LHRSIMON From United Kingdom, joined Apr 2002, 1342 posts, RR: 25 Posted (9 years 3 weeks 2 days 7 hours ago) and read 2017 times:
Well i at last submitted my first 19 photos and im pleased to say that 2 got accepted. With another just needing a bit of work on the color. Well heres the question. I getting a bit confused with regards "LOW QUALITY" as all the other photo's were rejected on this point. To be honest i cannot see the difference with the 2 accepted photos and the rejected ones. As i do not want to waste the screeners or my time downloading photos that are just going to be kicked back for low quality i need some help. Can anyone give me some help like "if the photo has this ......... its low quality".You know just some tips on how to spot "low quality". Heres the photos
IL76 From Netherlands, joined Jan 2004, 2235 posts, RR: 51 Reply 1, posted (9 years 3 weeks 2 days 6 hours ago) and read 1989 times:
Simon,
Can you explain your post-processing technique?
My first impression is that something strange happened in the sharpening phase. All edges around the airplane touching the sky are jagged and blotchy...(of the first 3 rejected shots I opened) Did you blur the sky? It seems that with blurring the sky, you also blurred the outer edge of the plane... The rest of the airplane is generally way oversharpened.
Some of the rejected shots are not completely sharp and therefor hard to "fix", but it seems that most of the originals should be of alright quality. A different post processing would make a diufference. Didn't you bring this up in an earlier thread?
Cheers,
Eduard
EDIT: Do you have opportunity to post an original sized picture somewhere on the web? Then I (and others) can try to edit it aswell, to see if I (we) can improve it.
LHRSIMON From United Kingdom, joined Apr 2002, 1342 posts, RR: 25 Reply 2, posted (9 years 3 weeks 2 days 6 hours ago) and read 1966 times:
Hi Eduard.
There was a earlier thread and i was told the main problem was the fact i was downloading at 1600 rather than 1024. This i have changed. Also the fact i was sharpening before i resized was also a problem. Again thanks to you guys i have changed this.
I think where im getting this problem is the fact that maybe im oversharpening in an effort to get the picture 100% clear... But I think the BIG problem with the edit is the fact i use the "magic wand" tool to highlight the sky. Then i despeckle it. Maybe this is what giving the edges a strange effect.
I will look into this..... Thanks for the advise
Simon
Canon 1D Mk III,Canon 20D+17-40 L f4.0,70-200 L IS USM f2.8,400 L USM f5.6,135 mm L f2.0, 50 mm f1.8,1.4 x II extender
Skymonster From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 6, posted (9 years 3 weeks 1 day 18 hours ago) and read 1853 times:
Simon,
They are all way too washed out. I've tried adjusting the levels in Photoshop and the colours do come up real nice with only a few seconds work. However, there's some strange ragged fringing round the hard edges (tail, fuselage, etc) which I can't fix - not sure how you "created" that, but maybe saving at too low quality...?
LHRSIMON From United Kingdom, joined Apr 2002, 1342 posts, RR: 25 Reply 7, posted (9 years 3 weeks 1 day 18 hours ago) and read 1849 times:
Thanks Andy..... I agree i think i overdid the contrast and washed all the color out...
With regards the aircraft edges. As i explained above i have been using the "magic wand" tool to highlight the sky. Then doing a despeckle on it to get rid of some of the grain. Maybe the magic wand tool is cutting into the edge of the aircraft and giving it this effect. Could this be correct ???
Thanks for your help.
Simon
PS: Sorry to keep bothering everyone. Its just i realy want to improve the photos. And the screeners auto reply "Low quality" realy does not give me any guidane on how to improve them/or my knowledge level....
Canon 1D Mk III,Canon 20D+17-40 L f4.0,70-200 L IS USM f2.8,400 L USM f5.6,135 mm L f2.0, 50 mm f1.8,1.4 x II extender
Skymonster From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 8, posted (9 years 3 weeks 1 day 16 hours ago) and read 1831 times:
I'm surprised if grain is a real issue - from checking your previous posts, I see you use a 6mp+ camera and I'd have thought that the grain was practically illiminated in the resize down from 3000+ pixels to 1024 - check on the resize options you're using (bicubic). However, use the lowest ISO setting if you're not already doing so. Do the contrast work (use the levels function and as a first step bring the left and right arrows in to the edges of where the histogram shows some tone) on the full size image, downsize, then use unsharp mask last (not sharpen!) before saving.
If you're "magic wand"ing and despeckling before resizing, why? Downsize the image first and see if grain is still an issue on the 1024 size image - if it isn't, forget despeckling. If you find you must use magic wand I would do it on the large version, but only do it if grain is obvious on the smaller version. FWIW, you can feather the selection to ensure that it doesn't actually select the edge of the airplane.
If you want to send me an image out of the camera to take a look at, I'll do that (drop me an e-mail through a.net and I'll reply so you can send another e-mail with an attachment), or upload an out-of-the-camera image to some private webspace and let us know where it is.
Fireguy274 From United States of America, joined Dec 2003, 299 posts, RR: 8 Reply 9, posted (9 years 3 weeks 1 day 16 hours ago) and read 1809 times:
LHRSIMON can you tell us what camera and settings you are using? What are you saving the pics as - high quaility jpeg med quality etc. There should be no need to mess with grain if your shooting at iso 100 and atleast high quality jpeg. Your pics dont look like they are out of foucs so with the right processing I think youll be ok......Artie
LHRSIMON From United Kingdom, joined Apr 2002, 1342 posts, RR: 25 Reply 10, posted (9 years 3 weeks 1 day 15 hours ago) and read 1808 times:
To : Andy
I will check my resize as bimetric. And maybe knock the despeckle on the head aswell. It seems to be causing more problems than anything. With regarding sending you an unedited pic. I cannot do this at the moment as im at work. I will email you one later today for your comments if that ok. Its a bit as i suspected. It seems its still my processing that needs some work. I have read all the online tutorials already but alot of this stuff seems to be just down to experience. And getting your eye in !!!
To : Artie
Im using a Fuji finepix S7000. ISO is on auto but the min it will go to is 200 which most photos are taken at. I currently save as high quality jpeg @ 6 mil pixels. As you have said (and i agree) i think the photos are OK but its my processing that needs work. Thanks to you guys i think im getting there bit by bit....
Canon 1D Mk III,Canon 20D+17-40 L f4.0,70-200 L IS USM f2.8,400 L USM f5.6,135 mm L f2.0, 50 mm f1.8,1.4 x II extender
IL76 From Netherlands, joined Jan 2004, 2235 posts, RR: 51 Reply 11, posted (9 years 3 weeks 1 day 10 hours ago) and read 1767 times:
Simon,
About blurring the sky, you can do it, but most of the time 'not sharpening' should be sufficient.
What to do (perhaps you already know):
Take the 'magic wand' tool in Photoshop and select a threshold between 3 and 10. If you click somewhere in the sky, you'll get a shapeless selection, not containing all of the sky. Then press the 'shift'-button and select another piece of the sky, making the selection bigger. Make sure you don't select any part of the aircraft. If you do, undo your last step and do it again with a lower threshold of the magic wand tool. Keep selecting using 'shift' until you caught all of the sky. Then, go to the menu 'select' and press 'inverse'. Now you have selected the airplane. To make sure you have the outer edge of the airplane completely you can expand the selection with 1 pixel by using menu 'select'-'modify'-'expand'. And then you apply USM. (50, 0.3, 0 a few times)
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