imo stock should only be used to verify that the gfx is an original work, not to judge the amount of work done. you can put in a lot of work on an image and the end result may not be much different from the stock image (lighting, depth, sharpness, etc.). minimalist sigs may also suffer from this. if we need to check the effort done on an image, then we need to look at the original psd file.
Oh thats definitely a must.
After all I was the one who suggested that.
Once again its this
I wholeheartedly agree with Daemon on this one. As for what Aker said, I have to disagree halfway, you can do the same thing with a render. Just find some bg that matches, put them together, and bam~ And sometimes you don't even have to do anything to make it not look pasted, and that can be less effort than doing something with a stock at times~
But anyhoo, the thing about the stock/render and having to give it to be able to participate. This can go both ways, it can help the voters to see how much a GFXer did to their work.
But sometimes, like what Daemon said, people put a lot of effort in a stock but it seems that nothing much changed. Plus, I can help feel that some people, who want to join, might feel a bit intimidated to join, because of having to give the link to the original stock/render.
After all, quite a few ppl new to GFXing would feel that if they gave the stock they worked on, people would look and think they didn't change much to the stock, and that they wouldn't give any votes. And these said people, might not feel comfortable to work with renders yet so they stick with stocks~
That's how I see it... Sorry for the long explanation....
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