Post Your Recent REJECTIONS!

[gonzalu]

David, looks reasonably sharpened to me. What was the outcome of your appeal? I say post it in the photography feedback forum and see if the screener or one of the screeners can point you in the right direction. It used to be that sometimes a soft/oversharpened rejection would result in confusion and I later found out that it was given when an otherwise blurry or too soft shot was over-sharpened to compensate. I believe the new rules are the screeners will try to reasonably explain the rejection reasons better but, could this be the case here? I notice the top of the fuselage has a bit of jaggies starting to creep in (fuselages being round should be somewhat smooth and soft atthe very edge since it is an infinite fade to the bg (this is my opinion and observation, not a rule )

I have learned that A.net sharp is a bit higher than I am comfortable with for my taste so I adjust accordingly. With that being said, I felt your image could withstand another round or even two... here is what I came up with... I say put them both in layers in PS and turn off/on repeatedly and see if you like it or not...



I wasn't careful with masking so, from the original, you will get far better results of course...

Cheers!

[alevik]

Seems either heat hazed or out of focus to me. 1280 wide doesn't help that situation either.

[Dahemody]

Here's the deal:
Canon 1DM4
Canon 300mm f/2.8L
Cropped dimensions of 4332 × 2888
"Experimental" above passenger door and the Rolls logo on the engine are clearly legible.
Very slight heat haze at full size on the bottom of the nacelles.
I've sharpened until the jaggies start to concern me.
I've printed this at 20 x 30 a number of times and it's still sharp all around.

If this isn't good enough for Anet, I don't know what they need. I don't want to start another Anet rant, but the inconsistency in screening is mind boggling. The one photo that got accepted from my last set I almost didn't submit because I know the tail is soft - quite soft. And I refuse to sharpen my photos to the point of gross jaggies, which is not uncommon to see in Anet photos.

Starting with 4000 pixel photo, the difference between 1024 and 1280 is negligible. At least quality wise. Do the screeners have something against photos above 1024?

Is sharpness/softness purely subjective? Or is there a qualitative way to assess softness?

[alevik]

Just giving my opinion.

It is very clearly soft to me, I would have spent only seconds on that image before rejecting it for soft (I did not screen it). Looking at other images from airliners.net taken from the same perspective they are sharper and crisper. You are seeing jaggies because (in my opinion) you are trying to sharpen a soft image - I see this all the time where images are still soft but also oversharpened. I admit, many people don't understand how an image can be soft *and* oversharpened, but trust me, I've seen plenty. In your case I haven't seen the original so basing my evaluation off the edited image. Your image isn't horribly soft - but to me it is soft. *edit - I notice a fellow screener chimed in on the photography forum post. Similar opinion to mine.

I'm not here to defend airliners.net. I get rejections too and they p*ss me off. Why would I upload a photo if it was rejectable, and as a screener I should know it is? I guess I'm just too close to my own images and don't judge them as subjectively as others. I had about 1000 images on anet before I started as a screener, and I'm just about to top 2000. I haven't changed my editing techniques over the years but I have upgraded my gear from the D70s to now D3s over the years, and I see a difference from my earlier images. Sure there will be inconsistencies - there are 20 or so screeners and there is no way everyone of us will interpret every image the same way. You should try it some time - I screen 500 to 1000 images a week, sometimes up to 2000 or 3000. After awhile (I've been at it for over 2 years) you get a good feel for the large cross section of quality and subjects that get uploaded.

Screeners have nothing against larger images just because they are larger. Larger images do show flaws much more clearly. I often see an image on my camera that looks good on the small screen, only to see it is soft or out of focus in the larger screen. Same effect with image size - that's why thumbnails look good when the full size doesn't. I actually do a happy dance when I get a batch of images with some at 1600 wide in good quality. Unfortunately, I would say there are less than 10 uploaders (again, in my opinion) who can upload consistently quality images at that size. Their best attribute? They don't try to upload every image at 1600 - only the ones that can support the larger size.

I see you have excellent camera gear. I do too. And I have been to that spot at KBFI several times. Unfortunately even the best gear can't always get perfect focus or overcome atmospheric effects. I've seen some great images taken with entry level gear, and some horrible images taken with pro gear.

Again - not trying to change your mind about anet or whether your image is soft or not, just providing more context to my previous answer.

[JDANDO]

Thought I had the horizon squared away on this one. Any help on what it needs?

http://www.jetphotos.net/viewreject_b.php?id=3582571

[NIKV69]

Thought I had the horizon squared away on this one. Any help on what it needs?

http://www.jetphotos.net/viewreject_b.php?id=3582571

Little bit of CCW rotation

[seahawks7757]

Soft? Where is my question, the logo's are literally not able to take anymore with out de-forming.

N553UA United Airlines 757-222 by seahawks7757


Yellow? Ya think? The sun is setting, also too much contrast. I think it is just that the shutter speed was 1/125th of a second, any feedback?

N495UA United Airlines A320-232 by seahawks7757

Also whats up with the 10 days to get results? Sounds like A.Net needs more screeners.

[NIKV69]

Great shots Brandon. Second one is a little yellow but a quick redit should fix it. As for the screening time yea queue is 11k and they average 1000 a day so it's about right. I wish they would take on a bunch of trainee guys just to screen the obvious rejects. Think about it if the veteran screeners only had to screen the close ones I bet the queue would go half as fast. Also seems like many more are uploading as well. Which is also contributing to the length. They have always screened the same # of photos a day. Just seems like a bit more is being uploaded.

[gonzalu]

Brandon, the first one, yup, very soft all over :-( Mind you am no screener bbut I am an expert because I get rejected a lot for this very thing So, loot at the cheat lines... the rear fuselage up to the APU, your rear regi and the united logo could use SOME more passes of USM. THe softness is not the whole image in my opinion. Just some selective sharpening will do it I think.

The second one, yes, it is not that it is sunset, it is more that it looks too yellow all over. Basically there was a boost of saturation in post and it can be easily seen. The real scene is likely much less yellow and just a cast of gold on the fuselage will be OK. Trust me, the camera can;t pick this up on its own LOL. Only the JPG engine or your own RAW processor can boost saturation like that. I say try to use the original default settings from the camera if RAW. If from JPG already baked like this, try a little negative saturation and also tweak the WB to neutral on the very top of the fuselage. The top of the fuse should be on a slight blue cast as it reflects the nice blue skies of the desert. Also looks a bit too contrasty to me. There should be some detail in the shadows... I aim to make the rubber on the tires black where it should be. But then stop. I like to see some detail in the belly.

VEgas is tricky to get this right as the landing zone is full of rubber and it reflects NOTHING back up to the belly. I got a few rejections from my Vegas trip for such similar situations.

Your shutter sped had nothing to do with it. The overall exposure is the one that matters. 1/125 @ f/8 ISO 100 is a similar exposure to 1/250 sec @ f/5.6 ISO 100 but less blurry

Either way, love these images... always remember A.net sharp is a bit more than you or I may be comfortable with

[gonzalu]

I took the liberty and did a couple of tweaks to yours to show you how I would deal with these ... totally my opinion and not even close to what you may like or what the db will accept :-)

Just pushed back the saturation of the yellows a bit and also boosted the Gamma by .05 to reveal some shadow detail. Added some USM to make it pop a bit more.



On this one, I just gave it a few more passes of selective USM. Compare with your original and you can see the slight boost in apparent sharpness. CLICK for full size image... these are reduced indiscriminately by the Wordpress theme

EDIT


Your Original

[seahawks7757]

Both look a little better, my only thing though is the N495UA shot now looks dark.

[NIKV69]

It doesn't look that dark besides they give a little more latitude for those late day shots from the viewing area. When the engines get lip up. Should get in now.

[gonzalu]

Both look a little better, my only thing though is the N495UA shot now looks dark.

Brandon, by all means give it a boost in contrast but please, use a Curves layer don't use Brightness or Levels as they are blunt tools. Curves allows a more graceful tuning of the areas you want to touch. I say start with a mild S curve that has a flatter shadow area and a more pronounced highlights area. Move the midtones down a but in the center so as to protect the contrast and give a boost to the brights only.

Here is what I mean... I split the screen to show the affect better and overlayed the settings to make it easier for others to visualize. Again, click image for full size view!

[seahawks7757]

I'll have to look into that some more, I appreciate the help Manny

Wondering about this one now, rejected for "Dark in spots." Just wondering what others think.

G-BNLF British Airways 747-436 by seahawks7757

[NIKV69]

Touch rejection but basically valid. The sun is obviously nose on and the rest of the fuselage is dark.