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  • Post Screening Advice Request

    Hello all, This is my first time using the forums. After being unsuccessful in trying to get pictures approved (many times), I have come here for help! Can I get some advice on this ABX Picture? Or what I need to fix. Email says
    - Over Processed / Bad postprocessing
    - Bad Composition (bad framing / aircraft not centered)
    - Cropping / Photo edges / Size Ratio

    Thanks!
    Adam

    Click image for larger version

Name:	GB2046 ABX.jpg
Views:	372
Size:	462.9 KB
ID:	1152524

  • #2
    Hello! Long time lurker, first time poster.

    First off, I am by no means a screener, and my acceptance ratio hasn't quite reached 80%, so feel free to take what I write with a rather large grain of salt. Since no one else has yet to jump in, I will do my very best to attempt to [poorly] explain what I *believe* the rejection may have been for (as I am not a screener, I cannot speak with 100% certainty on any of these). Going in reverse order, since that seems to be the easiest to most difficult to explain:

    - Cropping / Photo edges / Size Ratio:

    Your image was likely rejected for size ratio. It measures 1280x700 pixels, whereas the widest acceptable crop would be a 16:9 ratio, which should give you dimensions of 1280x720. Easiest way to fix this is to set your cropping tool on your photo editing program to a fixed ratio, rather than freely cropping each corner. If you have any questions on which ratios are acceptable, you can find these under section 1.3 of the Upload Guidelines (link provided by a friendly screener after I made the same mistake not 3 weeks ago...oops):

    JetPhotos.com is the biggest database of aviation photographs with over 5 million screened photos online!


    ------------------

    - Bad Composition (bad framing / aircraft not centered)

    Self-explanatory. Your plane is too far to the right of the frame...there is a lot more empty space/sky to the left of the nose (left extreme of the aircraft) than to the right of the horizontal stab (right extreme of the aircraft). When you upload pictures to the queue, you should see both "Horizon" and "Center" blue boxes right under your picture. While the "Center" function works great for checking vertical spacing, for lateral spacing I actually prefer to use the "Horizon" function and count the grid squares in between the left-most and right-most extremes of the aircraft and make sure they're about equal. I pasted a grid onto your picture and [crudely] circled the squares so you can see how the plane is sitting way further to the right than the left of the picture.

    ​​

    Easiest way to fix this is to overlay a grid onto your photo as you're doing the cropping to make sure the number of grid squares to the left and to the right of the plane match. I recently uploaded a number of hot air balloon pictures, and I had to re-crop each picture about 5 or 6 times until I was confident that the balloon was actually centered in the frame.

    ------------------

    - Over Processed / Bad postprocessing:

    This is where my lack of screening expertise really stands out, so I invite others to correct me if what I'm saying is absolute trash...I don't know exactly how you edited this picture, so here is my guesswork:
    - The aircraft looks to be yellow, when the livery should be a little closer to white (if it was really this yellow, then I'd be wondering what kind of raincloud these guys flew through...). Possible root causes are either pushing the "warmth" sliders too high, or maybe shooting in JPEG and letting your camera do most of the editing for you. It's also possible you may have dragged the saturation sliders a little too high, or you may have been using a built-in camera "enhancement" (like Nikon's Active D-Lighting). That D-Lighting bought me a few rejections before I managed to find it and turn it off...

    - If you click the "Check for dust" box under your queued picture, you'd see that there are a number of dark splotches or bright halos around some areas of your aircraft:

    Click image for larger version

Name:	Capture1.JPG
Views:	394
Size:	715.7 KB
ID:	1152537

    These usually come about by using the "Highlights" and "Shadows" functions in your editing software. A technique I heard which I very much like is to use only the exposure, brightness, and contrast sliders to improve the general look of the image. Any time you drag the highlights and shadows too far in any direction, it seems as though the dark or bright halos begin to appear. There are plenty of photographer Youtubers who post videos specifically about photo editing, and they've brought up a number of issues with the highlights/shadows sliders. I picked up a few techniques from some of the videos on there...you may find them helpful as well.


    That's all I've got for the editing stuff...I hope it was at least a little helpful. If there are any other photographers on here who think what I said was absolute rubbish, please post a reply...I'm learning as well. I'll leave you with this parting shot:

    In aviation, there is technique, and there is procedure. Techniques are helpful, but no pilot should ever take off without knowing his/her procedures down cold. About 95% of what I posted above is technique, and may not work for you at all. The procedures that the screeners use to make the final call on your pictures are found in the Upload Guidelines I linked above. I'd scroll through those and make sure you're complying with all the requirements to save yourself some time and prevent unnecessary rejections for otherwise great pictures.

    SEEYA

    Comment


    • #3
      Great pieces of advices there, not much to add.

      About the Youtube video, here's one of my favorite : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRcYHg1IMhM

      Regards
      Alex

      Comment


      • #4
        Originally posted by smw757 View Post
        Hello! Long time lurker, first time poster.

        First off, I am by no means a screener, and my acceptance ratio hasn't quite reached 80%, so feel free to take what I write with a rather large grain of salt. Since no one else has yet to jump in, I will do my very best to attempt to [poorly] explain what I *believe* the rejection may have been for (as I am not a screener, I cannot speak with 100% certainty on any of these). Going in reverse order, since that seems to be the easiest to most difficult to explain:

        - Cropping / Photo edges / Size Ratio:

        Your image was likely rejected for size ratio. It measures 1280x700 pixels, whereas the widest acceptable crop would be a 16:9 ratio, which should give you dimensions of 1280x720. Easiest way to fix this is to set your cropping tool on your photo editing program to a fixed ratio, rather than freely cropping each corner. If you have any questions on which ratios are acceptable, you can find these under section 1.3 of the Upload Guidelines (link provided by a friendly screener after I made the same mistake not 3 weeks ago...oops):

        JetPhotos.com is the biggest database of aviation photographs with over 5 million screened photos online!


        ------------------

        - Bad Composition (bad framing / aircraft not centered)

        Self-explanatory. Your plane is too far to the right of the frame...there is a lot more empty space/sky to the left of the nose (left extreme of the aircraft) than to the right of the horizontal stab (right extreme of the aircraft). When you upload pictures to the queue, you should see both "Horizon" and "Center" blue boxes right under your picture. While the "Center" function works great for checking vertical spacing, for lateral spacing I actually prefer to use the "Horizon" function and count the grid squares in between the left-most and right-most extremes of the aircraft and make sure they're about equal. I pasted a grid onto your picture and [crudely] circled the squares so you can see how the plane is sitting way further to the right than the left of the picture.

        ​​

        Easiest way to fix this is to overlay a grid onto your photo as you're doing the cropping to make sure the number of grid squares to the left and to the right of the plane match. I recently uploaded a number of hot air balloon pictures, and I had to re-crop each picture about 5 or 6 times until I was confident that the balloon was actually centered in the frame.

        ------------------

        - Over Processed / Bad postprocessing:

        This is where my lack of screening expertise really stands out, so I invite others to correct me if what I'm saying is absolute trash...I don't know exactly how you edited this picture, so here is my guesswork:
        - The aircraft looks to be yellow, when the livery should be a little closer to white (if it was really this yellow, then I'd be wondering what kind of raincloud these guys flew through...). Possible root causes are either pushing the "warmth" sliders too high, or maybe shooting in JPEG and letting your camera do most of the editing for you. It's also possible you may have dragged the saturation sliders a little too high, or you may have been using a built-in camera "enhancement" (like Nikon's Active D-Lighting). That D-Lighting bought me a few rejections before I managed to find it and turn it off...

        - If you click the "Check for dust" box under your queued picture, you'd see that there are a number of dark splotches or bright halos around some areas of your aircraft:

        Click image for larger version

Name:	Capture1.JPG
Views:	394
Size:	715.7 KB
ID:	1152537

        These usually come about by using the "Highlights" and "Shadows" functions in your editing software. A technique I heard which I very much like is to use only the exposure, brightness, and contrast sliders to improve the general look of the image. Any time you drag the highlights and shadows too far in any direction, it seems as though the dark or bright halos begin to appear. There are plenty of photographer Youtubers who post videos specifically about photo editing, and they've brought up a number of issues with the highlights/shadows sliders. I picked up a few techniques from some of the videos on there...you may find them helpful as well.


        That's all I've got for the editing stuff...I hope it was at least a little helpful. If there are any other photographers on here who think what I said was absolute rubbish, please post a reply...I'm learning as well. I'll leave you with this parting shot:

        In aviation, there is technique, and there is procedure. Techniques are helpful, but no pilot should ever take off without knowing his/her procedures down cold. About 95% of what I posted above is technique, and may not work for you at all. The procedures that the screeners use to make the final call on your pictures are found in the Upload Guidelines I linked above. I'd scroll through those and make sure you're complying with all the requirements to save yourself some time and prevent unnecessary rejections for otherwise great pictures.

        SEEYA
        Wow! Thank you so much! I have adjusted the settings you recommended and the image already seems much better! Thank you so much!

        Comment

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