Hi all!
We have had a competition for about a week.
Here was the Theme:
We had to enhance a "bad quality" photo and turn it beautiful.
We could remove background and replace, add things up, etc...
Here are the result.
Work from Akil_x
before:
after:
Work from Tobyb121
before:
after:
Work from JM-DG
before:
after:
Enjoy the view 
sir tobyb, bro jm-dg nice to work w/you side by side & being an asta GFX team.....this is a fresh start....thanX for the inspiration & fun......lets keep the fire burning
Good job you too akil!
Good job tobyb! Your "jokes for food" made me laugh.^^
This turned out to be a great fun little comp JM-DG.
Great wirk by everyone, love the background on yours JMDG.
@akil, you've done a great job bringing out the colours in yours, one thing I would say, is that with the swords you have done, you should set the blending mode to multiply, and soften the edges, It's a nice idea, but having squares around each sword looks wrong to me.
tobyb
hey ive seen tobyb tut...one of the best!! very simple & accurate....
opzz...he he he my kinda Experiment.....first timer in my series of illusion tech. in GFX...thanX for the comments try to polish it nxt series....big thanX...
sir tobyb my gfx style is very simple, am just exploiting cs effects...you can see it in my series...am not used to used stocks, plug ins etc. am relaying in my creativity,
just want to be different, but try to mixed it the next time if the stuff will be available for me....thanX
hi,actually is this place is for posting my work?
any way i put my work bellow.
before..
and after..
beautiful!......
thankx akil-x
your welcome sis.....nice sig.....keep up & experiment....
make the heading of this page like..
gfx competition.otherwise no body knows it.
i try another
before
after
good work sis....just refined your clone on the upper center & to asta text....the cloned sky reflection still visible, the smoke is ok but needs variety of thickness & your beautiful girl foreshortening needs to be adjusted.....the nearer the object the bigger....and a little adjustment on the lightings/high lights along the face & shoulder of the girl to add impact/contrast & emphasis....its only my opinion.... very nice improved work...
another try by myself
before
after
Stunning works from all of you dear. + for every one. This is the field where i can only praise as I am zero in GFXing.
Why don't you give the tutorial a go, I'm working on another one at the moment, which should be a bit shorter, on adding some elemental type effects to your text
tobyb
already started with your tuts dear.
before:link
after:
i made these horror theme by using several layers and brushes
tobyb..
do you not like my work?
no comment on me why?
ellow AstAMI,
....sis, dont stop working....w/comments or not, we still have to work...we are all different & cant pleased everybody 
....to others our work looks good & bad....whats very important is we enjoy & have fun when working & take note...we should pleased ourselve, we work for ourselve, even others see it bad or good work......our work should reflect our emotions, world we see & think its our own expressions......our level of creativity & acknowledgement is different...just dont give up.....he he he
greetings to all
Good job Soft_Hunter!
Tobyb is pretty busy these times...
By the way accepting good criticism is also a way to become better...
Thanx jm.i am agree with you.without criticism how can you rank your work or correct
your work.it is necessery for quality circle.other forum i have seen they reply (even head administrator) quickly on your work.this inspires to all members to be active more and more.
i like akil x he is always active and inspires to all even pm tuts to members(for me example).actually he have done his job like a moderator.and i think the role of moderator
should lookinto all post daily and none reply post should be replied by them.so many posts
are here lying here and there(not only gfx)in intire forum section deadly.
this is my opinion only.
I am very sorry soft-hunter if you feel I have ignored you, and to everyone for being absent over the last few days, I'm currently making a flash file uploader for photoserver.ws, which will hopefully make the whole site easier to use and nicer looking, however this is literally the first thing I have ever made in flash, and action script is infamous for being quite a 'hacky' language, but I'm starting to get the hang of it now and it's nearly finished :)
I have been checking the forum regularly, and have posted bits here and there, but I like to spend time when critiquing GFX, so I had decided to wait until I was done with the flash stuff before I started going through all of this.
There is some really good work here, and I was truely impressed with your images soft hunter, especially the second one, the blending in the background is great, and shows a real improvement on the first one(which would be improved greatly with a bit of layering and some bluring), the only thing I did notice in the second image, was that where you had cut out the woman, down her left side alot of the man seems to still be there, I'm not sure if this was purposeful, as it seems to look ok, but I think it needs shaping a bit if it is supposed to be there, as it looks like a mistake to me at the moment.
I really like the horror style image as well, you have the focal point just right, and the colours are great.
One last thing I shall mention is that on the first image you did, the woman on the right seems to have a slight 1px black edge to her, this happens alot when images are cut out, in photoshop if you go Layer->Matting->Defringe and set it to 1px, then it should really clean this up.
@herr-master: a great job cutting out the image, a very clean edge indeed ;)
Hope these comments help, and sorry again that I have neglected the best section on asta :)
tobyb
ellow AsTAMi,
as a gfxers am concerned for the welfare of the team.....i tried my very best to help & inspire every one....try to reach out & share what ive learned....sometimes every one of us are busy, maybe doing some more work like sir tobyb do while in absence....just dont stop...thats why i keep on reaching and its timely sir tobyb is busy,
always learn & show your work..... our passion & spirit must never fade....gfx shall live .....just have fun & keep the fire burning....more power every one.....our progress is in our team effort & commitment.... more work pls...he he he
thankx, tobyb
for your reply.i am sorry to express something.actually i did not
know that you was busy.overall i have seen this condition in asta now.
go to banner section, before it was an interesting section, it is
now dying.i think it is now the time for close it.its become useless now.
@softhunter the banner thread always interested me, it became alot more than it set out to be, and proved that there is alot more interest in GFX than I thought, I am waiting to hear from GD about making a GFX chat and contests section, where you can post your work, and I think this should help people to get into GFX more. Keep posting your work, It's nice to see what people are doing, and makes this section a bit mroe active.
tobyb
i try manupulation
before
after
That is sweet ^^
+1