Unwanted

[hminx]

I thought the grubby window and washed out colours sorta added to this one.

[arne saknussen]

I think the box is fighting for attention with the head.

[Master Kraftsmann]

I agree. I like the clutter in the background, in my opinion it adds to it. I feel the box is a tad too close though. That is one cool mannequin head though!

[tamiam]

My eye goes first to the mannequin, then to the box and the the bubble wrap (?) in front of the box. I find the bubble wrap distracting for some reason. My eyes seem to dance between the 3 not knowing where to land. But maybe i have weird eyes! lol I think I personally would prefer a tighter crop to keep my eye from wandering around looking at the rest of the background and bringing the head and box in as even more of a focal point.

[NKP68]

A tighter crop and maybe this image lends itself to B&W rendering. May even show off the dirty window some too. Oh, BTW the mannaquin head looks nothing like Norman Bates.
I like it.
Ed

[hminx]

Thanks all, I tried a tighter crop and B&W but not sure about results, the grungy colours sorta go with the image I'm trying to convey here. The box does vie for your attention so I thought I'd darken it a tad

[GB1]

There's tricks you can use to make it stand out better. The right one here, I think, is contrast. I also prefer less of the left side. Here's an edit I tried for your eval. I think the subject is stronger now.

G

[hminx]

Huge improvement Greg, thanks. Now you will have to let on how you got the face to stand out so and not blow out the rest, I suspect some masking was involved here.

[GB1]

Huge improvement Greg, thanks. Now you will have to let on how you got the face to stand out so and not blow out the rest, I suspect some masking was involved here.

Err.... good question; I hit the Auto Adjust in Corel Photo-Paint and liked it. I often hit that to give it a chance to see what it can do, and about 40% of the time I keep it and tweak it from there. This time I didn't even have to tweak

btw, that Auto Adjust produces 95% the same thing as PS's Auto Levels function.

G