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From bobfranke@halcyon.com:
Nice napkin and the smoke is excellent.  There is 
something about the lighting that make is very hard to 
distinguish the floor from the table and the table from the 
ash tray.  The cigar ash is also pretty good.

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From grimmg@hotmail.com:
NO SMOKING

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From gmccarter@hotmail.com:
Pretty good smoke on the cigar.

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From tina@tezcat.com:
Very cool idea.

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From djconnel@flash.net:
This scene is close to being a really good one.  The one 
small problem is it is
a bit surreal-looking -- is it a tabletop?  A somewhat 
broader view would
help. Also, the cigar needs just a bit of work -- a bit of 
glow, perhaps?
I don't make a habit of looking at lit cigars, so don't 
have a reference.
The writing on the napkin isn't quite right -- it appears to 
be with a felt-tip,
but that would "bleed" heavily on a porous napkin.  I 
would have scanned
actual napkin-writing.  Still, a few improvements and this 
would be an excellent
image!

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From east103@dialaccess.com:
The 'marbled. surfaces could use some specularity.  Nice job with the cigar
though I would think there might be some orange glow at the end.

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From ethelm@bigfoot.com:
Good idea, interesting arrangement. Objects on 
tablecloth seem to be floating in the air.

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From blaineholmes@hotmail.com:
Nice galss.

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From clem@dhol.com:
This image has several good points, balanced by some 
definite flaws.  The dirty floor, the nasty, poisonous 
smoke and the stupid, disgusting cigar (yes, I have 
opinions...) are very well done.  The ash is particularly 
good.  The dirt on the floor adds ambiance.  Some ashes 
in the ashtray would have helped, too.  The story and 
topic connection are conveyed by the image, although 
they are nicely implicit.  on the downside, the 
construction of the ashtray and shotglass are much too 
massive.  The yellowish tinge of the shotglass is also 
poorly chosen.  The strong reflection of the napkin while 
other items show little or no reflection is jarring.  The 
quilted texture you mention on the napkin is a good idea, 
but after resizing and jpegging, what is left of it just 
looks like a noise artifact.  Why did you resize from 
1200x1024?  Taking that down to 800x600 involves a 
change in aspect ratio and consequent distortion.  It is 
nearly always much better for quality to work to the 
target size and fiddle with AA if necessary rather than 
downsampling.  The biggest problem with the image is 
the ugly mutant jade bartop, especially that bizarre 
stretching around the edges.

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From jaime@ctav.es:
Sorry, Sean, but your intuitive spanish translation is not correct. "Cifuente"
it's the last name of someone, supposedly one of the cigar manufacturers, bcos
the particle "y" means "and". So, the word you substituted by "POV" is the last
name of the other manufacturer. In spanish, usually this is the name of a
company with two partners, as in english "Hamilton and Smith" would be the name
for a company created by you and your fictitious partner called "Smith".
Well, apart from the free spanish lesson :), your cigar is very nice, with a
nice ash and smoke, also with a realistic bumps on the tobacco leaves. Perhaps
the color seems to "yellowish" on my monitor (gamma?). The glass is also very
nice, but the table/ground is not very clear. Also, the connection with the
theme is not very obvious..


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From r@haka.saunalahti.fi:
Marble countertop? That's the oddest marble I've ever seen, could've sworn it
was green slime. Especially as the note seems to be sinking into it. I suppose
that for a place with a countertop like that, the non-conservative designs for
the ashtray and the whisky glass shouldn't come as a surprise, but even if I
accept the glass I'd be suspicious of any whisky that has the color of ripeseed
oil. The dirt on the floor is well modeled.