Multiple rejection syndrome (will trade remaining dignity for photo help)

[Sommattlier]

I don’t have much online presence, especially for a 20-something, which has perhaps amplified the pain I felt after a third rejection of a photo I thought was good or at least perfectly acceptable. Here's how it went:

1st attempt - Too much or too little contrast

It's flat. Got it. So I adjusted levels to add more pop.

2nd attempt - Too much or too little contrast + Bad framing

I guess I over-did the contrast. Highlights too pumped? I'll bring those down. Also now screeners tell me they don't like how it's centered. Fine. I can fix that. I read all the forums, posts, and blogs to make sure I know what boxes to check.

3rd attempt - Too much or too little contrast + Over processed/bad processing


Now I'm reconsidering my experience of reality. I've run through the checklist: no haze, no blur, meticulously centered, everything else is Goldilocks. The over-processed tag hurt the most after my attempts to devine the desired amount of contrast. And for reference, the original photo is below. Under-exposed to protect highlights and I only had to touch five sliders (exposure, highlights, shadows, contrast, saturation) to obtain the results above. I am no editing wizard.



As my self-worth drains, I ask the community here for guidance. Am I getting everything wrong or does my simulation need to be rebooted? If the former, what can I change to meet the bar? If the latter, what's the best email for our overlords' IT department?

Thanks in advance,
Matt

[dmvAviation]

I'm no expert as I only have 12 photos on the JetPhotos platform, but the first and second images definitely look out of frame, or uncentered. They seem to be a bit too low. For the ones that got rejected for overprocessed / bad processing, there's a pretty clear halo going around the aircraft. From what I know this can be caused by using the highlights / blacks / clarity slider.

Judging by the raw file, this photo might not be "fixable" to upload onto the DB.

Then again, I'm also pretty new to this, so don't take the things I say too seriously until a photo team member replies.

[Michael Rodeback]

I just want to say I love the title. Six stars for that!

[ajspring]

I'll chime in because this wasn't too clear to me until I started reading a lot of the prescreening threads: often, and it seems on this particular photo, the term contrast isn't referring to the photo itself but to the way the light is hitting the aircraft. JP mostly prefers a definite source of light creating large differences in light on various parts of the aircraft. If you page through the database, you'll see that in most daytime photos, the top portion of the fuselage is in bright, clear light, while the belly is heavily shadowed.

In this case it looks like the photo was taken in diffuse light (presumably through light clouds like the ones in the background of the image), so there is not a huge difference in light between the bright spots (nose, above cockpit, leading edge of tail) and dark spots (the underside of the front half of the fuselage). In general you will have a tough time getting proper lighting (at least for JP) in anything other than direct sun.

That is my relatively-new-to-this attempt to assist, would love for more experienced spotters to chime in and correct me as necessary.

[dlowwa]

As my self-worth drains, I ask the community here for guidance. Am I getting everything wrong or does my simulation need to be rebooted? If the former, what can I change to meet the bar? If the latter, what's the best email for our overlords' IT department?

It might be a good idea if you could actually post the exact images that were rejected. These are all highly compressed and were not what the screeners saw when screening, so if you would like honest/accurate feedback, you'd need to start with those images. It's not really worth commenting on the ones you've posted above.

[Sommattlier]

These are all highly compressed

You know I'm actually glad you said that. I also feel like the photos look like garbage but I thought it was because I'm used to UHD and 1080p is so two thousand late. Perhaps you can help me here too. I'm exporting from LR CC as JPG, long side 1280px, 100% quality. The RAW file (after crop) is 4729x3152 so I've obviously got plenty of pixels. Here's that one restricted to 4600px, the upload limit.

[Sommattlier]

I'll chime in because this wasn't too clear to me until I started reading a lot of the prescreening threads: often, and it seems on this particular photo, the term contrast isn't referring to the photo itself but to the way the light is hitting the aircraft. JP mostly prefers a definite source of light creating large differences in light on various parts of the aircraft. If you page through the database, you'll see that in most daytime photos, the top portion of the fuselage is in bright, clear light, while the belly is heavily shadowed.

In this case it looks like the photo was taken in diffuse light (presumably through light clouds like the ones in the background of the image), so there is not a huge difference in light between the bright spots (nose, above cockpit, leading edge of tail) and dark spots (the underside of the front half of the fuselage). In general you will have a tough time getting proper lighting (at least for JP) in anything other than direct sun.

All really helpful; thank you. I hadn't consciously noticed the sunshine bias but you're right. I guess I'll have to train myself out of some principles of "good photography." I feel badly for folks in oft overcast places.

[dlowwa]

You know I'm actually glad you said that. I also feel like the photos look like garbage but I thought it was because I'm used to UHD and 1080p is so two thousand late.

Indeed it is 2022...when 90%+ of site traffic is via mobile devices and UHD is pointless for most.

Perhaps you can help me here too. I'm exporting from LR CC as JPG, long side 1280px, 100% quality. The RAW file (after crop) is 4729x3152 so I've obviously got plenty of pixels. Here's that one restricted to 4600px, the upload limit.

Don't see any red flags with those settings, but somewhere along the line you are introducing a lot of compression. Just look at the file size for the 2000pix image in your post - only 258k. I would expect it to be at least 5x times that. The images you actually submitted were not so heavily compressed, which is what I'm trying to tell you - can't give accurate feedback here in the forum if we're talking about/looking at two different versions of the same image.

[Sommattlier]

can't give accurate feedback here in the forum if we're talking about/looking at two different versions of the same image.

It may have been a CC issue (not having the original file stored locally). Here are the same three photos looking just as they did when submitted to screeners. I hope this helps and thanks in advance.

[dlowwa]

It may have been a CC issue (not having the original file stored locally). Here are the same three photos looking just as they did when submitted to screeners. I hope this helps and thanks in advance.

The middle image looks best for contrast, but is slightly low in the frame. The final one is centered better, but whatever you've done to try to adjust the contrast has introduced halos around the aircraft. Best to avoid any adjustments to shadow/highlights, clarity, vibrance, etc.. as doing so often leads to halos and thus an overprocessed rejection. That being said, the needed adjustments should only be minor; to me it looks more like a slight underexposure issue than contrast.

[Sommattlier]

The middle image looks best for contrast, but is slightly low in the frame.

Okay I reframed it. Good to go?

[dlowwa]

Okay I reframed it. Good to go?

There are still some light halos visible, but otherwise would be ok for me.