Image rejection

So I just had this image rejected for over-exposion, softness and heat haze. However, in my opinion, and that of several others, the photo contains neither of these things.

The white on the body of the plane, especially the nose, is as white as white can get without losing details/data. A good example of this is the fact that the windscreen wipers are sharp and visible to great detail.

Furthermore, it was mentioned that the stripes are wavy, probably due to heat wave. When looking at the photo at 1:1 in Lightroom or alike software, it is obvious that these lines are straight and actually quite sharply so. The "wavy-ness" comes from the compression to AP-sized images.

This is the image: http://www.airplane-pictures.net/images/rejected-images/2014-3/381322.jpg

And the communication between both screeners and me:

(Name redacted) - 31. 3. 2014, 19:52:26

The photo is overexposed.

Bart van den Elshout - 31. 3. 2014, 20:33:59

I strongly feel that the main object, as well as the apron are correctly exposed. No details and/or data or lost due to over exposion of the image. It is exposed exactly as I intended. I would therefor like to ask you to reconsider publishing the above image.

(Name redacted) - 1. 4. 2014, 12:03:05

APPEAL VERDICT: I agree it is over-exposed and could do with some more contrast but it's borderline. The image is, however, suffering from what looks like heat haze - the stripes on the fuselage are wavy, the reg number on the tail is soft as are some of the cabin windows. Sorry.

I feel quite uncomfortable with the fact that my photo is being rejected for these reasons and wonder how other feel about this.

(I made your URL into a clickable link - Wallace)

This post has been edited by Wallace Shackleton on 1st April 2014 - 15:01

Did you look at the histogram? :>

What you you think about the items addressed, honestly?

My immediate impression is, of, he's used some form of ND filter, not hat there is anything wrong with that but already the exposure has been thought to be an issue. The sky may have been over exposed to start with...

Looking at the histogram, I can see that there is a lot of activity at the right hand end, which tends to indicate a highly exposed image, there is nothing piling up against the far right hand, so there is nothing too clipped, which is good.

A look at the Threshold layer, set to 242, which is the last 5% of the overall exposure shows quite a lot of tones and at the far end, you do have some tones in the 250/255 in front and behind the cockpit, so right now I would say that the image is over exposed as you have lost the tonality here - it contains no useful information.

In any photo, you really do not want many tones after 242 as you are on the verge of losing what you have and seemingly presenting clipped tones.

Looking at the levels palate, holding down the Alt key and moving the white triangle to the left slightly reveals the ground underneath has clipped red tones and the building to the right of the tail has clipped yellows, both indicate where is is over exposed or highly exposed in those hues.

The registration is grey in a shadow area, which is also a shade of grey, which does not make for good sharpening as sharpening relies on being able to boost the local contrast between two adjacent colours to give the impression of good colour separation and hence good sharpening.

Looking at the shadow underneath, suggests the photo was taken around mid-day, when the temperature is at its warmest, so that's a tell-tale sign. The actual cheat line below the windows, is honestly not that bad but it has an irregular appearance, suggesting that it could possibly be made better with more careful sharpening. Perhaps a more careful image resize and selective sharpening may improve this.

Lastly, there is a blue cast to the shadows, you could make the photo better with a custom white balance.

Now, having said all that, why now would you want to present your image in a high key manner in the first place?

If it is a deliberate attempt at high key then you have failed as a lot of the tones still retain a reasonable exposure. If you are going to do high key then I would suggest that you do two things make sure that you have something usable at the end of it and make sure that you make a reference to the screener that this is a high key image.

However, screeners just look at the picture, they see what's in front of them and may not be fully conversant with the more advanced photographic techniques, as many Members just want to present a standard record type shot rather than an artistic photograph and looking at your image I would screen it as a badly presented record shot rather than an artistic one.

OK the bottom line. If this is a JPEG image then I would suggest that you have a quiet curse to yourself and walk away from it, no matter what you do to it it can not be rescued. It could possibly be improved in RAW but I do not think it is worth the effort.

My advice to you and any other photographer is to shoot in RAW and learn to EXPOSE TO THE RIGHT. Look at the histogram on the back of your camera and adjust the exposure so it is near but not over exposed. Good exposure is the corner stone of any image, when you nail that everything else falls into place.

I hope this is of help to you.

Attached photos:

Way over saturated IMO also

Thank you very much for your lengthy response. It's very helpful and will definitely keep the facts you mentioned in mind when editing new shots.

Here is one to start off with

http://digital-photography-school.com/how-to-read-and-use-histograms/

The tutorial is fairly comprehensive and is from a good source for the beginner to refer to.

The other technique associated with the histogram is the Expose to the Right method and this is worth knowing

http://digital-photography-school.com/exposing-to-the-right/