I challenged myself to make an image as fast as possible, with decent looking results. I ended up with this picture.
Made it in about 15 minutes + 5 minutes in photoshop.
decent??? that looks better than i could do, great atmosphere!
raw render please 
i am alwasy sceptical of photoshop altered images as i know what it can do 
Alltaken
a really large version would make a great desktop image.
Too much grain if you ask me, and i’m guessing most of the mood was created in photoshop.
But its still a great image.
wow amazing work there, i persoinally love SMC (speed modelling contests) in irc, i sometimes make my best stuff in 30 minutes.
as for photoshop, why do ppl care so much, the finished product is the art, it doesnt matter what program is used just as long as it does what you want =)
only thing i can pick out of the ordinary is a bit of low res poly on the rocks, but im just a smooth freak, once again awesome work! =D
yep.
Because editing with photoshop isn’t really art. You could produce fantastic results with just the click of a button. It’s not really your art. It’s not “pure”.
Then again, If he isn’t doing it for creativity, then it’s fine to use photoshop or the GIMP. 
Yeah, I want to see one too! 
Ah, the singing stones from Black & White?
Nice!
Because editing with photoshop isn’t really art. You could produce fantastic results with just the click of a button. It’s not really your art. It’s not “pure”.
Then again, If he isn’t doing it for creativity, then it’s fine to use photoshop or the GIMP. :P[/quote]
i dont personnally think thats true, even if i am not a PS guru
Very nice image, nice atmosphere, very good for so little time.
And who cares if it has been photoshopped. Seeing the original render might be nice out of interest but it is NOT the finished artwork, the finished artwork is the image produced by the artist using all the tools at his disposal to create the image he wants. After all, surely its cheating to use blender - you make your model and then just click the big render button and it makes the image for you.
if it’s like this, then using textures, like procedurals, plugins, photomaps, envmaps, basicly anything blender calculates is not concidered as art, or pure?
what about using camera to take a picture of sunset?
it’s again click of a button and you have a picture that is not art ?
hmm… I have nothing against post processing.
art can be the process, but, art can also be the final product. it’s artists choice.
.b
Sorry, I was still in the WC frame of mind. I actually believe it is okay to use whatever tools you want to create a piece of art that expresses your artistic creativity 
, I have nothing against PS, GIMP, postprocessing, or even makehuman. (well, kinda against makehuman, but not really. 
)
(I think I was a bit jealous 
%| )
but I would still like to see a raw render, just out of curiosity.
here’s the original image. As you can see it’s very simple.
http://users.pandora.be/willem.packet1/stenen(raw).jpg
Since it would be impossible for me to make an impressive picture in 15 minutes in blender only, I decided to make it rely quite much on photoshop. This is why I made the lighting very high contrasting. It makes it much easiet to do decent post-processing work. So blender and photoshop work in conjunction here.
only thing i can pick out of the ordinary is a bit of low res poly on the rocks, but im just a smooth freak, once again awesome work! =D
Hmm, they aren’t really lowpoly. In contrary, they are subsurfed meshes. I just made them a little sharper in some places.µ
as for photoshop, why do ppl care so much, the finished product is the art, it doesnt matter what program is used just as long as it does what you want =)
Well said. Thanks.
Because editing with photoshop isn’t really art. You could produce fantastic results with just the click of a button. It’s not really your art. It’s not “pure”.[/quote]
Hmm, I agree to this at some point. If one uses one or few effects, there’s hardly any creativity in it, especially when those effects are just splatted on top of the whole image. But when it comes to the point where one is using the layers and channels, and really tweaking the different filters to “get it just right”, then it is art. And although this might seem a bit harsh comment, you really cannot do art in 5 minutes
----edit----
to make this more on-topic ;):
I like both images very much, pure B I like better. There’s nothing wrong in the photoshopped image, but it just has the basic gimmicks to make anything look good 
ok, i think this is enough now, too many threads have turned into debates and i dont think this is the place to have a heated discussion of what art is. A blender user, and a great one at that has posted art, lets concentrate on this, if you wish post something that goes further then the persons imagination in art please do so in off topic forum. I personally would not like one of my threads turning into something other then the picture i posted it for origionally, lets all have some curtesy =)
Also amazed to see the raw is very good, there has not been so much photoshop used except for contrasting and some more minor things, which i do as a habbit now days, amazing work once again, and yes i see it was just pointed definitions in the rock my eyes saw them too sharply, i take back my critique from earlier =D
ok, im sorry to do this after what i said but i cant help myself, Jolly Gnome, i beleive art is art, and as long as it has any input of creativity and imagination it is still art, programs are made for users interaction to display their imagination, i dont beleive there are many programs which take this provelage away from the user. if we are to push this anymore maybe we could make a topic in off topic forum =/
Love the image, even in raw form. Keep up the good work.
Its not art if you use a paintbrush. There’s no creativity there! %|
Nice image Hannibar.
TorQ
Im gonna hafta say i like the raw version better. Noisy images rub me the wrong way.