time, Phae! Positive thoughts and wishes for a FANTASTIC presentation being sent your way!!! GOOD LUCK!!!!

[Selly_2009]

Hope the presentation goes well :)I second that!

I had Sims crash on me yesterday, but luckily at the time it went down I'd got all the photos I wanted. Now the pages are taking shape, but the embellishments just look wrong :(

Hey-ho, I'll get there in the end... I've learnt something new this round (and my editing skills are improving in other ways too) so it's all good.

[Phaenoh]

Oh its been a long day. Woke up bright and early to finish my stroller, ran to Kinkos/FedEx to print out my process book, ran back home to change into fancy clothes, walked to my college, realized my podium was too tiny for everything, ran around finding and fixing a sheet of acrylic for it and making paper board stands for my book and kindle (slideshow of me making it photos), stood up and gave my presentation and fielded questions on it for 15 mins. All in all they liked my concept. I had a few people video recording for me, so I'll post the link when I get that up so you can watch. Afterwards we (my parents drove 3 hours to see my crit) helped set up my roommate's presentation (she goes on wednesday) and then went home to put as many prepacked boxes as I had into the truck. I move out of my apartment of 3 years on Sunday :'( Now it's 5pm and I still have work that needs to be done (print and stuff grad annoucements, finish my website, and help roommate finish her project.) But.... I will do the scoring on this first, because all that other stuff is suck and can wait and gosh darn it I need a break from all this. Expect your scores within 2 hours. :)

[Phaenoh]

Ok, sorry about that. I accidentally fell asleep. I haven't been getting much because I was pulling over-nighters for my project. Without further excuses, here are your scores!

aUserName 14 (42/60)
(-1) High quality photo (not blurry or crunchy)
A: The quality here could be better, but it’s not terrible. The ingame photos look crunchy (turn up your video settings when you take photos) and your borders look blurry (be careful when you enlarge things, it rarely works well).

(-1) Interesting Photos
C: The top photo on page one is less exciting than the others, because of the way the bridesmaids and so on are posed - if they were standing closer together, maybe facing partway towards the camera, or clapping/cheering/something like that, it'd be a very eye-catching photo. :)

(-3) Realistic Drop Shadows / Consistent Light Source
A: You were missing the drop shadows on your first page. B: Drop for middle photo of the second page seems to be unnaturally high. C: Your light source is consistent, which is great. However, the photo frames look very 3D, with a kind of "bubble" effect, but they don't have any drop shadows - and the page background on p2 seems to be using a bevel instead of a drop shadow, although p1 uses a shadow and looks great. It looks like you might have downloaded the frame image and then resized it for each picture - it's stretched in some places - which can make it difficult to get the lighting perfect. I suggest doing the frames by hand instead - in this case at least, all that would really be needed is two or three different colored squares, stacked on top of each other, with whatever 3D effects you choose added automatically. :)

(-2) Believable Layering/Dimension of Elements
B: Some of the elements, such as the silver photo frames, have bevel effects that make them look very high. C: I feel kinda bad taking a point off for this! You haven't done much layering (which I don't consider a problem), but unfortunately the one thing you *have* layered is a flat photo (the cake) stretched between two 3D frames. Layering 3D elements on top of flat elements works fine, but not the other way round (at least not nearly so well). You'll remember for next time!

(-1) Includes Book Binding / Page Shadows Down the Inside Edges Throughout
A: I can tell that you included one when I look really hard for it, but its far too faint to do any good.

(-2) Good Use of Text
A: I realize you are using simlish for you book, but you only used 2 words on each page. Scrapbooking includes journaling, not just titling. C: I have absolutely no problem with your using simlish, and I think it's a nice idea for a simming scrapbook. However, it is a little thin on the ground - the rules require journaling, which imo means a bit of description (even if we can't read it!), rather than just titles.

(-5) Good Mix/Balance of Images and Other Elements
A: You really didn’t have anything except for images, there were some flowers, but they appeared to be part of the background paper. B: There doesn't really seem to be anything other than photos. The additional little ornaments are pretty, but disconnected between the two pages. C: I like the little flowers - they make the page tie in well with the front cover, without detracting from the very classy style of the wedding pages; and the swirly decorations on the second page look great. However, apart from those details, the pages are quite bare: a bit more of that kind of decoration would make the layout much more eye-catching. You could have maybe put some more flowers on the corners of the frames, or something like that (just a suggestion, I'm sure you can think of many more options). Using a textured background, rather than flat color, could be something worth considering too.

(-3) Draws Viewer In / Is Visually Interesting / Judge Likes It
A: Because everything is so perfectly balanced, it’s not very visually interesting. There is nothing to draw your eye around the page. It feels very static. C: This is related to the above, about the pages being a little bare. I realize that it's easy to go too far in the opposite direction, and you don't want to overcrowd the page and drown out the photos. The layout of the photos is very nice already - but the design could use a bit more variety. :) You might want to consider varying the colors more too, since that's an easy way to make things a bit more exciting without having to add a load of extra embellishments.

leah10006 12 (35/60)
(-2) High quality photo (not blurry or crunchy)
A: Both your photos and your page elements are very blurry and pixelated. C: It's kind of hard to tell whether or not the photos are blurry, because it looks like you might have taken the finished image and resized it to make it bigger, which has made everything blurry - it's always better to make the image too big to start with, and to resize it to make it smaller. :) The end result, though, is that although the original photos might have been beautifully crisp and clear, they look blurry on the final scrapbook.

(-1) Interesting Photos
A: Most of your pictures are typical, but you have a few ones that are better, like the first dance, but using a photo of everyone talking at a table about not liking airplanes is not relevant to the occasion.

(-2) Good Photo Cropping
A: The feathering on the first page right hand photos actually makes it hard to see the entire picture and I can’t really tell what’s going on in the bottom one. B: 3/4 of the photos on the first spread cut off the tops of the Sim's heads, it's rather distracting.

(-3) Realistic Drop Shadows / Consistent Light Source
A: Your shadows aren’t dark enough to be shadows, they look like purple outlines instead. B: Some elements have shadows, some don't. The shadows on the background seem pretty flat. C: The light source is consistent within the pages, but is different for each page - it's on the left in the first page, and the right in the second page. Since as I understand it, the two pages should make up a double spread, that doesn't make sense - and the light source is too high to be in between the two pages. :) Some elements, particularly the flowers that are overlapping the cards, would look better with drop shadows - they can't be flat if they're overlapping a 3D element.

(-2) Believable Layering/Dimension of Elements
B: Some of the elements have white borders around their drop shadows. C: The pictures are so tiny! They're great pictures, so they deserve to be shown off more by being printed bigger. I also recommend using the magic wand tool (or whatever it's called in other editors), as an easy way to get rid of the white outlines around some elements, since those look very out of place.

(-3) Includes Book Binding / Page Shadows Down the Inside Edges Throughout
A: None that I can see. B: No binding or shadows. C: Nothing much to say here, you don't have a book binding or page shadows.

(-3) Correct Page/Image Size
A: Our pages are square. These are not. B: Way too small. C: The pages aren't square - I didn't check the exact dimensions, but I know they're supposed to be square!

(-2) Nice Fonts (not Comic Sans or Papyrus)
A: Lucinda is not any better. Also, try to make your words go at the same angle of the piece of paper they are written on. B: It would be nice to break things up with at least one different font, everything just blends together in a nearly illegible mess. Pick a fancy font for the headlines, don't use it for body text too!

(-2) Good Use of Text
B: All of the smilies and exclamation points!!!!!!! Rather too enthusiastic, ends up looking juvenile, and not like any real scrapbook I've seen. Also, the pastel colors make the text even harder to read. C: The text seems slightly conflicted - the font looks like handwriting, but I've never seen someone use smilies and multiple exclamation marks when handwriting!

(-1) Good Mix/Balance of Images and Other Elements
A: The flowers and smiley face are nice, but I was really hoping for things that relate to weddings.

(-1) Fits and Portrays each Life Event well
A: This spread to me says ‘Springtime’ and doesn’t read as wedding.

(-3) Draws Viewer In / Is Visually Interesting / Judge Likes It
A: The photos are too small and there is so much background space showing through that most of your page is just yellow. I want to see them getting married! B: The overall layout of the elements, combined with some of the above issues, just means I find it a bit off, visually.

General comment:
C: The style is lovely - the colors work well, the design elements are consistent, the layout is cute - it just needs more technical finesse in the execution. :)

Selly_2009 18 (54/60)
(-1) Good Lighting (not too dark or blown out white)
A: Your photos are oddly dark for an outdoor wedding. You’d think there’d be more light on their skin.

(-2) Interesting Photos
C: The sims look great and are posed very nicely, but the setting is quite bare. Outdoor weddings happen, of course, and there's no reason why you shouldn't be showing one - but seeing the half-finished houses in the background is a bit strange; plus I'd expect to see tables, chairs, people milling about and so on, especially in the cake picture.

(-2) Realistic Drop Shadows / Consistent Light Source
B: Shadows are too high on the photos. C: The drop shadows are very big - the photos especially look like they're floating. It's not an extremely obvious effect, but they would look better with smaller shadows - the shadows on the flowers or the journaling card are perfect, imho. :)

(-1) Fits with the Style of the Previous Pages.
A: Your color palette and tone are vastly different from your cover. It might be that I just don’t have enough pages in your book yet to judge on that, but they seem to be almost taken from two different books.
+1 for a Sunday submission

x-kisses-for-yooh-x 19 (56/60)
(-2) Realistic Drop Shadows / Consistent Light Source
A: You have at least 3 different drop shadows going on, which translates to 3 different heights and directions of lights. B: Shadows are way too high on the large flowers, also slightly too high on the photos themselves.

(-1) Believable Layering/Dimension of Elements
A: The flowers don’t look like either a 3D fabric flower or a sticker. Because of their deep shadow I’m assuming they are supposed to be 3D, but without any interior shadows, they look flat.

(-1) Good Mix/Balance of Images and Other Elements
C: The second page especially is very crowded - especially with all the lovely flowers and so on in the pictures, it looks very busy. I think it'd probably look better with only two pictures there, or perhaps with the top one made smaller, to give the images a bit of space to stand out in.
+1 for a Sunday submission

porkypine 18 (53/60)
(-2) Interesting Photos
A: Pretty stereotypical for wedding photos, not that interesting/clever.

(-3) Good Use of Text
A: Only used 1 word, not really enough journaling going on. B: Use a bit more text, please! C: There's nothing bad about your use of text - but there isn't really enough of it to class as "good" either! THe rules do say that there should be journaling... :)

(-1) Good Mix/Balance of Images and Other Elements
A: I would have liked to have seen more photos and more text and more deco bits, what you have is good, just not enough of it.

(-1) Draws Viewer In / Is Visually Interesting / Judge Likes It
A: Having just one large photo on each page doesn’t really draw me in – I’m already in the picture, but because it takes up the whole page, there is nowhere to go.

General Comments:
A: Your honeymoon page was very well done, you should have had us judge that one! C: Wow! It's very simple, but well executed. Although there's not much there apart from the photos, the colors and patterns prevent the layout from seeming plain. The cover is a bit off - flat with no edges etc, and no binding. The pages themselves, however, are very nice. :) That said - I might even like the honeymoon one more. :P It'd be nice to see something closer to the honeymoon level of detail next time, even if you did pull off simple with style!
+1 for a Sunday submission

InesMarie 16 (48/60)
(-1) Believable Camera Angle (not way above their heads for no reason) and Sim Photographer (entire family isn’t in the photo if they are in a situation/place where they couldn’t ask someone else to take the photo)
A: The main image is too high and too far forward. If this were a balcony, you’d be further back.

(-1) Good Photo Cropping
Mostly good, but the centre photo on the first page is spilling out from its frame on the left, and the rectangular frames' photos don't always fit quite right either (some are too short, e.g. top left on p2, some slightly too tall, e.g. bottom left p1).

(-1) Interesting Photos
A: These are pretty good and I like that you took care to notice what was going on in the background, but they are only so many sweet couple poses, maybe some pictures with the rest of the wedding party would have been nice.

(-1) Realistic Drop Shadows / Consistent Light Source
B: Drop shadows on most elements are a little too high, and some are extremely harsh.

(-2) Believable Layering/Dimension of Elements
B: I'm not quite sure what's going on with that lacy border around the centre photo. The way it covers some of the photos seems off. C: The lace around the photos is lovely, but it's also slightly translucent, which looks odd. I can't think what it could be made of except plastic to get that effect, and it's clearly far too posh to be plastic. ;)

(-1) Includes Book Binding / Page Shadows Down the Inside Edges Throughout
A: It’s much too faint, I had to look twice to see it.

(-2) Good Use of Text
A: It would have been nice to have text on both pages. C: There's not much text, so it's hard to qualify it as good or bad. That in itself kind of counts towards losing a point here, since you can't have good use of text if you don't have use of text at all. :) I would suggest making the text on the label on p1 very slightly smaller, as it's almost spilling over the bottom, which looks a little messy.

(-3) Good Mix/Balance of Images and Other Elements
A: While I like all the elements you chose, its actually too much. The background paper is busy, the glitter frames, the patterned boarder paper, the pearls, flowers, tags, rhinestones. It’s a lot. B: The entire design just seems too busy to me. Fancy background pattern, 3D flowers, lacy border, two different patterns on photo frames, diamond/jewel details, etc. Less is more!
+2 for a Saturday submission

Croutonian 18 (54/60)
(-2) High quality photo (not blurry or crunchy)
B:Photos seem crunchy. C: Several of the pics are quite crunchy - it looks like overcompression to me. It may be that it's not possible to get great pic quality with the size and colours involved in the page images - but some other contestants have managed better quality, so perhaps you should be sneakng tips from them. ;) You may find that your graphics editor has other saving options beyond just the quality/compression slider which can help - Photoshop, for example, compresses with a much higher quality if you use Save for Web than normal Save.

(-1) Includes Book Binding / Page Shadows Down the Inside Edges Throughout
A: Binding shadow is very faint.

(-3) Good Use of Text
A: The vows are a bit much. They are very long and rather tiny. It’s cool you included them, but they overwhelm the first page. B: The tiny text on top of the striped background is really eye-hurty, I gave up reading it. C: I love the idea of including the wedding vows on the page - it's really lovely, and the vows themselves are very poetic. However, the colours you've used make the vows very difficult to read, which is a real shame.
-5 for a late submission

jones7659 18 (53/60)
(-1) Interesting Photos
C: I can see what you're aiming for with the pic on the black background, but the execution makes it seem like it's focusing more on the skirt than the hands - which isn't quite as romantic. ;) (Depending on your point of view) The rest of the photos are fabulous.

(-2) Realistic Drop Shadows / Consistent Light Source
B: Lighting seems to be coming from below right? Unorthodox, but regardless, shadows are too high and occasionally inconsistent (e.g. black vertical band on the first page, the bottom has a shadow implying it goes underneath the middle elements, but the lower black band doesn't have any shadow there.) C: The light source is good, but the shadows are very big, and make it seem like some of your elements are floating.

(-1) Believable Layering/Dimension of Elements
B: The silver photo frames seem way too dimensional/3D. Like they are sticking up a lot.

(-1) Draws Viewer In / Is Visually Interesting / Judge Likes It
B: The layout is nice, but I really don't care for the patterns chosen. What IS that pattern on the horizontal black stripe? Looks like tree bark?

(-2) Fits with the Style of the Previous Pages.
A: The cover makes me think the book is going to have lots of muted but warm colors, these are quite stark and cold (but very pretty). C: There seems to be a quite significant shift from a homemade feel on the cover page, to a more polished style on the wedding page. Of course, that kind of change makes sense to some degree, you want your wedding to be presented in a classy way - but I'd say that the very artsy, fashionable paper, and the photorealistic embellishments (as opposed to the buttons and string and so on on the cover page) is a step too far.
+2 for a Saturday submission

PixelDollyLover 16 (47/60)
(-2) High quality photo (not blurry or crunchy)
B: The photos all seem a bit blurry. C: Your pics in this round are quite blurry, even though your application pic was lovely and clear. You're not using the C key to take pics, are you?

(-2) Interesting Photos
A: Photos of people eating just aren’t that interesting. Something feels wrong with the smustle hop photo but I just can’t put my finger on it.

(-2) Realistic Drop Shadows / Consistent Light Source
A: The shadows are too far from their casting objects, it makes the objects look like they are floating right off the page. B: Drop shadows are too high, the elements look like they're floating above the page. C: The light source is great, but the drop shadows are very big. I know the fashion in scrapbooking is for very big drop shadows, but they do make it look a little like some elements are floating.

(-1) Includes Book Binding / Page Shadows Down the Inside Edges Throughout
A: I can barely tell that you put a shadow there.

(-2) Nice Fonts (not Comic Sans or Papyrus)
A: This is also a very overused font, it’s not really helping here. C: The font is nice, but it looks a bit squished on the green card - it might have been better to make both card and text a little wider.

(-1) Good Mix/Balance of Images and Other Elements
C: The second page is absolutely great in this regard. The first page, though, seems to be very much detracting attention from the photo. Having just the one photo on that page puts it at centre stage, and demonstrates how important that particular moment is, which I totally agree with. However, the photo is quite small, and the number of elements overlapping it sort of push it into the background. My feeling is that it would look better with the photo a little less cropped (it looks like the view over the water must have been magnificent!), and sized and shaped so that the card and embellishments are more "extras" on the page, rather than being the primary focus themselves.

(-2) Fits and Portrays each Life Event well
A: There is nothing in the photos that tells me it’s a wedding. They look more like a vacation spread.

kateisl33t 14 (41/60)
(-4) Interesting Photos
A: A few are cool, but the others kinda suck. B: While there are some nice moments and ideas, the photos come out terribly bland. There's no contrast, no color, all of the walls are dull grey or a sad, faded yellow stripe. Also, please add a little decoration to the yellow stripe set! It looks tacky and lazy with nothing. C: The first page's photos could have been better: the pic of the sim building a sandcastle is very cute, but the expanse of sand around isn't that exciting. I'd have suggested zooming in more, to focus on the sim and have her fill the photo, or changing the camera angle so that the background is something more significant - the sea, a building, or something like that. The taxi photo would be better if the sims were visible in it, since otherwise it could be a photo of anyone's vacation. :) The first pic on the second page is nice, but suffers a bit of the same thing as the sand photo, with lots of grass at the bottom which could instead have been filled with stone or snogging. The last photo is lovely.

(-2) Good Photo Cropping
A: The sandcastle photo is much too far zoomed out, and the camera angle on it is off as well. B: Try cropping tighter sometimes. There isn't one closeup of the happy couple!

(-3) Realistic Drop Shadows / Consistent Light Source
A: Your drop shadows are much too fuzzy, and because they are so big and go all the way around, it looks like all your elements are floating. B: Drop shadows (particularly on the first page) are too high. Wildly inconsistent, as well. C: The light source is good. Some of your drop shadows are very big, making it look like the elements are floating. A couple of raised (drop shadowed) photos also have flat (no drop shadow) embellishments overlapping them which, if they're overlapping something raised, would also have to be raised themselves. :)

(-3) Includes Book Binding / Page Shadows Down the Inside Edges Throughout
A: Binding shadow is much too faint. B: Page shadow is only present on the second page. C: Although you've got page shadows on one side, there's no binding or cover visible, and no shadow on the other side (given the location of your light source, the bigger binding shadow would be on p1, and while p2's shadow might be smaller, there would still be a shadow).

(-3) Correct Page/Image Size
A:Smaller than it should be. B: Too small. C: Seems a tad small.

(-1) Good Use of Text
A: Would have liked to have seen more.

(-2) Draws Viewer In / Is Visually Interesting / Judge Likes It
A: Something about the page just seems like it’s not done. The layout and flow could be better I think. B: I find the entire thing a bit underwhelming. Not memorable.

(-1) Fits with the Style of the Previous Pages.
C: You've gone from a very hand-made look on the cover page - hand-written text, scribbles etc. - to a sort of printed, professional look on the honeymoon pages. I like both styles, but they don't match each other.
+1 for a Sunday submission

General comment for everyone: C: It's a scrapbook! That means it has a cover which folds! Therefore there must be some kind of fold or folding mechanism on the inside of the cover - everyone except Selly, jones and PixelDollyLover needs to take note. This round, I haven't taken points off as long as you have page shadows on both sides. Next round, page shadows AND binding will be required. ;)

Congratulations to kisses, for being our round winner. Bonus points are not taken into consideration for round winners. ;) Also congrats to Selly, porky, Croutonian, and jones who had the next highest score!

[whiterider]

My smilies! That much text, written by me, without a single smiley? Heresy!

:giggler:
(Well, I had to.)

[Phaenoh]

Sorry, they got lost while I was moving everything into Word first. I'll put them back. ;) Though, you basically outed yourself as to which judge you are. :p

[Croutonian]

General comment for everyone: C: It's a scrapbook! That means it has a cover which folds! Therefore there must be some kind of fold or folding mechanism on the inside of the cover - everyone except Selly, jones and PixelDollyLover needs to take note.

Mine has one...my cover is just darker than the others though... :|

[porkypine]

General comment for everyone: C: It's a scrapbook! That means it has a cover which folds! Therefore there must be some kind of fold or folding mechanism on the inside of the cover - everyone except Selly, jones and PixelDollyLover needs to take note. This round, I haven't taken points off as long as you have page shadows on both sides. Next round, page shadows AND binding will be required. ;)


I guess I am confused. My book has inner shadow like a book would have. I copied your style. I don't know how to make a two sided, open book appear that fulfills the size requirements you want per page.

p.s. I just went and looked at their pages and they published them on photobucket. I am really confused. I thought we were not supposed to publish outside MTS? Do you want us to just post the 954pixel pages on MTS and leave them in the 'screenshot' area and then upload a reduced image to photobucket that has the 2 pages together? I'm sorry, that I did not understand that I was supposed to do that. I can go and correct that later tonight.

[whiterider]

No I didn't, Phae - at least, I won't have unless you put all the smilies back in. ;)

porky - I know what you mean about the images; when it came to judging, I was looking at the attached screenshots regardless of what else is there, I dunno how Phae and PDawg did it. I'm not sure precisely what the rules are about whether or not the inline images have to be the same ones as attached, but I figured since attachments are the mandatory bit, I should judge those.
Regarding the binding, yeah, it's kinda difficult to do binding on half a spread. But on the other hand, since the Photobucket images are just the two attached images stuck next to one another, I guess you could just as easily have half of a binding thing on each attached image. That's how I would interpret that comment, anyway. :)

jones - Ooh, that's quite a website!

[Selly_2009]

Have added the "baby" spread (and attached images) to my post.

They would've gone up yesterday (in between our village street party and walking up to see the beacon lit for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee) but I went and tweaked a couple of things after reading the judges' comments on Round 1.

[jones7659]

It's like font heaven, White! I love it, lol.

[Phaenoh]

porky, the attached images are what get judged. You may post an inline from photobucket of your entire spread to make your post look pretty (like I did), but when it comes to judging, its the attachments that count. As long as the separate pages are attached, I'm not prohibiting you from publishing at another image host and linking an inline, I just want to make sure there will always be a complete set of our books here on MTS if you ever delete them from your photobucket.

Everyone, as far as the binding goes, a darker more rounded shadow is all that is required of most of you. I wasn't judge C, so that remark isn't mine. ;)

white, too late, out!

Selly brought up a good point in her post. Her family is pregnant again. Round 3 is going to skip us ahead about 5 years, so if your family wants more kids, get busy. ;) For round 3, we are going to need these newborns to be child aged, so stop playing the family after their Turning Child birthday. While you are in toddler stage, get all those First Photos and make yourself the bonus spread if you feel so inclined. :)

[leah10006]

so when is round 3

[porkypine]

Hi. I am uploading the toddler pages now. Judge the baby contest. Toddlers are just for practice.

Oh! Ines said she isn't doing toddlers because her baby turned into a real ugly toddler and needs plastic surgery but isn't old enough. lol Actually, she's been busy and doesn't have time. lol

[leah10006]

i put up my toddler spread :Pint: :Pint: :Pint: :Pint: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :new: :new: :new: :new: :new: :new: :new: :new: :new: :new: :new: :) :) :) :) :)

[porkypine]

Hello Leah - While there is still time, remember to put the 'scrapbook' itself as a frame around your inner pages.. they will start marking you off if you forget that. It is the same as if you opened a real scrapbook. When you are looking at some pages, you should be able to see the inside of the scrapbook's cover behind and surrounding the page on 3 sides. Look at Phae's sample. :) On mine, you can see the orangy cover surrounding each page. AND, your scrapbook page should be slightly embosseed to imply thickness AND have a drop shadow that is seen against the scrapbook's cover background. :)

[Phaenoh]

I've graduated! The ceremony was pretty cool, and in a hour or so I'm going to party like there is no tomorrow, because, well, there isn't. XD Grad Photo! (http://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/250879_10100597586583705_109468350_n.jpg)

This round is almost over, you have a bit over 24 hours left to get your New Baby pages in! We are still waiting on entries for Selly, Croutonian, Pixel, and laura. If you were late with the last round and are late with this one as well, you will be DQ'd, (Croutonian and laura). Please don't get DQ'd! The next round starts on Monday!

[Croutonian]

Selly's has been up for a few days...she said at the bottom of the last page :)

And mine will be verrry soonish - woulda posted it by now if I hadn't forgotten to transfer a file over to my Windows partition (where I Sim and have Paintshop Pro installed) so I'm now having a lil break and some brekkie before finishing it - my wrist aches!

[leah10006]

Hello Leah - While there is still time, remember to put the 'scrapbook' itself as a frame around your inner pages.. they will start marking you off if you forget that. It is the same as if you opened a real scrapbook. When you are looking at some pages, you should be able to see the inside of the scrapbook's cover behind and surrounding the page on 3 sides. Look at Phae's sample. :) On mine, you can see the orangy cover surrounding each page. AND, your scrapbook page should be slightly embosseed to imply thickness AND have a drop shadow that is seen against the scrapbook's cover background. :) Thnkz for this it has helped me alot :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)

[Selly_2009]

Selly's has been up for a few days...she said at the bottom of the last page :)It was posted on Tuesday 5th - I knew I'd be busy with work the second half of this week so used the long Jubilee weekend to my advantage!

You've obviously been back to my scrapbook post Phae, as you wouldn't have seen the paragraph mentioning the fact that my family was pregnant again otherwise; I didn't mention it anywhere else. The inline spread was underneath that paragraph, and I didn't edit the text or add that until after the separate pages had been attached.

[Croutonian]

Attached my pages :)

The wolf in Morley may be coming out slightly, he's gone for a moon theme for the kids (he loves green, but he's not completely obsessed - anyhow, Biffy likes blue...!). Random fact time: after I finished taking the wedding pics, a load of wolves turned up at the forest. Since then, Morley has persistently rolled a want to be a wolf...damn knowledge sim :faceslap:

[Phaenoh]

Sorry, Selly, I just suck, and things have been a tad hective for me atm. XD You do have your pages up, and I updated the table. Thank you.

Looking good Croutonian!

[Phaenoh]

And that concludes round 2!

Round three will be a Vacation spread. Send your family out to have some fun in a strange new place! Your kids should be child-aged at this point. If you don't have BV, then send find a cool community lot to have a grill-out, or go to a really cool looking pool/water park place. You don't need to go all the way to Takemizu for this ;)

The bonus spread for this week is Holiday. I'm American and I'm using the American versions of these words, a Vacation is when you go someplace, a Holiday is a date on the calendar that you celebrate. Any holidays are acceptable, but there needs to be a change of weather between the two. If you go to the beach for vaca, then it needs to be a snowy winter holiday. Or, going skiing for vacation, and celebrating the Fourth of July.

http://i203.photobucket.com/albums/aa210/Phaenoh/Sims/ScrapbookVacation.jpg

[leah10006]

i submitted my vacation entry :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)

[porkypine]

Congratulations on your graduation, Phae!

Leah! nice spread! I recommend you make a more visible drop shadow for the pages themselves so it looks like it stands off and away from the album cover. It looks like it is all one flat paper. :bunny:

[leah10006]

Congratulations on your graduation, Phae!

Leah! nice spread! I recommend you make a more visible drop shadow for the pages themselves so it looks like it stands off and away from the album cover. It looks like it is all one flat paper. :bunny: How do i do shadows im not very good at this :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :turtle: :turtle: :turtle: :turtle:

[porkypine]

Hello Leah, Do you have photoshop? If so, click on the layer you want to make a drop shadow for. then click Layer, Layer Style, Drop Shadow. Then pick a distance of 2 or 3. Look at the pictures.

[leah10006]

Hello Leah, Do you have photoshop? If so, click on the layer you want to make a drop shadow for. then click Layer, Layer Style, Drop Shadow. Then pick a distance of 2 or 3. Look at the pictures. Thanks porkypine that is very helpful and yes i do have photoshop :gjob:

[Phaenoh]

Today starts the weekend bonuses! Let's see those vacation pages! Your scores from the last round aren't likely to come in before the weekend is over, so make your mad dashes for the bonus points now! Both White and I are swamped with college stuff, me graduating and moving a state away and her with finals, but we will get them to you as soon as we can. :)

[leah10006]

Today starts the weekend bonuses! Let's see those vacation pages! Your scores from the last round aren't likely to come in before the weekend is over, so make your mad dashes for the bonus points now! Both White and I are swamped with college stuff, me graduating and moving a state away and her with finals, but we will get them to you as soon as we can. :) hi phae i was just wondering do i get extra points i submitted mine two days ago

[InesMarie]

Leah... If you fix it today and re-upload, you get 1 bonus point. If you upload tomorrow you get 2 and Sunday you get one. So, upload today, get the fixit comments and upload early Saturday, then you have till midnight Saturday Phae's time to fix it, then leave it alone. Phae goes by the time stamp of the last upload. I think she is on Eastern Time zone because she's 2 hours ahead of me. I'm on Mountain time.

[porkypine]

Hello. I am uploading my vacation pages now. :0)

[leah10006]

Hello. I am uploading my vacation pages now. :0)
hi porkypine i did that and it didnt work :(

[porkypine]

hi porkypine i did that and it didnt work :(

?? I am confused. I can see your vacation page. You did a good job on it. :beer:

[leah10006]

?? I am confused. I can see your vacation page. You did a good job on it. :beer: i mean the drop shadow

[porkypine]

i mean the drop shadow

Oh, You may need to get a Photoshop action/brush plugin for drop shadows. You can hand make one the same way you do for the binding shadow - Make a layer under the page and make a gray shadow the same size as your layer above, then move it slightly so it shows. :bunny:


p.s. Phae! I posted my vacation page. :king:

[leah10006]

[QUOTE=porkypine]Oh, You may need to get a Photoshop action/brush plugin for drop shadows. You can hand make one the same way you do for the binding shadow - Make a layer under the page and make a gray shadow the same size as your layer above, then move it slightly so it shows. :bunny: thankz porkypine
B.T.w phae i submitted mine on saterday so do i get extra points

[InesMarie]

Leah - I submitted mine after Phae's midnight Saturday. I don't like it. It's too cluttered but I wasted too much time waiting for it to snow. I wanted them to have a ski vacation. Instead, it was cold and rained most of the time. :wtf: I decided to get their hobby skllls up, so I made a community lot for the Freetime hobbies, then found out that kids can't use the sewing machines, florist, scrap or toy making benches so I had to make a playground for them while their parents skilled up.. All because I was waiting for it to snow. :lol:

I didn't do a toddler page because my toddler was strange looking. She looked too much like and adult for a toddler. At least she grew into a more standard looking child.

[whiterider]

kate, by "Round two: Please judge the BABY FIRST slides", do you mean the baby pages or the firsts pages?

[Phaenoh]

It's been another busy week for the judges, but your scores are in!

aUserName 13 (39/60)

(-2) High quality photo (not blurry or crunchy)
A: While your photos are high quality, your clip art and elements are not. They are very crunchy and pixelated and poorly cut out. B: Many of the elements (not the photos themselves) are pixelated and crunchy.

(-1) Good Lighting (not too dark or blown out white)
C: The lighting is very, very bright - mum's chest looks like it's glowing (which I think is meant to be a metaphor), as does the baby's swaddling.

(-1) Good Photo Cropping
C: The actual photos are cropped nicely, but the frames and embellishments have lots of jagged/blurry edges, and little bits of leftover white between the stork's wingtips. Try using an eraser brush with slightly higher feather - that will make the edges fade out a little, so they look smoother. You could also use blur, like you have on the clouds - though I would suggest not using as much of it as you have on the clouds. :P

(-1) Interesting Photos
B: Posing of the "family" shot is strange and doesn't work. She looks like she's just staring at her lap, and the dad looks like he's ignoring her.

(-1) Realistic Drop Shadows / Consistent Light Source
A: Your shadows are inconsistent; some are fuzzy while others are sharp. That’s ok to do if there is a reason for it, like height of the object throwing the shadow, or height from the paper, but yours don’t seem to follow any of that.

(-1) Believable Layering/Dimension of Elements
C: Some of the 3D elements on the second page don't quite make sense. The page looks double-layered on the outside - like the page is purple, with the mottled paper stuck on top - but the same paper looks like it's one flat sheet on the inside, with the mottling printed on. The ribbons are very cute, but I'm not sure where the one at the top goes - I'd suggest giving it ends instead of just letting it get chopped off.

(-1) Includes Book Binding / Page Shadows Down the Inside Edges Throughout
A: Your inside page shadow is so faint I had to look twice to see it. On the whole, the page still looks flat, and not like it’s inside a book.

(-1) Nice Fonts (not Comic Sans or Papyrus)
B: I know there aren't many Simlish fonts, and I admire your dedication to "authenticity", but that font is way too formal for a baby page.

(-3) Cohesive Color Palette for each Life Event
A: It’s important to at least have the two pages in one spread go together and these really don’t. Maybe if you had kept the cloud treatment going across the second page it would have tied them in a little better. B: The two different, predominant shades of blue don't connect to each other well. C: The colors on both pages work separately, but they don't really work with each other - they don't necessarily have to be the same, but there's a big split between the very simple, strong colors on p1, and the much more subtle, softer colors on p2.

(-1) Good Use of Text
A: There was barely any text on either page, the first page really needed some.

(-3) Good Mix/Balance of Images and Other Elements
B: On the second page in particular, it feels like the effects are the focus and the photos are an afterthought. C: You've gone the other way from last round! A single image page can work great, but it has to be a big enough and important enough image that it's the center of attention - if it's just sort of tucked away in a corner, then the end result isn't so impressive.

(-4) Draws Viewer In / Is Visually Interesting / Judge Likes It
A: I really don’t care for the first page, it doesn’t make much sense. The very poorly cut out stork should be bringing a picture of the infant, not of mom on a hospital bed. The second page is better, but your elements are all the wrong sizes, either this scrap book is 3 or 4 feet wide, or your baby is a preemie if those are his footprints and his hospital band. It just doesn’t work for me. B: The layout is just not eye-catching or cohesive. C: The design is cute, and the colors are good - but the execution, in some places (especially the aforementioned jagged edges, and the very dark shadow on the card), detracts from it.

(-1) Fits with the Style of the Previous Pages.
C: There isn't realy a consistent style through the scrapbook. I realize that it's tough to achieve that while you're still experimenting early on - I suggest picking a couple of elements, anything from a particular embellishment (flowers, buttons) to a design element (a particular caption format, frame style) that you'll keep throughout all the pages - not exactly the same, of course; colors, positioning, frequency, and so on will all change: but consistent enough that they give the scrapbook an underlying thread of style.
+2 Saturday submission

leah10006 16 (47/60)

(-2) High quality photo
B: Some of the photos, and many of the background patterns, are blurry and crunchy. C: Both pages are overcompressed overall, which is making everything look crunchy round the edges.

(-1) Interesting Photos
B: It would be really nice to have at least one picture of the proud papa, too.

(-1) Realistic Drop Shadows / Consistent Light Source
C: You have drop shadows on some elements, but they're very inconsistent, and missing a lot of the time. The light source seems to be good, though a consistent light source is sort of dependent on use of shadows.

(-2) Believable Layering/Dimension of Elements
A: Some of your elements are being cut off by other ones in ways that don’t make sense. Photos would not be on top of buttons, and for the birth certificate, the clock is going between it and its paper backing. If the fabric squares were real, they’d be making the photos pop off the page more with a bigger shadow. C: Some of the layering is a bit messy - for example, you've got a couple of photos with buttons sticking in between the photo and it's frame/background; they would look more natural overlapping the photo as well, like they do on the top pic on p2. The photo sizes this round are great - big improvement!

(-3) Includes Book Binding / Page Shadows Down the Inside Edges Throughout
A: Oh so close! You had a really nice one on your inline image, but the page shadow isn’t on your attached pages (those are the ones we grade). B: No visible shadows or binding. C: Again - no binding, cover or shadow at all. (Remember that it's the attached images that count!)

(-2) Nice Fonts
B: Bradley Hand is just not a convincing handwriting font for longer passages. Also, it seems really strange that the hospital chart is all typed. Wouldn't that be written by hand? C: The font is very neat and tidy for handwriting. You might want to have a look at the website jones linked to, for some more natural-looking handwriting fonts.

(-1) Draws Viewer In / Is Visually Interesting / Judge Likes It
C: The layout is lovely, as are the photos. The one thing I would say, though, is that all the beige embellishments in the middle tend to sort of blend together, so the impression is of a sort of mush of beige things, rather than of separate, pretty, striking decorations.

(-2) Fits with the Style of the Previous Pages.
A: I feel like I have to dock you for this one because your baby page is such a departure from your cover and your wedding spread, but that’s a good thing! This spread is a huge improvement, and I now with this one thrown into the mix of your page’s style, I won’t have to take off for this on the next round. C: The style doesn't really match the other pages, though it's a nice style - the baby pages are a lot more crowded, and more hand-made-looking, than the previous ones. Not a bad thing, but not consistent either.


Selly_2009 18 (54/60)

(-1) Interesting Photos
A: Those four on the second page just seem really predictable, and the bottom two aren’t all that exciting.

(-1) Good Lighting (not too dark or blown out white)
C: The last pic is quite dark - looks like the sim is lit mostly from behind.

(-1) Realistic Drop Shadows / Consistent Light Source
B: Drop shadows to high on most elements, they appear to float above the page.

(-2) Believable Layering/Dimension of Elements
A: Something about those blocks is just driving me crazy. If they are real blocks, there would be bigger shadows from them and we’d see them from slightly different angles across the page, if they are stickers then the shadow would be even smaller than it is. It’s just throwing me. B: The giant yellow flower border looks quite 3D, so the way the completely flat "It's a girl!" tag goes over it looks quite strange.

(-1) Nice Fonts
B: Bradley Hand is really only suited for short headlines, it doesn't look so good for full sentences.

General comments: C: This is so cute! I really love it - especially the sunflower.


x-kisses-for-yooh-x 17 (51/60)

(-1) Believable Camera Angle and Sim Photographer
B: Who exactly took the picture of them outside the hospital?

(-2) Interesting Photos
B: Wish there was a photo where we could actually SEE the new baby! C: The subjects of the photos are great, but the composition involves a lot of background scenery which doesn't really add much - it's better to spread the focus out so that every part of the photo contributes to the final effect. It would also be good to see more focus on the baby - I know TS2 babies aren't all that to look at; but hey, real life babies tend to look like malformed rhubarbs, and that doesn't stop the parents considering them to be totally photogenic. :D

(-1) Good Photo Cropping
C: Not precisely "image" cropping, but the edges of the ribbon are tatty.

(-3) Realistic Drop Shadows / Consistent Light Source
A: The shadow on that bow is just odd. The bow itself is poor quality, so making it larger makes it pixelated and the edges blurry and bad, which is probably contributing to the bad shadow. It’s also a little weird for you to use the exact same bow (mirror flip it next time!) because it’s impossible for real bows to be that identical. B: Drop shadows are way too high. Also, lollipop element has drop shadow inside of the white border, but not outside. C: I would suggest less distance on your page shadows - so they're a little visible at the top, and a little less deep at the bottom. The shadows under some of the elements don't match in terms of size and darkness (not that they should be identical, just less drastically different).

(-1) Cohesive Color Palette for each Life Event
C: The colors are nice, but very limited - all the pink tends to sort of blend together. I'd suggest going for slightly more distinctive colors for (some) embellishments - or perhaps making the background pink a bit lighter, so the pink decorations stand out more.

(-1) Fits with the Style of the Previous Pages.
C: You've gone from a sort of rustic, slightly faded look on the previous pages to a very bright, bold style, with cartoony embellishments, on this one - both are nice styles, but they don't go together.
+1 Sunday submission

porkypine 17 (52/60)

(-1) High quality photo
B: Some pics seem blurry/crunchy.

(-2) Good Lighting (not too dark or blown out white)
A: Your photos are all very dark, maybe check to see how many lights you have in your house? The contrast on them is pretty intense as well, the backgrounds are light, but the sims are very dark. B: Need a bit more light in some of the photos.

(-2) Believable Camera Angle and Sim Photographer
B: Who took the photo of them in the car, driving to the hospital? And of them getting ready to go? C: It looks like they're all up at 2am trying to get the babies to sleep, in which case they probably wouldn't have any spare pairs of hands around to wield a camera.

(-1) Interesting Photos
C: The photo with the car really threw me - I'm not sure if he's working and she's interrupting to tell him baby's coming (but he's a cop, not a mechanic...), if he's building a car to take her to hospital (well ok, probably not), if she's just watching him, etc. It probably makes sense if you know the sims and the family, but without that context it doesn't seem terribly relevant to the birth. It would also be nice to see some more of the babies!

(-1) Realistic Drop Shadows / Consistent Light Source
B: Drop shadows too high.

(-1) Believable Layering/Dimension of Elements
B: The 3D letters stick up very strangely compared to the rest of the elements.

(-1) Draws Viewer In / Is Visually Interesting / Judge Likes It
C: Overall the spread is very nice, but the second page is sort of lacking a focal point - both pics don't really show faces or a central 'bit', which makes my eyes tend to wander randomly over the page. The first page, I think, avoids this because it's more structured, and kind of guides you through itself.
+1 Sunday submission

InesMarie 17 (52/60)

(-1) High quality photo (not blurry or crunchy)
C: The pics are a little crunchy - a bit of overcompression, looks like, caused either by using the C key to take pics, or by turning the quality a bit too low when saving the final pages.

(-2) Believable Layering/Dimension of Elements
B: The bevel effect on the text tags is way too high, it looks like they stick up off the page too much. C: This is in the wrong place really, but there isn't a great place for it. I know we've had the discussion about the hair, and I'm not gonna comment on the quantity. It is wonky, though - like it's twisted around 45 degrees on his head.

(-1) Includes Book Binding / Page Shadows Down the Inside Edges Throughout
C: Your page shadows are great, but the book cover seems to be getting smaller with every round. :P

(-2) Good Mix/Balance of Images and Other Elements
A: You only have pictures and captions, it would have been nice to see other things on the pages as well, like stickers or ribbons or things like that. The safety pins are adorable, but I want to see more! C: The images do dominate the pages - which isn't a bad thing exactly, but a few more interesting elements in the background would be even better.

(-1) Fits and Portrays each Life Event well
C: The ordering of the photos really threw me. I'm not sure if baby showers are supposed to be thrown only before or only after the birth - but either way, the last photo, by virtue of being last, seems like it should be an event after the birth but, according to the caption, isn't; and its being split in two with the birth in the middle is also confusing, but makes sense if the last photo is just out of order (or, I guess, if she gave birth during the party - though she doesn't look pregnant, perhaps because the bump is too small to show at that angle, which also made me think it must be afterwards).

(-1) Fits with the Style of the Previous Pages.
C: You've gone from posh and photorealistic to sort of cartoony, with bubbles and plastic and so on - everyone seems to be doing the same, especially with the embellishments! You can, and should, switch to a different type of decoration without totally changing the style.


Croutonian 19 (56/60)

(-1) High quality photo (not blurry or crunchy)
C: The page as a whole is great, but the photos are slightly overcompressed.

(-2) Realistic Drop Shadows / Consistent Light Source
A: Your drop shadows could be a little darker on some of them, it’s hard to tell they are even there. Especially on elements that are stacked on top of other things. B: Drop shadows on the leaves/branches are too high.

(-1) Believable Layering/Dimension of Elements
B: The "it's a boy/girl" text looks too 3D, not flat enough to fit in a book.


jones7659 17 (52/60)

(-3) High quality photo (not blurry or crunchy)
A: The photos seem blurry, but the rest of your elements are not, please check your game settings when taking pictures. B: Pics are blurry. C: The photos are a little blurry.

(-1) Interesting Photos
A: The first page is interesting, the second one, not so much.

(-1) Includes Book Binding / Page Shadows Down the Inside Edges Throughout
A: I could barely see any shadow on the attached pages, I had to look at the inline to see if there was even one there. It definitely should be darker.

(-1) Realistic Drop Shadows / Consistent Light Source
B: Drop shadows are way too high, everything looks like it's floating above the pages.

(-1) Cohesive Color Palette for each Life Event
B: The colour scheme is just a bit too busy for me, never really comes together cohesively. Too many different colors in the small accents.

(-1) Draws Viewer In / Is Visually Interesting / Judge Likes It
B: Not a fan of some of the elements chosen or how they were used, particularly the puzzle pieces.
+1 Sunday submission

kateisl33t 13 (40/60)

(-1) Believable Camera Angle
A: The photo of baby walking must have been taken from the middle of the ceiling, neither mom or dad is that tall.

(-1) Good Lighting (not too dark or blown out white)
B: First steps photo seems too dark, and the pageant photo is blown out.

(-3) Interesting Photos
A: The first page could be better, they are cute ideas, but the photos aren’t composed very well. B: The composition of the first steps photo is very poor, I wish it was taken from the front, rather than behind. Family picture is strangely posed, the mother looks like she's awkwardly standing there, not interacting with her family. C: I love the teeth photo - that is a cute idea! The family photo is lovely too. The first steps photo isn't so exciting, though - the composition and angle make it quite plain. It would be more interesting if we could maybe see her face, or if one parent was there helping her - or even if she was just running to get a teddy or something. The playhouse photo is also quite bare; perhaps some toys, or something else for her to play with apart from just the playhouse itself.

(-1) Good Photo Cropping
C: Although the cropping on the teeth and family photos is good, the other three are very zoomed out, detracting attention from Telia. Cropping more out in order to not have to resize the photos down so much would have been the better option.

(-3) Realistic Drop Shadows / Consistent Light Source
A: Your drop shadows are too fuzzy, and that makes your photos look like they are floating off the page. B: Drop shadows are too high, photos look like they're floating. C: The shadows are ok, although very very big; but the light source for the photos is still on the opposite side from the light source for the page shadows.

(-3) Correct Page/Image Size
Not the correct size.

(-2) Includes Book Binding / Page Shadows Down the Inside Edges Throughout
A: It looks like you have a binding shadow on one page, but not the other. C: You've got the page shadows, but no cover/binding.

(-2) Good Mix/Balance of Images and Other Elements
A: It would have been nice to see other elements besides photos and their captions. C: You don't have many 'other elements' at all. I've only taken one point, since the lovely background means that the page isn't left looking plain or boring; but a few more cards for the text, or decorations something like you had on the honeymoon, would make the layout a bit more detailed and nice-looking. I wonder if some of the paper decorations - the flowers and so on - are intended to look like embellishments. If so, I would suggest adding either a very small drop shadow to make it look like they're stuck on, or texturing them so they look like pen/paint/(subtle) glitter/something like that.

(-2) Draws Viewer In / Is Visually Interesting / Judge Likes It
A: The page is just too static, there is nothing to make my eye move around the page. The background patterns don’t seem to relate to anything, not even each other.

(-2) Fits with the Style of the Previous Pages.
A: C: For the most part the style is consistent. However, this page has very strong colours, whereas the previous pages have mainly used gentler colours. I like the rough texture of the paper, as that fits better with your front cover than the smooth almost photo-paper style of the other pages does.

General comment:
C: The text styles seem counter-intuitive. You have the mix of handwritten and printed-looking, which I like. But I would usually expect the title to be the fancy, pretty bit, and the captions for the individual photos to be handwritten, like they were filled in later.
+2 Saturday submission


Congratulations to Croutonian, our Round Winner! Also congrats to Selly who had the next highest score!

And I can promise to you all, from here on out, there will be no more lateness or lack of good contest running on my account. I'm out of school and settled in my new place and I have no more excuses for you all. And from what I hear, white should be wrapping up with her school stuff for now soon too!

[leah10006]

You guys are lucky im not not finished until 27th june and then in september ill be going to high school!! yeah :)

P:S im 12

[jones7659]

Just wanted to say I'm still here...but as I feared my game is being wonky. Am going to try removing most recent CC, which may result in a vacation over haul...grrrr.

[kateisl33t]

Sorry, about the confusion, I would of gotten back to you sooner, but I had graduation things, and moving, and such..

[Phaenoh]

Still not the most clarifying post ever... judges, please judge her toddler firsts pages. Get them back to me when you can. :)

[x-kisses-for-yooh-x]

Sorry, I am still here! I've been super busy this past round and am currently on a school residential trip trying desperately to finish my pages in my free time and after lights out at night!! I know, I'm a rebel ;) I'll have them up soon though :)

- Kisses x

[kateisl33t]

I added my Vacation photos, and I might end up adding Holiday photos. I appologize for the sizing in advance, I'm still having trouble with that. I've been very busy lately, but I will be having time soon, (I move from my mothers house, to my fathers every summer break). I promise to not forget about this contest.

[kateisl33t]

:rofl: You did playland.. I did Simland. Had I known you did something similar to what I was going to do, I wouldn't of done it! Sorry if that bothers you:)

[porkypine]

HI Katie. Go ahead and make whatever you want. I'm not bothered at all. I welcome the competition. :) The contest is to see how well you make a page. I called mine Playland because there once was a place called Playland at the Beach in San Francisco. I just went and peeked at yours and it's cute! :) I don't have a ferris wheel.

I am making a Halloween spread for the holiday. I just found out how to be a witch. lol So she is dressed up for the holiday :giggler:

Ok. I've just uploaded my gaudy Happy Halloween 'Holiday' spread. :lovestruc Yea. It's a mess but I have to attend a family party and don't have time to work on it. Brother-in-law is in town for the weekend. See you!

Oh! Judge the vacation Please.

[x-kisses-for-yooh-x]

My pages are up! Yay! Bit stressful, but I'm quite happy with them :) More so than my baby pages, I think they tie in more with the wedding spread and the cover :)

- Kisses :bunny:

[porkypine]

My pages are up! Yay! Bit stressful, but I'm quite happy with them :) More so than my baby pages, I think they tie in more with the wedding spread and the cover :)

- Kisses :bunny:

Hey kisses! Your Colorado spread is really cute. However, since it's in the Rockies, I think a Rocky Mountain Oyster fry might be more appropriate. :jest: :P

My brother in law lives in Golden, Colorado and it's been over 100 there lately. We'd ALL appreciate some snow. :)

[Selly_2009]

Rather last minute, but my pages are up at long last! It's 3am here...

Geez, it's been a pain to make that one - I spent more hours than I care to remember just getting the pictures, then after spending ages getting the pages just as I liked it... Paint Shop Pro crashed! So that meant even longer sorting it all out again... I'm still not 100% happy with it but hey-ho.
And doing anything with a missing key on my laptop's keyboard is jolly hard work (is getting sick of her missing "H").

[Phaenoh]

Ok, I know I promised to be more on top of everything for this, but I didn't count on my 'in-and-out' trip to the pharmacy was going to take an hour. My pages for the next round will be up some time tomorrow, and as long as you get yours up before I do, you aren't late. ;)

kate, oh no! You've aged your kids up too far, you are going to have a tough time of the next round, or is there some way you can de-age your kids back down to child age for the vacation spread and redo your photos quick? I was pretty sure I said not to age up to Teens yet, but maybe I forgot, I'm sorry! :(

porky, and anyone else who does the bonus themes, make sure you write in your main post which spread we are supposed to judge. :)

[Phaenoh]

Kids just grow up so fast don't they? This round I need you to throw one of your kids a birthday party! This should be their Child/Teen birthday, so invite lots of kids over and have lots of child-friendly activities going on. I don't actually want to see many teenagers at the party cuz it's kinda weird how they suddenly grow 3 feet taller and are now 'so much cooler'. We are pretending that it's their 12th-ish birthday, they are still kids - give them a bouncy house and hire a clown to do balloon animals before they are suddenly too embarrassed to be seen with you. ;)

The bonus round for this one comes a little out of order, you'd have to do it before the main spread. It's the first day of school. There should be lots of nice September scenery and cute back-to-school outfits. As long as you have one spread in on that Friday/Saturday/Sunday that I award extra points for, it doesn't matter which spread you have up - you still get the points for it.

After you are done with this round, get your kids about half way though their teen years.

I don't have my spread up yet, so as long as you get yours posted before I do, you aren't late. You probably have around 12 hours or so (I like to sleep late; it's the summer and I don't have a job yet), so gamble accordingly!

[Croutonian]

Ah, that's good news - I've been fighting with my comp all day/night to get it to do what I want, rather than what it does! I've been waiting around for it about as much time as I used to wait around to pick my brother up lol!
Just gonna go upload/attach/ramble ever so slightly in my main post now...

[kateisl33t]

For the next spread I'll just age my sim back down and pretend it was "Before".. I don't remember anything about not aging till teenagers, but maybe your right...


I don't like Child sims that much, so I rarely play them. :lol:

[Croutonian]

Right, have finishing fiddling with my post now - have finally made it so lovely but grumpy Morley is talking about each spread himself :)
The lil extra I added for the vacation round was part of the idea I originally had for the second page...but I couldn't make it work in a way I was happy with :lol:

So...birthday party/first day of school now - I had been expecting the latter to be the 3rd round, and a holiday (I'm British, we don't say 'vacation') to be this one :rofl:
Oh well, the twins went on their hols before they'd actually gone to school anyhow, so the order still kinda makes sense to me! :up:

[aUserName]

I’ve posted my entry.

[Selly_2009]

So...birthday party/first day of school now - I had been expecting the latter to be the 3rd round, and a holiday (I'm British, we don't say 'vacation') to be this one :rofl: Me too! It would've made more sense to me this way round, especially with younger children on the scene and wanting to take them on holiday too.

Birthday party's going to be interesting - this family are so far ahead of the rest of the neighbourhood all the kids are the wrong age, but I'll work something out! As for first day at school, I've already got ideas for it - you can probably expect BOTH spreads from me this time round ;)

[Phaenoh]

That was actually how it was originally planned, but then if you did birthday you'd have teenagers to go on vacation, and I really wanted those to be kids. What I should have done is split the vacation/holiday with this and made it vacation/first day of school and holiday/birthday, but I really wasn't thinking enough ahead last week. I was graduating college!

Glad to see a couple of you were able to take advantage of my late-ness. I *really* hate taking off points for it. I just woke up, so we'll see how fast I can throw something together for y'all. Jones' still is missing this rounds spread, so it'll be a race between us. ;)

I complied all the round announcements into one post to make it easier to keep track of stuff like aging kids. Hopefully that helps everyone. :)

[jones7659]

You'll probably beat me, Phae. Was REALLY hoping to have it in sooner, but I just now got everything worked out with my darn game, and now I'm waiting for the snow to melt. Don't really want a snowy Renaissance Faire.

[Phaenoh]

Sounds like you have everything set up though, I was starting to get my party together and my game crashed. I gave up and went to bed. Now I need breakfast. I bet you can get yours in before me ;) Plus, I'm not trying that hard cuz I know it will cost you a point if I do. :)

[jones7659]

Well, keep not trying hard, lol. Because I also have a teething 7 month old, a fairly well behaved 3 year old and an ADHD 5 year old to deal with, lol. But I'm putting my pages together now.

[Phaenoh]

And,... my game just crashed again. This is sloooow going. You still stand a good shot. ;)

[jones7659]

Alright, they're up. Don't really like them (for technical reasons, stupid shadows!) but I'm glad I at least wont lose a pt for being late. I'm gonna need that pt.

[Phaenoh]

OMG, I don't think I've crashed my game so many times in one day. Haven't made any progress on the birthday pages yet, but I was able to do take pictures for the mini theme, so I'll toss that together for now.

[jones7659]

When you have time, Phae...how do you make such nice binding shadows? I know you use photoshop, I use gimp, but I can probably figure out the translation, lol.

[Phaenoh]

My Back-to-School mini-theme spread is up, add... that font on my page? My actual handwriting. Curtsey of the tips provided during this contest, jones was it?

I've got my spreads as a template, so I only made my shadow once and reuse the same one each time. I created a gradient from black to clear, then shrank it to the size I wanted, making it very dark in the center, then thick for a while, then spread thing for almost half the page. For my photo shadows I use a preset I created and make sure I use it each time so it stays consistent. For stranger shaped things I will hand paint a shadow with a fuzzy brush and a low opacity (under 10%) and just keep going back and forth until it looks right. The only thing I've hand painted shadows on for this contest was my binding ribbon on my cover.

Now that I've got a bit more free time, I might go back and do the mini-themes. I'm really excited for the last round's mini-theme...

[jones7659]

I was going to ask if it was ok if I still submitted a Holiday page just for fun, but I'm guessing yes, lol. I was really excited too, then had game issues. And yes, it was me that directed people to the marvelous font site :)

*EDIT* I added my Christmas pages just for fun :D

[leah10006]

Kids just grow up so fast don't they? This round I need you to throw one of your kids a birthday party! This should be their Child/Teen birthday, so invite lots of kids over and have lots of child-friendly activities going on. I don't actually want to see many teenagers at the party cuz it's kinda weird how they suddenly grow 3 feet taller and are now 'so much cooler'. We are pretending that it's their 12th-ish birthday, they are still kids - give them a bouncy house and hire a clown to do balloon animals before they are suddenly too embarrassed to be seen with you. ;)

The bonus round for this one comes a little out of order, you'd have to do it before the main spread. It's the first day of school. There should be lots of nice September scenery and cute back-to-school outfits. As long as you have one spread in on that Friday/Saturday/Sunday that I award extra points for, it doesn't matter which spread you have up - you still get the points for it.

After you are done with this round, get your kids about half way though their teen years.

I don't have my spread up yet, so as long as you get yours posted before I do, you aren't late. You probably have around 12 hours or so (I like to sleep late; it's the summer and I don't have a job yet), so gamble accordingly!

Hi phae can i upload my first day of school layout today instead of tomorrow because my family and i are going on holidays thankz sorry for any inconvenience :) :)

[whiterider]

Fantastic entries for the holiday round, you guys are getting better at this :D .

[Phaenoh]

leah, you are allowed you upload your entry as soon as I announce it (last Monday). You just don't get bonus points for it till Friday. :)

We've got your scores in for this round, so keep a look out for them later tonight!

Remember, if you are doing the mini-theme, you need to do them first. Submitting to either the mini-theme or the main theme this weekend will earn you the bonus points.

[Phaenoh]

And,... we've got your scores in just in time for you all to get your weekend bonuses!

aUserName 15 (44/60)

(-2) High quality photo (not blurry or crunchy)
A: The background image is pretty blurry. It looks like you took a very small photo and made it bigger than it could handle. B: Some of the photos are blurry, and many of the background elements are blurry and/or crunchy.

(-1) Good Lighting (not too dark or blown out white)
A: A couple of your photos are really dark and it makes it very hard to see what’s happening in the picture.

(-1) Interesting Photos
A: Because the captions are in simlish, I have no idea what is important about each photo. Why is there a photo of mom and daughter sitting in the pjs on the couch? C: Most of the photos are great; however, the pic of the girl walking on the beach could have better composition - making her vertically central (remember the rule of thirds!), and then spinning the camera around so there's more of her and the sea, and less of the plain grass and sand, would make it look more balanced. The photo of the building is nicely composed, but EA really do do their utmost to cock up lovely pics with that awful grey roof bottom - unfortunately it works :P so it's sometimes necessary to rearrange the photo in order to obscure those kinds of anomalies.

(-1) Good Photo Cropping
C: The photos are very small - it's a shame, because they're nice photos, but they just can't be seen very well right now.

(-1) Realistic Drop Shadows / Consistent Light Source
B: Drop shadows are too high.

(-2) Nice Fonts (not Comic Sans or Papyrus)
A: The spacing and alignment on many of your captions doesn’t fit well on the caption blocks. Some places is super tight, and others have more space than it needs. C: The font is very blocky right now. Perhaps that's because you've warped it to make it look more handwritten? If so, I would suggest using something like this instead: http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=312270. I would also use the straight line tool, instead of underline, to draw lines on your journaling cards; since underline on rotated text tends to end up looking jagged too.

(-1) Good Mix/Balance of Images and Other Elements
B: The photos seem a bit insignificant, very small compared to the overall page size. Too much emphasis on the background elements, for my taste. C: For the most part the page are nicely balanced, but there's a big blue gap in the middle of each which looks very plain - it could do with something filling it up, even if that's only, for example, a very faint cloud pattern on the blue. It could also possibly be fixed by a slight rearranging/resizing of the photos. :)

(-3) Draws Viewer In / Is Visually Interesting / Judge Likes It
A: I wish you hadn’t used up so much of the space with that giant blue oval, it just looks like wasted space in most places, maybe if the map actually matched the size of the oval. B: Because the world map background is so brightly colored and so busy, it really detracts from the photos, which look dull and dark comparatively. Not an eye-catching effect. C: Overall, this is a great spread. There are a few problems with it - the shell on the first page is very dark and low-contrast, making it look a bit flat; some of the text is wonky; and for preference I would have blurred the nieghbourhood shot slightly less - it's left looking a bt pixellated - and maybe added a kind of translucent mist or similar to keep the "faded out" look. For the most part, though, the whole thing looks lovely, and you're getting better with every round. :)

(-2) Fits with the Style of the Previous Pages.
C: This is a much bolder, cleaner style than the previous pages, with stronger colours and a more modern layout. It looks fantastic, just doesn't match. If I were you, I'd take the hit on points and stick with the new style, because it's awesome!

General Comments:
A: This round your scrapbook really does look like a scrapbook, the first spread was very much just a photo album, but this round you’ve really incorporated lots of different elements, and it feels more like a scrapbook. This is definitely a direction you should continue with. :) B: Great photos, I like the mix of closer, more intimate photos and landscape pics.


leah10006 14 (42/60)

(-3) High quality photo (not blurry or crunchy)
A: The background paper is terribly crunchy. You should have looked for a bigger image to use instead. B: Holy image compression, Batman! C: You're still overcompressing your files! It's a shame, because it makes everthing come out crunchy. You want the filesize to be as close to 250kb as possible without going over that, in order to get the best quality pictures. :)

(-1) Good Lighting (not too dark or blown out white)
C: Most of the pics are great, but the one of the two kids building the sandcastle is very dark, even for a night shot - a few lights (maybe something like tiki candles that would fit in the context of a beach at night) would be a big help. :)

(-2) Interesting Photos
A: Why isn’t the mom pregnant in the first picture? It looks really strange to have her suddenly very pregnant on the second page. Also, why is there a picture of your dad’s armpit?

(-1) Good Photo Cropping
B: The photo of the dad (bottom right of the second page) is way too closely cropped. It looks like he might actually be doing something interesting, but I can't tell because everything's cut off.

(-3) Realistic Drop Shadows / Consistent Light Source
A: The only thing that has a shadow on it, is the crinkle cut journaling bit and a few of the fabric flowers. The photos definitely need shadows, as do the fabric squares. B: I see no drop shadows on the photos (I know I'm always going on about drop shadows too high, but that doesn't mean no drop shadows at all.) C: Perhaps it's just because of the blur, but I can only see a couple of shadows on the whole spread, so I can't really give points for them.

(-1) Believable Layering/Dimension of Elements
A: Without shadows telling us what is taller, its impossible to gauge dimension. It looks like the little rivets on the second square should be popping a bit off the page, but their shine is going the wrong way and they make no shadows either.

(-3) Includes Book Binding / Page Shadows Down the Inside Edges Throughout
A: There is no binding shadow on the attached pages. Remember, we grade what you’ve attached, not the inlines. (The inline shadow is not good either, it looks blotchy. A real binding shadow would be smooth and even all the way down.) B: No binding or shadows on the attached images (which is what we judge). C: Your attached images have no binding or page shadows.

(-1) Good Use of Text
A: It would have been nice to see more text on the pages, the little you do have doesn’t really relate to any of the photos. I would have liked to have seen a photo of the kids playing on the playground, if it was important enough to put into the text.

(-2) Draws Viewer In / Is Visually Interesting / Judge Likes It
C: The design of these pages is fabulous, I really like it, and they could be absolutely gorgeous. You just keep tripping up on the simple stuff - image compression in particular, which really detracts from your pretty layouts. Unfortunately, a pretty layout which is crisp and clear is always going to be more visually appealing than a pretty layout which is crunchy and pixelated. So please, please do work on those small things - because they're holding your lovely page designs back!

(-1) Fits with the Style of the Previous Pages.
The scrapbook as a whole is still a bit all over the place, in terms of the style of embellishments especially. This page and your baby firsts page match very well, though, so keep on with this and you can tip the balance. Don't forget, once you start including the book binding in your attached images, that it will need to be the same on every page or you'll lose points. ;)

General Comments:
A: This is definitely and improvement over some of your earlier pages. The composition was interesting, and the picture of the toddler in the floaty is adorable! Try not to forget your shadows on your next entry! Your new baby spread was the most visually interesting you’ve done so far, go in that direction for your next one. B: Love the color scheme and layout, very fun and tropical!
+2 Saturday submission

Selly_2009 18 54/60

(-1) High quality photo (not blurry or crunchy)
C: Several of the photos are crunchy round the edges - I can't tell if that's down to the in-game camera, or to compression when you save the final image. If it's the latter, you have some leeway in terms of filesize, so you can afford to turn the quality up a bit. :)

(-1) Good Lighting (not too dark or blown out white)
A: Many of your photos are very dark, the sims look like they are in the shade while I can plainly see they are outside and likely in the sun.

(-1) Realistic Drop Shadows / Consistent Light Source
B: Drop shadows on the photos are okay, but some of the other elements (e.g. the two pieces of wood next to "Camping is Fun") have too high shadows.

(-1) Nice Fonts (not Comic Sans or Papyrus)
B: The Bradley Hand is still not working for me. The other fonts are really nice, though!

(-1) Cohesive Color Palette for each Life Event
C: For the most part, the colors work well. I do have two criticisms, however. The borders on the photos (p2) are very, very bright - much more so than the other similarly-colored elements on the pages; so toning the down, or maybe adding noise to make them look a bit rougher, would have been better. The woodchips on the first page also look quite pale compared to everything else; so perhaps a slightly redder, richer wood color for those.

(-1) Draws Viewer In / Is Visually Interesting / Judge Likes It
C: Overall, I love this spread. There are two things that are worth commenting on: firstly, the leaves on the front page seem very small, compared to the normal size of a photograph. I haven't mentioned this above under layering/dimensions, since I don't think you should lose two points for this and the second thing I'm about to mention combined. Secondly, the wood chips on p1 look odd. The fact that they're perfectly identical makes them look a bit artificial; and they both look flat like bark, but with neat edges like, well, something that's not bark. :)

General Comments:
A: I like the leaf theme you have used, and I especially like how its taken a couple of different forms throughout the page, as a photo frame, as journaling tags, and as the background. Using the colors form the leaves is nice as well, keeps it all cohesive. B: You've done a great job crafting a story with pictures and text, very engaging.


x-kisses-for-yooh-x 17 (52/60)

(-1) Believable Camera Angle
B: Who took the hottub photo? Seems like a rather "couple-y" sort of moment for some else to be there.

(-1) Good Photo Cropping
C: Most of the pics are good. However, the bottom pic on p1 has a lot of background - it'd be nice to have more focus on the simmies. :)

(-1) Realistic Drop Shadows / Consistent Light Source
B: Drop shadows are a bit too high.

(-1) Believable Layering/Dimension of Elements
C: The little hotel cards are very cute, but they seem very small compared to the journaling cards.

(-1) Correct Page/Image Size
B: Not sure why there's a big white border around the spread.

(-1) Cohesive Color Palette for each Life Event
C: The combination of cold colours (blue, white etc) and warmer colours (browns and oranges) makes sense thematically, but it's a little incongruous to have them both in the same spread. :)

(-1) Good Use of Text
A: You misspelled the daughter’s name in the second caption box. The way the text is written, it makes me wonder who is writing. You’ve mentioned each family member in the third person, so I don’t know. C: Some of the layout of the font makes it look a bit unnatural - especially the very regular centring on the first page. There are also a few typos. The font is a bit hard to read in places, but that makes sense as it's a handwriting font - but maybe you could play with the weight a bit to make it easier to read, without losing the handwritten effect. :)

General Comments:
A: The little bow you used is the same one that is in the contest banner. Did you notice? I like how the caption squares seem to fit in very well with your wedding spread, and the cartoony background and stickers fit in well with the baby spread. B: The attention to detail on the little brochures is beautiful, love the color scheme too. C: This is a really lovely spread. :) I love the subtle little ribbons, and you've done a great job of having a decent number of elements without making things look cluttered.


porkypine 17 (52/60)

(-2) High quality photo (not blurry or crunchy)
B: Some of the photos are fine, but some are crunchy or blurry. C: A few of your pics (the photos, not the whole page) are a bit crunchy, and the one on the carousel is quite blurry.

(-2) Interesting Photos
B: Photos of the family going on various rides are nice, and mostly what people take on vacation, but it would be nice to have at least one shot that was a bit more personal; most families also take a group photo, for example. C: The pics are lovely, and the composition is great too; but there are a lot of plumbbobs, aspiration dings, and so on - the pics would be tidier without those, and in some cases they stand out and steal the limelight.

(-2) Good Use of Text
A: There really isn’t much in the way text on your pages. I really like what you did on your Halloween pages with telling the story of what is happening in the pictures. It was really successful on that spread and it’s too bad you didn’t do that on the vacation one. C: It'd be nice to see a bit more descriptive text. :)

(-1) Good Mix/Balance of Images and Other Elements
It's very, very busy - overwhelmingly so. Of course, it makes sense for this kind of spread to be a bit explosive, but I think you've taken it to an extreme - there's so much stuff there that much of it doesn't really sink in.

(-1) Draws Viewer In / Is Visually Interesting / Judge Likes It
The pic of the bumper car ride is very dark. I didn't put this under "Good lighting", since it's only one photo out of nine, so it seems excessive to take that whole point category off, but do bear it in mind. :) I've already mentioned this above, but this spread is overwhelming - the colors are part of it; but the embellishments also seem to be a bit of a mish-mash, with different styles (e.g. the fish with its pretty little button background, unlike all the others; the slightly artsy cupcake as opposed to the very kid-styled dinosaur and balloons), and the mix of different text styles - it all contributes to a very busy finished effect. The background is lovely, and actually, all of the elements individually are great too (especially that panorama on the second page) - they just don't work quite as well when they're *all* put together.

General Comments:
A: I really like the stitching and bric-a-brack you used on the Halloween page, it really adds that extra level of detail that looks really nice. I really like how you did the letters on the cardboard pieces, it looks like they were hand stamped and it looks nice. B: I really like the layout of the photos, the mixing-and-matching of different sizes.
+2 Saturday submission

InesMarie 15 (46/60)

(-1) High quality photo (not blurry or crunchy)
B: Several of the photos are somewhat blurry. C: Quite a few of your photos are crunchy and/or blurry - I think a few were sized up perhaps, which reduces the quality.

(-1) Good Lighting (not too dark or blown out white)
C: Night-time shots are difficult to get looking good - the pics are nice and they're not so dark that you can't see what's going on in them, but they do look a bit drab. Outdoor lighting, especially yellowy/flamey lighting, would make a big difference in terms of the strength of the colors.

(-1) Interesting Photos
C: Most of the photos are lovely, but the pinball on is less remarkable - a bit more of a focus in that pic would be good.

(-1) Good Photo Cropping
A: A few of your photos are so zoomed out I really can’t tell what’s going on in the photo.

(-3) Realistic Drop Shadows / Consistent Light Source
A: Your photos are missing their drop shadows! Without shadows, it’s hard to tell what is supposed to be on top. B: I don't see any drop shadows on the photos. C: There aren't many shadows at all - disliking very big shadows is fair enough, but I would still suggest some very small, neat shadows around the edges of photos etc. :)

(-1) Believable Layering/Dimension of Elements
C: Some of the border is hanging off the edge of the page on p2 - which isn't a problem n itself, but the fact that it's all on the page elsewhere makes it look like it might be unintentional, and it is inconsistent.

(-3) Good Use of Text
A: It would be nice to see more journaling going on. Tell us the stories behind these photos! B: It would be nice to have a little more text. C: Some more descriptive text would be good.

(-1) Draws Viewer In / Is Visually Interesting / Judge Likes It
C: I do like this spread - the photos are good, the snowflake stamps etc are a nice touch, and overall it's very pretty. There are some details missing, though; the first page seems very dominated by photos, the lack of shadows does detract from the overall look, and some bits seem a little untidy - such as photos not lining up quite right with the border, and the very hand-drawn looking lines through the fancy-looking white border. Overall it's lovely, but some details could be better. :)

(-1) Fits with the Style of the Previous Pages.
C: The style of this page is very different from the previous ones - busier, stronger colours (lovely colours, mind - just stronger than the previous ones), very different ways of using text, and less decoration around the photos.

General Comments:
A: I really like the title letters, they really look like they are bubble sticker letters. B: Very pretty purple! I also love your photos, especially the snowball fight; very dynamic and appealing choice of camera angle.
+1 Sunday submission

Croutonian 19 (56/60)

(-1) High quality photo (not blurry or crunchy)
C: The pics are slightly crunchy - looks like compression.

(-1) Good Lighting (not too dark or blown out white)
C: The tea-drinking photo is very dark - night-time is fine, just add a couple of outdoor lights :p

(-1) Believable Camera Angle
C: The first photo, of them all filing out towards the car, is taken from an odd angle - too high to be taken at ground level, but too low to be taken from the window of the house or some such.

(-1) Draws Viewer In / Is Visually Interesting / Judge Likes It
A: Something just seems wrong with this spread, but I can’t figure out what it is. Something just strikes me as wrong. The closest I can think is that maybe the colors and patterns on the two different pages are just too different from each other.

General Comments:
A: I really like including the origami crane on the first page, that’s a brilliant touch. B: I absolutely adore your layout and background, the two page backgrounds work beautifully together. This was a perfect spread for me. C: The shadows are excellent - you got the origami exactly right. :) The papers you've used are absolutely beautiful, too!


jones7659 18 (53/60)

(-2) High quality photo (not blurry or crunchy)
B: The photos aren't blurry, but some of the background elements are distractingly so. C: Most of the spread is lovely and clear, but the knight photo and the campfire photo are a bit crunchy (or maybe Brandon is just a crunchy kid ;) ).

(-2) Realistic Drop Shadows / Consistent Light Source
A: The shadows are inconsistent between the elements, some have a wide floating shadows, and others have a much harsher shadow. The light source also seems to jump around on the page based on what element you are looking at. C: Most of the elements don't seem to have shadows - something like what you have for the banner on p1 would be perfect for the other elements. :)

(-1) Cohesive Color Palette for each Life Event
C: The colors could do with a bit more balance - right now there's lots and lots of yellow and orange, to the extent that the relatively smaller amount of teal looks a bit out of place, especially on page 1.

(-2) Draws Viewer In / Is Visually Interesting / Judge Likes It
B: Just something about the overall design seems a bit too busy. C: The one thing I would say is that the complexity of the pattern on the background, and the contrast, is a bit overwhelming, especially on p1 - so a slightly less explosive background might be nice. :P Unfortunately, if the background is even slightly off, that has a big impact on the page(s) as a whole.

General Comments:
A: I love the destination you picked for this, it’s really unique and cool. The patterns and details really reflect it well. Good job! B: Very interesting photos, looks like a lovely family outing! C: This is a fantastic idea - a RenFaire is a great holiday for simmies :D The pics are well-chosen, too. The aging effects and so on are also done really well.


kateisl33t 14 (41/60)

(-2) Good Photo Cropping
B: I think the cropping would be a lot more captivating if it was closer, in most shots. For example, the bottom pic on the right page would be much better with a vertical format. C: Most of the cropping is good, but the pool photo and the pirate photo could do with being cropped a bit closer - they look very far away right now! I think this is exacerbated by the pages being too small, since everything else is therefore also very small.

(-3) Realistic Drop Shadows / Consistent Light Source
A: You’ve forgotten your drop shadows! They are really important to help show that photos aren’t printed directly on the page. They are needed to add dimension to the elements. B: I don't see any drop shadows. C: There don't seem to be any shadows, so I can't award points for them.

(-2) Includes Book Binding / Page Shadows Down the Inside Edges Throughout
A: You have binding on one page, but not the other. Btw, your pages were uploaded out of order. It doesn’t matter, but it just makes it look odd. C: No binding, only one page shadow - stop forgetting this! ;)

(-3) Correct Page/Image Size
A: These pages are still too small. You need to start with your pages being 1024x1024. Put them all together, then flatten the image and choose a ‘Save for Web’ option to get the file size small enough for MTS. B: Much too small. C: The pages are quite a bit too small.

(-1) Cohesive Color Palette for each Life Event
A: For an amusement park, you are using pretty tame colors. I would have expected the page to be much brighter.

(-1) Good Use of Text
B: The arrangement of the line-breaks in the text is pretty weird in places. For example, on the second tag on the second page, there's no reason why 'Hill"' couldn't be pushed up to the previous line, it looks lonesome and awkward the way it is now. Also, make sure everything is correctly centered vertically.

(-3) Good Mix/Balance of Images and Other Elements
A: You only have photos and captions, there are no decorative elements like stickers, or the ticket stub from the park, or anything else. B: The page is very bare. There's no ornamentation apart from the photos. C: The layout is quite spartan - just photos and journaling cards, and nothing else. There's no need to go overboard with other decorations, but one or two small things - perhaps someone's old Simland ticket? - would be a nice addition.

(-1) Fits and Portrays each Life Event well
A: You were asked not to age your kids up past childhood, so this is going to screw up the order of the book.

(-3) Draws Viewer In / Is Visually Interesting / Judge Likes It
A: The pages are very balanced, which makes it not that interesting. It doesn’t draw your eye around the page. B: Lacks visual interest, not eye-catching. C: This spread is very simple and clean, which I like. However, it might be slightly too simple - it ends up seeming a little plain. It's difficult to suggest something specific that you should have done differently, since there's nothing wrong, per se - it could just use a bit of extra spparkle. Maybe a couple of decorations, different coloured journaling cards, a slightly less regular/tabular organisation of the pics and cards - or something else entirely! I'm not entirely sure what I would have liked to see that's not there, but just something to grab attention.

General Comments:
A: I like the journaling you do. It’s nice to read why the photos are important to your book. B: You do a nice job telling some charming little stories with the combination of text and photos!


Congratulations to Croutonian, our Round Winner once again! Also congrats to Selly and jones who had the next highest scores!

[Croutonian]

A note on the believable angle issue of the first photo - it was. It was actually taken from within Martin's eye sockets (that sounds so gross) as he was stood on decking (double decking really - hard to explain)...I did have a ground level pic 'he' took, but it didn't work so well :lol:

But thank you to all 3 judges on the general comments :)

[jones7659]

Just wanted to say, even though it almost caused me to be late, I'm glad my original vacation didn't work out! I love my RenFaire vacation! It hit me when I was searching downloads for camping stuff, to do just a regular camping vaca, and came across recolors of the awesome Parsimonius tents. I had a blast setting it up and my family had a blast on their vaca :D

Would also like to ask for shadow specific feedback on my Christmas pages. I think they are by far my best shadows yet, but would like any feedback :)

[Selly_2009]

Thanks to all the judges for their feedback!

I'd just like to say that those "wood chips" weren't chips, they were wooden tent pegs! Admittedly they do look a bit flat, but I went for larger shadows as they'd be a good deal thicker than the other elements. Regarding the colour, speaking from experience (I've had many years of British Guide camps, plus the fact that my Mum was a Guide Leader until I was well into my 20s) that's the colour they tend to be...

As for the photos being crunchy round the edges, not sure about that - I've been using Fraps for the actual pictures all the way through, along with the same level of compression on the final image... if I've got leeway on compression I'll take it out a notch or two and see if that makes a difference. ;) Will see what I can do about the lighting as well - I too thought (once they were on the page) the daylight ones looked a little bit dark.

[leah10006]

ok i submitted my entry do i get extra points for friday :)

[whiterider]

jones, I agree - the Christmas shadows are great. :) Some would consider them a bit too subtle, but in terms of personal preference, I like smaller, neater shadows: they're more realistic. The one thing I would say is that it'd make sense to have a similar shadow behind the photos, since they are (presumably) stuck on over the "frames".

[Phaenoh]

Croutonian, very sneaky. :)

jones, the Christmas page looks pretty good, your shadow are just a tad too small (make them longer, but not fuzzier), but they are definitely the best by far.

Selly, it took me a minute or two, but I guessed they were tent stakes, but I thought they were too small scale-wise to be in the book if they were real ones. As for the lighting levels, there is no rule saying you can't edit your lighting levels after you've taken the photos. I adjust my levels all the time, just keep it believable. :)

leah, what did you change from yesterday? I can't tell.

[leah10006]

Croutonian, very sneaky. :)

jones, the Christmas page looks pretty good, your shadow are just a tad too small (make them longer, but not fuzzier), but they are definitely the best by far.

Selly, it took me a minute or two, but I guessed they were tent stakes, but I thought they were too small scale-wise to be in the book if they were real ones. As for the lighting levels, there is no rule saying you can't edit your lighting levels after you've taken the photos. I adjust my levels all the time, just keep it believable. :)

leah, what did you change from yesterday? I can't tell.

sorry i uploaded my birthday spread as well oh and could u tell me do i get extra points tonight because i wont be here tommorrow as ill be in the airport

[jones7659]

jones, I agree - the Christmas shadows are great. :) Some would consider them a bit too subtle, but in terms of personal preference, I like smaller, neater shadows: they're more realistic. The one thing I would say is that it'd make sense to have a similar shadow behind the photos, since they are (presumably) stuck on over the "frames".

Yeah, I thought about the photos after I was done, and since I was just doing it for fun, didn't bother with it, lol.

[porkypine]

Hello! I have my birthday posted for Saturday! (I need all the extra points I can get! THIS CONTEST IS TOUGH! :D )

[Phaenoh]

leah, both your spreads have terrible compression issues. You really need to look into any 'Save for Web' options on your software. You've also forgotten your drop shadows again. Please fix this because we've docked your points for it a few rounds now. You also might try making your text larger, its a bit small and most places you have it seem to have enough extra space for bigger words.

porky, you are missing your drop shadows on the second page's photos. Centering text like that makes it seem like a poem, which I realized it wasn't after I finished reading it. You should probably also include more captions on the other photos as well; is the highlight of that birthday a lie about a cake-eating rat? The banner you used on the top of each page just doesn't seem to work well, mostly because of the perspective used on the flags - it isn't straight top down.

Anyone else posts up, you've got my attention/critiques again ;)

[InesMarie]

I am trying to post before your midnight deadline but it is just spinning... So much for rushing.

Yea! It made it with 2 minutes to spare! CLOSE!

I don't want to post my double page until later because I don't want to lose my Saturday 2 points. I'll put it here for now.
http://i1060.photobucket.com/albums/t442/InesMarie2/Birthday-double.jpg

It's Jacinta's birthday. She's the one in the brown sweater.

[Phaenoh]

Ines, I've got you down for +2. Your spread looks really nice, I'm not seeing anything obviously wrong with it, except, I'm not really sure which one is the birthday kid is! XD

[InesMarie]

Ines, I've got you down for +2. Your spread looks really nice, I'm not seeing anything obviously wrong with it, except, I'm not really sure which one is the birthday kid is! XD

Ok. I've lost a point. I've updated my first page so you know who Jacinta, the birthday girl is. I also made a new double page.

http://i1060.photobucket.com/albums/t442/InesMarie2/Birthday-double.jpg

[Phaenoh]

After figuring out that my game crashes whenever it tries to load a lot with a skate rink on it, my twins changed their party plans to be at a bowling alley instead of a roller rink.

The bonus points weekend is almost over; post up spreads people! You can post either the First Day of School spread or Birthday Party to earn your points. :)

In a week from today I'll be announcing the final round, it's been fun everyone! Remember, you can still post up the mini-themes from old rounds if you want more practice.

[porkypine]

Ok. I just uploaded my school pages.

Whoops! I forgot the binding shadow. Oh well. Reupload the school pics. They don't count anyway.

I guess judge the birthday.

edit Monday July 2, 2012:
Well, that was weird, there were 4 duplicates of the school spread posted. I removed the extras. I guess IE uploader is buggy?

[Croutonian]

I should have been able to post up totally finished pages about half hour ago, but my comp has had other ideas tonight - the highlight was as I was trying to save the original psp files before saving as jpegs and making the joined spread - the frellin' thing crashed! So, I've attached the pages as were before that attempted save because there was no chance of redoing what I had lost quick enough :(
Hoping you might take pity and knock one of the minus points off my score...I need sleep. And a new computer - but that will have to wait for a long time.

[InesMarie]

I'm sorry you have computer problems Croutonian. Your spreads are very nice. You've won two rounds and you are ahead so you will probably win. :)

I've posted my school spread. I tried to do something different and not fluff it up so much. Please judge the birthday. I like that one better.

[Selly_2009]

After figuring out that my game crashes whenever it tries to load a lot with a skate rink on it, my twins changed their party plans to be at a bowling alley instead of a roller rink.I'm a mite miffed - I'm sorry to hear that your game kept crashing for your Plan A, but your Plan B was my Plan A for a party! :( I know I can still do it, but it almost feels wrong now...

My spreads ARE on their way (I've been up all night - yes, literally!), but will probably put them up together now that the bonus weekend is over! I was hoping to have the school spread finished but am still not 100% happy with the binding shadow.

[Phaenoh]

Croutonian, you still have a week, you can take what you have and keep working in it. It looks like it would be hard to go back and add drop shadows to what you have, but you can keep adding other things on top. To do a drop shadow now, create a white square the same size as your photo, place it on top, add the drop shadow to that, then set the white square to 'Multiply'. It will turn the white square invisible, while leaving the shadow.

Selly, I'm sorry I took your idea! That's why I've been trying to post right when I announce the new round, so mine is in before people start making plans. As long as you don't do the same color scheme I picked and you don't use the one bowling sticker I used, it's totally fine - and original. I actually wanted to do bowling first, but then thought about doing their party at a joint bowling alley / roller rink sorta place, but those were crashing because of the roller rinks.

I'm not worried about the crashy game right now. I'm in the process of building a new supercomputer with my dad as my college graduation present. It's been seven years since I had a desktop machine. No more simming on a laptop for me! The impending reinstall will take care of all those issues, and I plan on weeding my CC before I transfer it all anyways. I'm glad my sims don't mind moving, this will be their 4th computer to be on. I'd die without my save game files!

[Selly_2009]

Phae, no hard feelings, there's no way you could've known what I'd got planned. I thought of a pool party to start with, but switched to bowling very early on as I couldn't get any pool decorations I liked - all the links were invalid :(. It's unlikely I'll have the same colour scheme (yours look great btw) as I'm planning to go lighter on the background; my last pages' backdrops have been on the darker side and jazzed up with bright elements/photo borders...

And yay for new computers! :D Sounds like an awesome graduation present; I'm sure your sims will love being on the big workhorse when it's finished (4 machines in total, wow! My TS2 sims have only ever been on the one I'm using now, though once I've got all my CC sorted I'm planning to put them on my new laptop; my TS1 sims had to move back in 2007 after Dad discovered they were taking up a quarter of the hard drive space). Having a decent computer for those precious Sims files is essential!

[porkypine]

lol Croutonian! LOVE your vacation uh... Holiday woes! Poor thing.


Well DARN! This html editor won't let me use strikeout! :wtf: :giggler: (Thanks Phae!)

I think it's called 'vacation' because you are supposed to vacate your normal premises?? Just a guess.. :lol: ok. You made me look up the etymology. (You should KNOW that Americans don't speak english. :jest: ) http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=vacation

vacation (n.) late 14c., "freedom from obligations, leisure, release" (from some activity or occupation), from O.Fr. vacation, from L. vacationem (nom. vacatio) "leisure, a being free from duty," noun of state from pp. stem of vacare "be empty, free, or at leisure" (see vain). Meanings "state of being unoccupied; process of vacating" are early 15c. Meaning "formal suspension of activity" (in reference to schools, courts, etc.) is recorded from mid-15c. As the U.S. equivalent of what in Britain is called a holiday, it is attested from 1878.


The origin of Holiday implies something Holy, and getting burned up on a beach ain't holy. It's rather devilish. ;) lol

holiday 1500s, earlier haliday (c.1200), from O.E. haligdæg "holy day; Sabbath," from halig "holy" (see holy) + dæg "day" (see day); in 14c. meaning both "religious festival" and "day of recreation," but pronunciation and sense diverged 16c. As a verb meaning "to pass the holidays" by 1869.

[jones7659]

Wouldn't you know, I was working on setting up my party Friday evening, when we darn near got blown away and lost power. Just got it back last night. If it's not one thing it's another keeping me fro bonus points. I'm sure it wont be in today, maybe not even tomorrow, but shouldn't be late. I was planning a bowling party too, lol. Will probably still do it, since I just don't feel like messing with something else. Been a LONG week already.

[Phaenoh]

porky, to use strikeout, its the letter s not del. deleted

sorry to hear of your troubles jones, I'm sure you'll get them posted on time though. ;)

I have a new computer now!!! It's tots sweet. However, I managed to leave all my software disks at my parents house (where I was building it) so I can't install sims on it just yet. New computer is sitting in a box behind me. I wanted to finish out our contest on my lappy anyways. Something about horses and midstream. For those of you in the know, it's got a solid state drive so it's super fast, and that silly little Windows 7 rate my computer thing, is all in the 7s (goes from 1.0 to 7.9). I have 7.1s for my graphics and 7.7s and 7.8s for speed. This will be awesome. Lappy has 5.2 (speed) to 6.7 (graphics). I'm moving out into the superfast lane!

I'll be spending some of today and most of tomorrow making spreads for both themes for next round. I likely won't be late, so don't bank on it! :D

[jones7659]

sorry to hear of your troubles jones, I'm sure you'll get them posted on time though. ;)

Yes, although I've gotten a bit side tracked last night and today...I had the sudden urge to play Medieval, so I have to make myself go back to 2, lol.

Alright...my pages are up...finally. And not late:)

[porkypine]

So... a prom/after party? and graduation? ok.... I can guess something up from the movies. We didn't have a prom at our school. lol

[Croutonian]

I am going to take one more attempt at birthday pages this evening, and if it doesn't work out then I'm going to pull out - I really can't take fighting with my computer like I've had to this past fortnight...it hates doing what this contest requires, over the past 3 or 4 weeks it has even started protesting against recognising the sims disc! Have gotten far too close to chucking the thing out the window...

[Selly_2009]

At long last, my Round 4 pages are up - both spreads this time out. :) I can handle losing a point for being late; trying to get decent photos of the party was a nightmare! I'm just grateful that Paint Shop Pro behaved itself...

Now, let's see what I can put together for prom/graduation, especially as I never had a graduation ceremony: my secondary school simply had a GCSE Certificate Evening sort of thing, Sixth Form had nowt at all (I got my A-Level certificates by post) and I failed Uni in my second year...

[Phaenoh]

Its not really fair to ask you to make pages for something you've never seen, that's why I've been doing example pages. Anyone who hasn't gotten their pages up can still do so before me and they won't be late. If you need to fix stuff you've pretty much got all day to do it. I got side tracked and set up my new computer and then spent way too long at the Prom myself. And I still have to get you all those grad outfits. This round might actually get pushed out a few days because of it all. Can't give you all less than 2 weeks to work!

Edit: I don't know what it is about my game, just keeps crashing, mostly in the same places. After replaying the same 2 days 4 times in a row, I just gave up for today on getting Graduation pictures. Instead, I've finished off my Prom spread for you all.

[Croutonian]

My birthday pages are up - comp and Paint Shop behaved rather nicely for the most part...until PSP froze and refused to unfreeze or even admit to being like that so I could close it easily lol was just after I'd saved though so thankfully hadn't lost any progress this time - woulda been up about 12 hours ago if it hadn't been for that (I went to sleep for just over half that time to see if it'd sort itself :p )

Compression to get the file size small enough is still an issue though, and I highly doubt it can be solved.

[porkypine]

You better not quit Croutonian - not so close to the finish line! :) You've already won 2 rounds. :0) (You may want to yank CC you aren't using and clear the cache.)


added July 11: GAAA! Trying to get these teenagers to perform the prom doings is a royal pain! They keep moving away or they lose their outfits when they travel. I had to use cheats to summon them and get they fancy duds back on and the game kept crashing. lol. I've learned to get rid of cheat tools after I use them before calling the next cheat. Anyway. It took far longer than it should have to set the prom up. I hope the college grads aren't as much a pain. :anime:

added July 12: I don't think I'll have time to get these triplets through college unless I can find a graduation cheat.

[jones7659]

added July 12: I don't think I'll have time to get these triplets through college unless I can find a graduation cheat.

I think Phae said she may bump up the deadline since she hasn't gotten a graduation page up yet.

[whiterider]

For those of you struggling to get the dang sims to stay in the right place, you might want to have a look at treeag's sim freeze clock. Very handy!

[Phaenoh]

Since it's Thursday and I've just finished getting my Grad photos taken, I'll be extending the final deadline another half week. The new deadline for the entire contest is Midnight between Thursday July 26 and Friday July 27.

[jones7659]

So is the bonus still this weekend, or next Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday?

[Phaenoh]

ummmm, how about bonuses run from Friday till all of Tuesday? That's five bonus days. +1 for Friday and Tuesday, +2 for Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. Either Prom or Graduation spreads are eligible for bonus points.

[jones7659]

That sounds reasonable. I still may not get them, lol, but I was just wondering, just in case.

EDIT: So is there anywhere to get caps and gowns?

[porkypine]

That's kewl! I have the prom ones but have been vacillating on trying to get the college grad considering I don't have enough free time to get them through college to graduation...

[Phaenoh]

Oh right! Here are the caps and gowns I made. Sorry I didn't have time to do all the nice things you are supposed to like removing unwanted ages, binning, or familify, or even checking if their eye brows are correct. I'll do a proper post of them after my creator anniversary. Luckily though, for picture taking, they are still perfect. I wanted to do a few more hair styles underneath the girl's hat, but I didn't get to it and it kept breaking, so the only hairstyle is the one that my teen girl has been sporting, that shortcute cut thing. I was trying to add the longstraight one, but no luck.

Edit: Whoops! Porky caught my mistake. I missed the tf outfit recolor, it should be fixed now!

[porkypine]

Thanks Phae! I was going to give up on the graduation pics - trying to put them through college to get them in their robes.. I didn't know that the teens graduated. I thought they either went off to college or grew up to adults... So with the outfits, I can pose them... perhaps... lol These sims have minds of their own. I guess I can impose absolute control and turn off free will. Mwahahahaa. :beer: (I need :help: ) :rofl:

[Phaenoh]

Sim teens don't actually graduate, which I think is dumb, that's why I made the robes and did a HS graduation. I've been turning off free will to get my pictures. Just remember to turn it back on again so they can live their lives. ;)

[jones7659]

Thanks Phae :) Glad you got my subtle hint, lol. I didn't want to sound like I was nagging or just be like "Uh where the heck are the caps and gowns you promised" lol.

[porkypine]

I've uploaded my Prom page. Please judge that. I don't know if I'll get the grads done ... (truth in lending act here.) I want to get started on my foundation house for Q's building contest. :0)

Oh! Phae! If you want to use a cap that goes with any hairstyle except the real poofy types, clone my seminole men's hat. I cloned a pair of glasses. Just pop your hat mesh into it. It's already set to go with any hairstyle. Just flip the code for females.

[BCherri28]

I found out about this competition too late, and I am aware of that because it is like a weekly basis thing, but I thought I'd post up what would have been my entries, just so you can see. Maybe next time? :)

(by the way there are another six pages but I can't find them in my files.) :(

[Phaenoh]

Porky, the graduation spread is the required one, please make sure you have time to finish it! As for the hat, I was thinking about doing it as an accessory, but I decided against it. I figured if I had a short, a long, and an updo, that would be enough for all the hairstyles. I was going to do a short and a long/pulled back version for the guys as well. Maybe later. :)

BCherri, you are about a month and a half too late to enter, the application round closed back in May. We are wrapping up the contest now. Sorry!

[porkypine]

Hello BCHerri! Sorry you missed this one, It was fun and a learning experience, for me anyway. :0)

There is a new contest in Sims 3 for building. Join it! They are accepting applications until July 20. You have to build a house using the foundation they give. Go to the first page, download the foundation and start building. Don't alter the foundation. Sims3

CLick the link in my siggy calle Q's new foundation contest. :0)

Hi Phae.. Well darn. Since we've been given alternates all along I thought I might slide on the grad one... I have to admit, the fact that they chop off my guy's ponytails when they graduate always bugged me. :wtf: :)

[BCherri28]

Porky: Thanks soo much, I'll have to start playing my Sims 3 game again to get used to it! Hopefully I won't be late this time. Lol.

Phae: Yeah, I know. It's a sad day. Lol! I just made it for fun and decided to share it. x

[Selly_2009]

Thanks for the caps and gowns Phae!

In truth I didn't want to send Daisy to Uni, as according to the hood rules she's not eligible anyway, but secondly I didn't feel up to ploughing through just for graduation photos.

With any luck (provided my laptop behaves; it was playing up on Thursday night :() I should have the Prom spread up before Monday night - just got to get Daisy's classmates aged up now, but as most are only a day or two away that won't take long. Her date is all ready to go, and I've just got to finalise the choice of dress!

[Phaenoh]

Selly, what rules do you use in your hood to decide who can go to Uni? That sounds interesting. I've been trying to work out a way of making Sims pay for their education, but I don't have anything worked out yet.

[porkypine]

Hi Phae, I had been wondering what the teen female graduate outfit looked like because I could only find the male outfit. I was busy trying to keep fractious diva sims from walking off the set last night so I quit the game around 3 am and hit the sack. Just now, I am getting back to the game and used SIMPE to see what the female outfit looked like and where it was binned, formal, everyday, etc. and it was only then that I realized that you had forgotten to pack the female gown recolor. You had the teen male recolor packed twice. Only the female mesh was packed.

lol. Even with free will turned off, these danged sims keep walking off the set! :faceslap: They must be camera shy. :rofl: I drug my old college cheat out of the mod closet and will try the medieval gowns.

Selly, I've been using the Insiminator to age my sims up and down.

[Phaenoh]

omg, porky. I can't believe I did that, and I included something else stupid instead. I'll fix that asap.

Here are your scores from the School/Birthday Round!

leah10006 13 (39/60)

(-3) High quality photo (not blurry or crunchy)
A: This is still very crunchy. You photos come out crisp so it must be that you are starting with low quality elements on your page and then making them larger. This is a big no-no. B; Pics are quite crunchy and blurry. C: You still need to work on your image compression. Your images are way below the maximum filesize, so you can afford to turn the compression down/quality up a long way.

(-1) Believable Camera Angle
C: Most of the camera angles are great. However, the pic of Ronan and his Mum on the bouncy castle is taken from very high up - if they were bouncing when the photo was taken, which it looks like they were, then the cameraman would be looking up at them from the ground.

(-4) Interesting Photos
A: These are pretty typical photos, nothing unexpected or that interesting. None of the photos draw me in and honestly, four of them seem to be redundant with each other. B: The photos aren't doing a lot for me. The two present-giving shots and the two cake shots are pretty repetitive, and I have no clue what's going on in the other one. C: The bouncy castle and and the cake are both great photos; but two pics of Ronan being given presents is a bit repetitive - it would have been nice to see some more party games, or him opening presents, etc. :)

(-1) Good Photo Cropping
A: A few of the photos have had their aspect ratio changed. They are squished or stretched. This is very bad to do.

(-1) Believable Layering/Dimension of Elements
C: The layering is mostly good, however there are a couple of elements which don't quite make sense - the blue on the top journaling card on p2 looks out of place, and I'm not sure what the white thing behind the party hat on p1 is.

(-3) Includes Book Binding / Page Shadows Down the Inside Edges Throughout
A: You binding shadow is once again not on the attached single pages. Those are the ones we grade! We’ve told you this before. PLEASE fix it for your final round. The binding shadow you put on your inlines is not good either. It needs to be a full length even tone shadow. What it looks like you have is four or five places where you clicked with a fuzzy brush. Try clicking and holding the brush down, then press shift and drag your mouse down. That should give you a straight even line. B: No binding or shadows on the attached images. C: Shadow missing.

(-1) Nice Fonts (not Comic Sans or Papyrus)
B: That hand-writing font is really not very good.

(-3) Good Use of Text
A: It would have been nice to see more text, you had a lot of empty space at the top of the second page for it. I have no idea how ‘The rain was terrible’ has anything to do with the birthday. The only photo that might have rain in it, everyone is still having a good time anyway. It just doesn’t make any sense to me. B: There's not much text, and the "The rain was terrible" tag is really, really tiny. C: The journaling cards are nice; however, they could have been improved with a little more detail, and better grammar. It'd also be nice if the text on the top card on p1 was angled to fit the card. The Happy Birthday title, and the numbers on the background page, are lovely. :)

(-1) Good Mix/Balance of Images and Other Elements
A: You didn’t really have much besides photos and a few bits of words. This is a ‘scrap’ book, please try to add in bit and pieces and ‘scraps’ from the event.

(-2) Fits and Portrays each Life Event well
C: All the photos are certainly birthdayish photos, but they don't really give a birthday party vibe - I think probably in part because there are so few sims involved, and because there aren't many "party activities" shown. The bouncy castle pic is also not all that realistic - if it started to rain during the party, the bouncy castle would probably have to be closed for fear of kids slipping and injuring themselves!

(-1) Draws Viewer In / Is Visually Interesting / Judge Likes It
A: It’s not that visually interesting. There is nothing that keeps me looking at the pictures or pages.

General Comments:
A: I like all the different wrapping paper you had in the background, I just wish everything wasn’t so blurry or crunchy. Please look again for something called ‘Save for Web’ or similar so you don’t lose quality when you save. These would look so much nicer if they just were crisper. :) B: Once again, love your colours! Very cheerful and bold, perfect for a birthday party. C: I really like this layout - it's clean and uncluttered without being boring, the colours are well co-ordinated and make sense for a kid's party, and the backgrounds are well-chosen. Ronan's sunburn is also very cute, even if the rain does belie it a little. :P
+1 Friday Submission

Selly_2009 19 (56/60)

(-1) Good Photo Cropping
C: This is a sort of "general cropping issue", rather than photo cropping, but several of the crayons on the first page have leftover bits of background around them that were presumably missed by the magic wand tool. There are a few corners of photo visible poking out the side of the crayon frame, too - I suppose this is sort of realistic, but the design would look better if those bits had been cut out. :) There are also a couple of instances of the opposite - of the photo being too small, in places, for the frame.

(-2) Believable Layering/Dimension of Elements
A: The crayons and 2+3 = apple thing are giving me a hard time. They don’t look like stickers and they don’t look like cutouts. They are too crisp (I know they are clip art, but how would you really put them in a physical book) They just don’t seem real. C: The dimensions are believable - but untidy. Although overhanging elements (off the edge of the page) are fine, I'm not convinced that makes sense for the crayon frame - the way it's arranged, it looks like the top of the frame didn't quite fit on the page, rather than looking like it was intended to overhang for an aesthetic reason.

(-1) Draws Viewer In / Is Visually Interesting / Judge Likes It
I really love the design of these pages, but a few small imperfections hold it back a little. The blackboard on p1 is recognisable as a blackboard, but mostly because of the text; a little wooden frame, or similar, would make it look a bit more blackboardy and less like a simple piece of black paper. The crayon frame - I know, I've complained about it so much! I actually really like it, it's a great idea for a frame, but there are just a few details - explained above - which result in it looking slightly unfinished. The binding shadows are also quite dark and heavy - in my opinion, the binding shadow on your Birthday spread is ideal; and finally, though this didn't really lead to me to deduct any points, a slight papery texture on the orange background would have been nice.

General Comments:
A: It was a good call for you to pick your school pages over your birthday spread. These are much better than the other one. I didn’t see your note at the bottom right away and judged your other one, and this is a much better score than the other one was going to get. Great job with the color scheme and especially the little note papers. So cute! B: Very nicely done! I really like the photos you chose, they're very engaging. C: This is a great spread. :) The subject matter and composition of the photos is excellent, and really works well for this round. The decorations are very well-chosen. The little vertical strip on p2 works well to balance the page. That said, 2+3 does not equal apple - see me after class. ;)


porkypine 14 (42/60)

(-2) High quality photo (not blurry or crunchy)
A: The photos on the first page seem a little crunchy to me; I’m not understanding the details in the background. C: It's not too dramatic, but you can see a bit of crunchiness around the edges of the text and of the children.

(-3) Interesting Photos
A: Mostly these are just photos of kids standing around. There isn’t much happening that I don’t pick up from just a sideways glance. Good photos tell stories. All of them are from roughly the same distance too, no close ups. Variety would help to pull your viewer in. B: All of the photos just kind of blur together. They're all group photos with lots of backs turned towards the camera, there's no variety in photo style, no connection with any of the subjects. I can't even tell who the birthday kids are without reading the tags.

(-1) Realistic Drop Shadows / Consistent Light Source
A: The drop shadows on the 3D elements need more work, everything looks like it is a flat photos of the thing it’s representing. If they were actually 3D, their shadows would be taller and fuzzier.

(-2) Believable Layering/Dimension of Elements
A: You have a lot of ribbons and bows and little hearts spread across the pages, but none of them really read as 3D. They need more contrast in their lighting to really read. C: There are a few anomalies regarding this aspect. There's some "background" text which overlaps elements which should be in front of it - in some cases, like the "BIRTHDAY" overlapping the photo, and the "TIME FOR FUN" overlapping the journaling card, it could be done like that realistically, but it just looks a little odd. In other cases, like the bit of "BIRTHDAY" that overlaps a ribbon, it doesn't really make sense at all. The scale of the ribbons is also somewhat off - none of them are unrealistically scaled, but there is a bit of inconsistency between the different ribbons, especially with, e.g., the pink ribbon, which is duplicated in sizes so different that at least one of them ends up looking out of place as regards the other.

(-2) Nice Fonts (not Comic Sans or Papyrus)
A: This is still a terrible font. It’s overused and doesn’t actually look like handwriting. (You don’t lose points for switching fonts between themes!) B: Lucida Handwriting is just not a good handwriting font. It is very hard to read the tags because the font is too fancy.

(-2) Cohesive Color Palette for each Life Event
A: There are just far too many colors happening in this spread. I understand it’s a birthday party, and you’ve got a good set of subtle oranges and pinks, but it’s hard to focus on anything because there is just too many colors. C: The color palette is a little overwhelming in its variety. It's hard to explain, especially since I'm not terribly good at color theory. ;) But, essentially, I agree with your decision to use a multitude of color, given the event. If you want to use contrasting colors, though (like green and pink), it's usually a good idea to stick to a few quite similar shades of each color - so you end up with several unified "bands" of color - green, pink, orange, and so on. On this spread, though, I think there's too much variation within those color "bands" - for example, the lime green on the ribbons is sufficiently different from the sort of (darkish) grassy green on the background paper, that they come across as two separate colors rather than versions of the same color. The same is true of the turquoise text and medium blue text, pink background bits/pink ribbon one/pink ribbon two/purple ribbon, and so on. The end result is that I see loads and loads of separate colors vying for attention, rather than there being a few strong central colors (or color bands, to use my own horrendously misappropriated term) holding everything together. I hope this little novella made some kind of useful sense...

(-2) Good Mix/Balance of Images and Other Elements
A: The little heart things everywhere are weirding me out. They seem to be stickers that you’ve placed on top of your kids in the photos, which makes me think this is a Valentine’s Day spread. You’ve also placed them next to names in your text – oh! Are those to point out which kids are yours? Still don’t like them. That could have been achieved better by having a close up of all three of them next to the cake or something. C: With such a busy background, I think you could have done with a few less decorations. :)

(-4) Draws Viewer In / Is Visually Interesting / Judge Likes It
Too many colors, too much going on, everything is busy, even the photos. I don’t like it, there is no place for my eye to rest and nothing that directs my eye around the page. It’s all just in my face. B: I find the whole thing a bit busy. There's lots of little ribbon embellishments, but the background pattern (though quite cute) is really strong too, they kind of clash. C: Overall, I like the spread. I really don't think there's any need for me to ramble on more about colors and business. >.< It would be nice to see more variety in terms of decorations, rather than sticking primarily to ribbons. It also took me a little while to figure out the rationale behind the placement of the hearts - I'm not sure I have a better solution for pointing out the birthday kids, except maybe hats or something, but in any case, the choice of hearts seems slightly random - it's not really a symbol I'd associate with a kids' birthday party, especially when it's not a very girly party. :)

General Comments:
A: Your school spread was lovely! I wish you had submitted that one for judging instead. It has good balance. Try to use that one as an example for the last round, not the birthday spread. B: I do really like the pretty pink colors, and the background pattern is quite pretty too. C: This is vibrant! I know I've criticized the colors above, but while there are a lot of them, they are all nice colors, bright and happy without being too saturated. Similarly, although I've criticized the technical execution of the layering, the actual design in terms of layering is fantastic - elements overlap enough to keep things interesting and looking home-made and scrapbooky, but never in such a way that they obstruct other elements or trip over one another; and the text, especially on the backgrounds, is lovely - I love the printed (as in, potato-printed) look of it, not to mention the positioning and choice of words.
+2 Saturday Submission

InesMarie 17 (51/60)

(-2) Interesting Photos
A: All of your photos are taken from very far away. It took me a few minutes to figure out which child was yours. Good albums include photos from farther away and close ups. B: It would be nice to have one close-up of the birthday girl. I've been staring at the photos for a few minutes and still can't tell whose birthday it is!

(-1) Good Photo Cropping
C: A couple of the photos could do with being cropped a bit closer, in order to focus more on the subjects - particularly the one of the kids playing basketball (for this one, the cropping would be fine if the photo was bigger; but the combination of wide cropping and a small photo is making the kids very tiny), and the last pic in which one of the kids is actually ageing up.

(-1) Realistic Drop Shadows / Consistent Light Source
C: Most of the shadows you've done are great; the one criticism I have of them is that a few more 3D elements, especially the rose, should have bigger shadows than the flat elements like the text and photos. Several of the flowers, however, have a light source which doesn't match that of the scrapbook as a whole - it's difficult to get the shadows to match exactly when you're using photos, since they'll probably always be too long or too short, but you can rotate the flower to get the direction to match up. :)

(-1) Believable Layering/Dimension of Elements
A: Your flowers could use better shadows, right now they all look pretty flat because their shadows are short and close to the flower. 3D things have taller/longer and fuzzier shadows to show height.

(-1) Good Use of Text
B: It would be nice to have a little more.

(-1) Good Mix/Balance of Images and Other Elements
B: The combination of the really bold striped background and all of the flower ornaments is quite busy, particularly since there's so much purple.

(-2) Fits and Portrays each Life Event well
A: With so many flowers on the page, you don’t automatically assume it’s a birthday spread. At first glance it seems more like springtime. Including elements a little closer tied to birthdays and parties would have been better. C: The photos work well for a kids' birthday party; but while I like the layout, colors, decorations and so on, they don't really give an immediate impression of a birthday. The layout isn't inappropriate for a birthday, it's just that it could equally well be for a wedding, or a day out, or something else like that.

General Comments:
The color palette and flowers are very pretty, it just doesn’t say birthday as much as it should. I really like the purple paper and the glitter purple title letters. Those letters are extremely well done. Where did you find them/how did you make them? I really like the color purple. :) B: I like how you've arranged the photos on the pages, good composition! C: This is a very well-balanced spread: the photos are the centre of attention, but they don't dominate the pages. The colors you've chosen are very nice, attractive, and they work well together. I especially love the background - I am kind of a sucker for both stripes and purple ;), but it's also just the right level of busy, and very elegant.
+1 Sunday Submission

Croutonian 18 (55/60)

(-1) High quality photo (not blurry or crunchy)
B: I know you said you're having trouble compressing the size, but I do have to penalize for the crunchiness.

(-1) Realistic Drop Shadows / Consistent Light Source
A: Your lighting changes directions on a couple of your elements. The buttons are lit differently, and the flower is lit from a very high top left. That bubble sticker heart at the top of the second page is lit from the bottom left, while the bubble sticker stars are lit from the top left.

(-1) Good Mix/Balance of Images and Other Elements
C: The first page seems a little bit too crowded - not by much, I think just making the two presents in the middle smaller/removing them would have sorted it. The number of different elements and colors and so on sort of obscures the images, especially since the photos are also quite busy. :)

(-1) Draws Viewer In / Is Visually Interesting / Judge Likes It
A: OMG, your color scheme is blinding. It’s cohesive, so I didn’t take points for that, but it’s really bright and that makes it hard to focus on anything. The second page isn’t nearly as busy as the first, so it’s a bit jarring between the pages as well.

(-1) Fits with the Style of the Previous Pages.
A: All of your other pages have had nice pretty subtle colors, this was the first that was overly saturated.

General Comments:
A: While it’s busier than heck, I absolutely love all the little elements you’ve added to your spread. I didn’t notice the tiny little bow box cut outs at first and they are adorable! The longer I look at it, the more I see, it’s great! (cept, plz tone down the colors next time ;) ) B: I love your attention to detail, particularly with little things like using a different font for dad's handwriting! C: This is a fabulous spread. :) You have a great sense for layering and balance, and the color scheme is perfect - contrasting without being overwhelming, and suitably kid-friendly.
-1 Day Late

jones7659 15 (45/60)

(-1) High quality photo (not blurry or crunchy)
B: The photos themselves aren't really blurry, but some of the elements - like the party hat ornament - are. C: No over-compression problems, you've escaped that plague! A few of your decorations are quite blurry, though - especially on the first page, I think probably as a result of just being enlarged too much.

(-2) Good Photo Cropping
A: Your photos are so small this round! What happened? This would be such a cute page if the photos were bigger. C: Mostly the cropping is good, however the piñata pic and the dog pic could do with being cropped more widely: the piñata photo has a few kids with the tops of their heads chopped off; and it took me a minute to work out who Max was, since the dog is mostly cropped out and, at a glance, looked like a design on Connor's shirt.

(-1) Believable Layering/Dimension of Elements
A: Are the photos inside a shadow box? It looks really flat and odd. They don’t look like they should be that flat.

(-1) Includes Book Binding / Page Shadows Down the Inside Edges Throughout
B: There are page shadows, but they're huge, unrealistically large.

(-5) Good Mix/Balance of Images and Other Elements
A: Is that confetti, cake crumbs, or fish tank rocks on your pages? I can’t really tell. B: Both pages just seem a bit empty. The photos are tiny on the page, and some of the ornaments are quite large. C: It would have been nice to have more of the space dedicated to photos. I know you like to do small photos, which is fair enough - but it just seems like these pages have a lot of unused space, especially around the edges. :)

(-1) Fits and Portrays each Life Event well
A: The color scheme calms the page down, which is the opposite of what a birthday party should be. Without the text on the page, I would not know this is for a birthday party.

(-3) Draws Viewer In / Is Visually Interesting / Judge Likes It
A: There is a lot of blank space left on the page, it would have been nicer if the photos were larger. With the first page, that box makes everything balanced and it doesn’t draw my eye around the page. B: It feels a bit sterile, or something. Just not appealing to my tastes. C: This is an attractive design, but it's not necessarily a memorable one - it seems a bit *too* clean and neat, almost to the point of being a bit sterile.

General Comments:
A: Seems like you had trouble getting this page done, it’s not as good as some of your other ones. I really liked the idea of a puppy for a present, no one else did that! B: Very cute photos, they really tell a good story and keep the focus on the birthday boy. C: I think my favorite part of this spread might be the text. The happy birthday looks a bit awkward - exactly how I remember words cut out of card or craft paper looking when I was about 11. The little written notes are well-placed, and (yeah I'm gonna go into literary wtf mode here), very expressive of the heart and soul of a kid's birthday (see?). The decorations are cute, and the blues work well with each other and are appropriate for the event. Nice job. :)


Congratulations to Selly, our Round Winner! Also congrats to Croutonian who had the next highest score!

[Selly_2009]

Selly, what rules do you use in your hood to decide who can go to Uni?As the Applebys live in my Build-A-City hood, and I'm using some of iCad's new ruleset (http://redmond-flats.weebly.com/rule-additions-deletions-and-tweaks.html) for Uni, sims are only eligible if they either rolled Knowledge as their Primary aspiration OR they have a career LTW that requires a degree. Daisy fulfils neither of these, as she is a Popularity sim with a LTW of Celebrity Chef. Plus, as the 4th generation heiress to the legacy, she's already got her hands full learning the family business! ;)

porky, I'm not averse to using InSim or the Blender for aging purposes, but as all the other families in the hood are playing catch-up big time it's not a problem in my mind if I spend time in other lots to get kids to the desired age. Imagine it if you will: 74 households ALL requiring a minimum of 2 sim-weeks worth of play, and 46 of those require 3... even if I play for every waking moment bar work and mealtimes it's going to take weeks if not months just to get them back in sync!

[porkypine]

Ok! I finally got the graduation from college pages done. I guess judge that rather than the prom. :0)

Selly,.. Yikes! I have families galore and they are all out of sync. I don't even try to keep them the same. I guess I have mostly been modding stuff rather than playing actual sims. I mainly use them to test drive whatever I'm working on. I haven't done anything in Sims2 since High Rollers. Unfortunately, that came out right when Sims3 came out so it didn't get the notice it would have otherwise. I did have a heck of a lot of fun making a martini shaped hot tub for that mod group. (My husband's suggestion. :jest: ) Well, I tried to make it martini shaped but the sims behinds kept poking through the walls so I had to make it a sundae shape instead. It's complete with an olive twizzle stick and ice cube steps. It's all transparent :jest: The other thing I had a blast making was the peacock showgirl outfit, complete with little peacock heads on the shoes. Gaudy peacock colors too. :jest: So.. I play when I make silly things. If they are good enough I upload them.

Thanks Croutonian and Selly for not quitting! Your pages are really good looking. I'd hate to win just because I got early bonus points. I am clearly not talented enough at this scrapbooking and sim herding endeavor. I also don't have all those fancy digital scrapbook things some of you have been collecting over the years - which is why my pages don't match up theme/element-wise. :0)

Congratulations to the winner! Thanks Phae for holding this contest. I hope I learned enough to make a digital scrapbook of my family tree that won't hurt the eyes of my relatives. :rofl:

I am off to a contest that doesn't have to manipulate those recalcitrant sims! :lol: I am going to build things. :0) Here I come Q!

[InesMarie]

Hello, I've upload both the Prom and the graduation pages. Please judge the prom. I had fun making it. I was attempting to make it elegant and regal. It ended up looking a little like Christmas because of all the gold tones.

Thank you Phae for holding this contest. I've enjoyed it. Good luck everyone.

[kateisl33t]

Sorry I haven't been respondant with this fourm, I'm dropping out of the Contest.


Oh, and LOTS of these look goregous, I don't know how they plan to pick a winner! :gjob:

[whiterider]

I'm sorry to hear it, kate! I'm pretty sure you can still do this round if you like, since I don't think you get disqualified for missing one round. :)

[Selly_2009]

While it's been fun, I'm glad that this is the final round; from what I've seen today my BACC hood is on the verge of blowing up! :cry:

I'll endeavour to get the final pictures and do spreads (if the clothing-changer had worked I'd've had prom photos by now) but obviously the last thing I want is to render the hood unplayable before I'm able to rebuild it.
I don't want to drop out so close to the finish line, but if needs must I will...

[Phaenoh]

Kate, I'm sorry to hear that, technically you can miss a round without being DQ'd, so if you want to finish out the contest by doing a graduation page you still can.

Please don't drop out Selly, you are one of our top competitors! Technically, you only need 1 photo per page, so if you can get that and fill the rest of the page with 'memoriabilia' it would still make for a great entry and it should destroy your hood much more.

[Selly_2009]

Don't you mean "it shouldn't destroy the hood much more" Phae?

Anyway, good news is I've managed to get some Prom photos (need another two or three for variety, but that shouldn't take long), and with a little rehashing of the building aftrwards I can use it for Graduation too :) The spreads are looking more likely now.

[Phaenoh]

Yes, I fail at typing more often than you know. Usually I catch them though. I used the same building for my prom and grad photos too. I forgot to link it to you all though, it's twoflower's American High School (http://ww.modthesims.info/download.php?t=265052).

[Selly_2009]

Unfortunately it seems that it's not just my hood that's dead - my laptop went funny earlier and without it I can't do anything! I'm currently unable to connect to the Net on my new one, and I've also mislaid the disc for Paint Shop Pro so can't install that anyway.

Therefore it is with the utmost regret that I have to bow out of the contest :cry:

Good luck to the rest of the entrants and may the best win.

[Phaenoh]

Are you sure Selly? You still have a week and a half to get something scrapped together.

[Selly_2009]

Well, as I've had success at finding the all-important disc after turning the room completely upside-down, AND hopefully got all my files to transfer to the new laptop (not to mention that for the moment this computer is just about coping with me online), I'm going to take back my last post for now. I can tell you really don't want me to quit, and to be honest it nearly killed me to type that last line!

Providing I can get Sims running properly on the new one (ie without 64,000 crashes) quickly, I'll keep going... Now that I've got PSP installed, I can get on with making at least the Prom spread. I got enough pictures before the comp went wonky to be able to manage that. ;)

[Phaenoh]

Selly! What great news. With the extended deadline, you definitely stand a shot at completing. You also might want to store a backup of your work somewhere in case your computer goes down again.

[porkypine]

That's good news Selly. :) You may want to remove any CC you aren't using for that household and community lot. Your computer may run better.

p.s. for future contests, I suggest you use a blank neighborhood, that way, it won't matter if the hood goes wonky.

[Phaenoh]

Or at least make a backup first so when it all does go to hell you can turn back time a few weeks and everything is ok again.

[Selly_2009]

Thanks for all the suggestions guys, but in fairness I can handle a hood going wonky; no doubt it was borked long before I got started on this contest but the constant playing of it has allowed the problems to start rearing their ugly heads! I do have some back-ups, but they're pretty old and I've done a LOT of playing since they were made.
The suggestion of using a separate "contest" hood is a good one porky, and for the others I've been in recently I was using hoods that didn't matter so much. I only used a well-established one for this as I had a sim-family perfectly placed for it and that I'd be reasonably happy with pushing out of sync. They'd be played again in due course anyway; they'll just get a long and well-earned break while I catch the rest of the families up!

The worrying thing was more the fact that playing was giving me serious graphical issues, and on more than one occasion led to full-blown crashes - I'm talking BSOD here. Having the screen go blank a number of times (in the worst case go odd first and then gradually start fading to black from one corner) was what terrified me most - I don't want to burn out the motherboard!

Anyway, graduation photos have been taken on the NEW laptop - I'll knuckle down at the weekend and get those spreads done (Thurs and Fri are my busiest days IRL) then it'll be a transfer via external hard-drive in order to upload. I should have little to no problem making the deadline. After that I'm taking a break from contests - I mean, GoS Good Genes challenge, followed by two MTS contests back-to-back all within six months = one contested-out Selly!

[leah10006]

Oh right! Here are the caps and gowns I made. Sorry I didn't have time to do all the nice things you are supposed to like removing unwanted ages, binning, or familify, or even checking if their eye brows are correct. I'll do a proper post of them after my creator anniversary. Luckily though, for picture taking, they are still perfect. I wanted to do a few more hair styles underneath the girl's hat, but I didn't get to it and it kept breaking, so the only hairstyle is the one that my teen girl has been sporting, that shortcute cut thing. I was trying to add the longstraight one, but no luck.

Edit: Whoops! Porky caught my mistake. I missed the tf outfit recolor, it should be fixed now!

Hi i downloaded these and they didnt turn up in my game Help me Please

[InesMarie]

Hello Leah - They are in formal wear and the caps are all short hair styles in hair

[leah10006]

thank you very much :gjob: :D :D

[leah10006]

i uploaded both prom and graduation spreads :)
p.s is this the last round because i was thinking of wipeing my laptop

[porkypine]

Yes, this is the last round.

[leah10006]

Yes, this is the last round.

Thanks porkypine

[Phaenoh]

How's the last round going for everyone? Friday is your last day to get them in! I'm still missing pages from most of you. :(

Last night I finally finished my Europe Trip scrapbook, its 110 pages long, and here are a few of them for your enjoyment.

[porkypine]

Those are nice pages Phae. :0) I am curious. What is the Minute Maid paste in on the Paris page for? :0)

I think people forget the deadlines. :0( All the last ones will get minus points and that may have discouraged them. Selly had computer problems which is a shame because Selly, Croutonian and Jones made way better scrapbook pages than I did.

[Phaenoh]

When I was in Paris for a week, I was sick as a dog (I think it was the water). My last day there I wanted to climb to the top of the Eiffel tower before I caught a train back to Frankfurt, and that Minute Maid was the only thing I'd had to eat or drink in the last 4 days. I bought it on the middle level after climbing up all those stairs.

The deadline isn't until end of day tomorrow, so late points aren't subtracted until Saturday. I'm really hoping everyone can finish out the contest.

[InesMarie]

I hope they enter their grad pages too. It would be a shame for them to not make it.

I'm sorry you got so sick in Paris. That makes what should be a wonderful, adventure a bit of misery. I'm surprised you were able to climb so many stairs after being so sick!

[Phaenoh]

I'm just happy that I instantly got better the second I crossed the border back into Germany. My birthday was in a few days and I had a concert to go to (it was awesome). I was traveling by myself for 6 weeks (Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, France, and Belgium) and a few down days in Paris was my only real issue. I wasn't about to let a little stomach bug keep me from climbing the Eiffel Tower or seeing Notre Dame or the Pyramid at the Louvre. I probably could have seen more things if I hadn't been sick, but those were really the only things I was interested in seeing, so it worked out fine enough. I took the Tower one set of stairs at a time, I was a little light-headed, but I went slow and I made it. It was a trip of a lifetime for me. No regrets at all, which was what I was telling myself when I was climbing all those steps. I knew I'd hate myself if I wimped out.

[Selly_2009]

As someone else who has been to the top of the Eiffel Tower (I went up it back in 2000), I'm glad you made it up there! Did you get a reasonably clear day so as to enjoy the view? Shame the French portion of your European jaunt was blighted by being ill, but at least you got to see the minimum you wanted. Your pages look great by the way! ;)

Back on topic, my final spreads are up - I discovered AFTER taking the Graduation photos that the graphics card wasn't engaged (I'd taken them on integrated graphics, which are worse than on my old laptop), but by then I'd had enough of trying to pose the sims and was trying to summon the enthusiasm to make the darned pages... :lol:
Couple that with the idiosyncratic British weather (weeks of almost constant rain and very low temps for summer, followed immediately by a week of ridiculous heat; today was cooler but the humidity was almost unbearable) and it's a miracle the computers and my knees stood up to the task...

[Phaenoh]

Yes Selly, thankfully I had a nice day. I had pretty good weather over all. The few days it did rain I stayed inside and worked on my Lego project (the whole point of me being in Europe in the first place).

I'm so happy you were able to get your pages in, and the graduation ones are ridiculously cute. I honestly can't even tell that they were taken with integrated graphics. I love the black cutouts on the bottom.

I hope the other contestants are able to finish out the contest as well, it kind of feels like we have lost energy on it and now it's just dragging on and someone needs to take it out back and shoot it (that'd be my responsibility :( ). Today is the last day, so let's finish strong! We have a final round of judging and then a winner to award a cute blue ribbon icon to!http://www.modthesims.info/static/images/ribbon.gif

[porkypine]

Yea! Selly got her entry in! Where's Croutonian? Watching the Olympics? and Jonesy?

Come on guys! Let's get some competion going! :king:

Phae - Do you have any pics of your Lego entry? :beer:

[Phaenoh]

Oh right, my contest is over, whoops. Lol.

Croutonian and jones, please try to get your spreads in soon! You will start losing points tomorrow. :( Or, let me know if you are out so it won't hold up judging. I'd much prefer you be late a few days than not finish.

Sadly, no, I'm not sure if I'm allowed to show images yet, but I sent off an email about that because I really want to include it in my portfolio as I start my job hunting.

[Croutonian]

I'm attempting to, but spent a week with my Mac telling me I had the wrong disc in (I most definitely had the right one!) then a week of me and Mac suffering from UK heatwave again - cooler today tho, so fingers crossed...

[aUserName]

I’m late, but I managed to post an entry for this round. I didn’t have much time, so, unfortunately, it’s definably my worse one.

I’ve been looking over everyone’s entries again, and there are so many really great photos and little details. I really love everyone’s work.

[Croutonian]

Update: I just need my disc drive to behave and let me load the game to get a couple pics done - pages are all sorted otherwise...

[Phaenoh]

K guys, its been like a week and a half past the deadline. We are holding up judging, are you two going to have your pages in or not?

[InesMarie]

I think it's time to shoot the horse. :( Poor thing isn't going anywhere.

[InesMarie]

Hello Phae. I realize you are waiting for Crotonion and Jones but the 4th round has exceeded the July 27 finish date by 15 days. I suggest that if you aren't going to judge round 4 perhaps you should declare Selly the winner since she had the most real points of those participating in the last round.

[Phaenoh]

Actually, we aren't waiting on them anymore. Now we are waiting on the judges. ;)

[Selly_2009]

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.

[porkypine]

Lol Selly.. You're gonna let me take the lead using 'early points!' YEA! cuz I certainly lack talent... lol

[Selly_2009]

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!

[porkypine]

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. :rofl:

[porkypine]

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. :rofl:

[Phaenoh]

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? :P 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!

:gjob: :beer: :gjob: :beer: :gjob:

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 ;) :Pint:

[porkypine]

Congratulations Selly! You won fair and square. :0) Now hand over that ribbon. ;) (just joking,)

Thanks Phae for holding this contest. I hope my scrapbooking skills improved a little. :)

[Phaenoh]

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. ;)

[Luvyuyu]

Lovely contest! sadly I came here very late but congrats everyone! you all did so well =]

[whiterider]

Congrats, Selly - and everyone else! :D

[leah10006]

Well done Selly and also thanks Phae for doing this contest and to all the judges

[Selly_2009]

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...

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! :p

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. :gjob:

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!

[heaven]

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!