FM versus non FM

Hi all,

I know there have been some discussions about this allready, but i just found two good examples which i like to discuss. In these two cases it´s about the amount of noise in an image.......though i really like the two examples beneith and i like to edit my images about the same way......i just don´t do it cause it creates to much noise when you push this to far...

When it comes to the ammount of noise, non FM´ers will get there upload rejected due to visible digital noise. Shouldn´t we give an example and respect that same rule? again, i like the shots, but to my personal opinion the level of noise is to high. I think we should keep up the same level of quality after we became a full member, as we did before we came a full member...

Please share your thoughts with me.

http://www.airplane-pictures.net/photo/224077/korea-south-air-force-black-eagles-korean-aerospace-t-50-golden-eagle/

http://www.airplane-pictures.net/photo/224105/korea-south-air-force-black-eagles-korean-aerospace-t-50-golden-eagle/

The two images referred to above

Well, i woudn`t say i`m already qualified to participate in such an argument since i started sending my pictures to Airplane Pictures about a month or so ago, and i am actually coming to know the existance of the Full Member status and what comes with it right now.

But considering the rights given to those who achieve such a status, and the quality point highlighted, i believe it`s only fair that once you become your own screener you go by the same quality standards that you came across when first submiting your photos.

Otherwise the Full Membership might become an unwanted thing, since it has the power to, when misused, reduce the overall quality of the website.

Since the Full Member does not go by the "getting accepted" instance anymore, if we can put it that way, submiting the photos should be about showing your best work, and considering the guidelines to become a Full Member, the ones that have such a status know the difference between a good and a great or excelent photo.

I understand that sometimes we like a photo for personal reasons, i myself have lots of those, even when it falls short of what we would like it to be, quality wise.

But when it comes to the photos being uploaded to a website such as Airplane Pictures, that quality wise category must be considered.

Once i heard from a photographer that everybody (including the great photographers) takes not so good pictures and great ones are a result of a series of pictures that led to it, the important point if you want to be recognised for your work being that you should focus on showing only or mostly the best ones.

I believe that is one of the main objectives of any website that have a screening process, only show the best ones submitted, what may in fact create some divergence in opinion between screeners and uploaders, but ultimately results in a good thing for the photographer since it will allow only his or her best photos to be shown.

By the way, and it`s important to make this clear, this point of view i just expressed only applies to websites like Airplane Pictures, because if the upload rules are too restrictive and don`t allow the photographer to express himself he wouldn`t be sumiting his best to begin with.

To sum things up, if you are a Full Member, what mean being your own screener, be even more critical about your work.

It is important to do so if you want to maintain the high quality standards of the website, which by the way were probably the reason you decided to submit your very first photo.

That is pretty much what i think about this question.

Oh, and sorry for my habit of writing quite a lot.

Cheers,

Flavio

Okay, respect that, then maybe better delete this forum subject....

Cheers

Menno

I agree with you Menno, too much noise. We should keep up the quality, especially FMs. (btw did you get my email / fb message about your trip?)

cheers

pfffff, good to see that i am not the only one who has this opinion. thought i was alone here :-) Emanuel, checked my spam filter, and yes, there you were! i will reply to that a.s.a.p. (need to sort some things out ;-) thanks for the response mate!

@ Paul: thanks for the heads up. first reason for raising this forum post is that i think that it´s unfair to new members, who will have their images rejected due to reasons like you mentioned above. Second and certainly not less important reason is that i think that AP has high potential and that we really should guard and maintain the quality of this site.

So thanks for your input on this matter (goes for you too Emanuel)!

Flavio, you´ve got a good point there, maybe a good idea to remove the examples Wallace? might be a bit unfair of me to do this, but i was just looking for an example, so i apologize for that....

Menno

Well, I do not agree. If you want to set an example it has to be visualized and in this case, as and editor (?) you can and should do it like this to set a statement. When people choose to upload to a public domain it is possible that your image is used for positive example promotion (wow, look at this shot, amazing!) or critical like this. Don't apologize for this because it just undermines your status as an editor. It's your point of view which I totally agree on. I have seen very bad examples on which I contacted the Full Member (both are screeners as well) and asked if they were drunk when editing :) I don't think that is "ambassador" like for the Full member status and in my opinion just makes it look as a cheap status which I don't care for at all...

Revision of the FM status is needed to give it a proper level of achievement.

Please remember that FMs are only Members with a bit more privileges and lets not get above ourselves here because if a revision of FM status was needed then Martin would do it, after all it is his web site.

So if anyone has any concerns about anothers image quality then let the Team (Team@Airplane-Pictures.net) know first before taking it upon yourself to be a site policeman. Just remember that what goes round comes round and it may be your turn to be on the receiving end of a policeman's message. Personally I would much prefer a quiet word from The Team than to have someone take it upon themselves to be the arbiter of quality on an open forum.

This post has been edited by Wallace Shackleton on 11th July 2012 - 18:22

Wallace, the apparent lack of "site policemen" is precisely the problem here!

This post has been edited by Paul Nichols on 11th July 2012 - 21:54

Menno

You have no need to apologise for anything you have said here - Andras Brandligt said the same. Your opinion as an Editor is important, more so because you bring a fresh set of ideas and opinions to the table.

Obviously some inconsistencies have been bothering you and you have spoken openly about them here - well done! There are probably other members who would also like to voice an opinion, but are afraid of doing so, because it may impact negatively on whether their pictures are accepted or rejected.

Wallace

Quote "FMs are only Members with a bit more privileges ...." Unquote. You have said this elsewhere on the Forum ....

A bit? As you well know, the fact that FM's do not have their pictures 'screened' is of such magnitude that it cannot be possibly referred to as "a bit". Getting your picture(s) posted on A-P is the whole object of the exercise! Why else would you want to bother?!

Good luck and well done to all FM's I say, you've earned the title by passing the test. Remaining true to those parameters, is now your real test.

Quote "Good luck and well done to all FM's I say, you've earned the title by passing the test. Remaining true to those parameters, is now your real test." unquote.

With this quote i end my posting in this thread.

Marius, you pretty much said in one frase what it`s all about.

Cheers everyone, and keep on bringing your best!

Flavio

amen to that! ;-)

This post has been edited by Brodie Winkler on 17th July 2012 - 16:25

Brodie, your question seems to go off-topic concerning bad quality uploads by FM and should be set as a question in the forum to get te proper respons you are looking for :) FM is the thing for you because you can upload as many as you like in 24 hours..:)

Sorry but FMs are restricted to the same 5 per 24 hours. Yes some have 'card dumped' on occasion but they always get an email from one of the senior screeners about it.

Ah I'm sorry, I saw Rick Inghams contribution today which made me think it was unlimited. Sorry about the confusion. :)

No problem :) New FMs tend to think it's unlimited but they soon get put straight :)

Well, that's probably it.. Those damn rookies ;)

ive uploaded more than 5 before and never been told

I've also uploaded more than 5 and never been "put straight".

This post has been edited by Paul Nichols on 18th July 2012 - 22:12

I must admit I've always worked to the 5 upload limit, it was something that was made clear to me when I became a FM, thats been about 18 months now. I remember this has been the subject of a number of forum posts in the past so as to prevent the site being taken over by FMs and to give other members a chance to display their own images

Just my 2pc

Dave

Well, i see Menno uploading more than 5 as well, seems a lot of FM's/screeners do as they wish, kind of strange that the rules don't seem to be clear, and even worse, no-one is applying them, or "policing" them. The 5 upload rule has een mentioned by some of the FM/screeners before so there is knowledge of this. How can you expect to be taken serious as an upload site like AP when own "staff" or "priveledged" members don't commit to simpel rules? Don't get me wrong, but the ones who are responsable for the wellfare of this site need to act and state what is allowed and what isn't and make sure everyone, member -full member or screener/editor follows them. It's an essential part of being (and staying) a successfull site! My 2 cents

Well, 2 days passed and no replies yet, and in the mean time FMs (even screeners) keep uploading more than 5... So I guess that rule is out of the window.. Does that mean the normal members get to upload more than 5 as well?

A very interesting topic. I was a FM, then they invented a new status for me... Over 2600 photos and 1,200,000 views and you'd think that I would know what I was doing... However, never really understanding the randomness of quality requirements that I think need standardising here, I have carried out a couple of experiments... After a photograph being rejected, I have recently re-uploaded it, without the requested changes. Nothing about the original rejecting issue was brought up and it was accepted. I am not saying that screening is not subjective, but some of the rejection reasons that I have had for what I believe to be quite rare images have surprised me.

I had a look at the top viewed photo a few days ago and was actually shocked to see how poor the image was from a fellow professional photographer.

SB

The five a day limit for FMs was a "Gentleman's agreement," which was never properly communicated to the Gentlemen that followed that agreement.

I have to hold my hand up and admit to uploading six today, five this morning and one this afternoon, which was of local interest so I feel justified in doing so.

Submitting images without the suggested changes, well that does work up to a point, no two screeners screen in the same way but there will come a point when the act gets noticed and the person gets reported in the Screeners "One to watch" thread and then we all should start to pay more attention to that persons output.

One member from South America was recently banned for such a practice.

To give you an insight, the images for screening are presented with the pictures of that registration underneath and any previous rejected images from that member. It is up to the Screener to notice such indiscretions. Personally, all benevolence towards that Member is lost at that point and it becomes strictly business from there on in. At the end of the day, if a bad photo gets uploaded through such a method then it reflects badly on the photographer and the site so you do yourself no favours by doing so, which was EXACTLY the point of this thread.

Remember, we are all just guests in one form or another. It is for another to decide how AP is administered.

This post has been edited by Wallace Shackleton on 21st July 2012 - 20:33

I forgot to mention that my screening workflow involves importing the image into Photoshop, It is a simple matter of bringing up the previously rejected image and pasting that into a new layer, then changing the blending more to Difference. At that point the differences should show up as white lines or subtle variations in the picture.

I use Photoshop because it slows me down and makes me look at the images closely. The Histogram is a useful tool in detecting over or under exposed tones, which has an effect on sharpening. Images are also equalised for the detection of dust spots and horizontal and verticals can also be checked.

Sharpening can also be checked in Levels by holding down the Alt key and moving the white point slider inwards.

Digital noise/JPEG compression can also be checked in an equalised image.

This post has been edited by Wallace Shackleton on 21st July 2012 - 21:18

Hi Wallace, thanks for replying.

Personally, you do not have to tell me how to screen, and don't tell US how to screen, tell your screen team, i know there are screeners who def do not do IT this way :) and there is a point which would really make a difference.

Make sure all screeners screen the same for example 5 points and use the same workflow. Let's say 1. Dustspots 2. Levels 3. Sharpness 4. Noise 5. Final check and another workflow for re-uploads. The rest would be of non-interest to this site because you want to keep the "simple,friendly but correct to a point upload site" atmosphere. (<--suggestion, not trying to say how someone should run his site)

And you don't have to share inside info about any agreement, you are part of the staff, so i expect you (since you are the first to finally reply) to report this issue to the ones that decide on this site. Don't point your finger to Martin, he needs the team to help him with these issues. He cannot do it by himself, its grown too big.

I am a user of this site and at least may expect action towards the issues stated in this topic. If not - and that is totally up to you or any other staff member - you can expect people to not take the site serious anymore and probably leave or stop uploading or whatever other action. And that would be a shame.

Finally, I think we can argue about this for a few more posts as well, but I think the point is clear if you can read inbetween the lines..

Enjoy the sunny weekend!

Removed double post

This post has been edited by Andras Brandligt on 22nd July 2012 - 08:14

I only have authority to make policy as far as the database goes, the rest is nothing to do with me or any other screener.

I can not vouch for the other screeners workflows, what they do is their own business, which is one of the points of this thread, again it is not my place or any other screeners to make policy on how screening is done. A screener is someone with enough experience to appraise a photo, someone who has served an apprenticeship as a photographer and knows a good photo when they see it. They also volunteer to do a thankless job at times.

If anyone wishes to stand by their principles then it's easy done, just drop the Team an e-mail explaining why and it will be done.

The way i see it, every Members photos adds valuein some way to the site but don't expect anyone to plead for a member to stay.

Personally I would not withdraw all my images if I were that disgruntled, I would stop uploading and retain the images on the database in the hope that they maybe they get picked up by someone looking for a photo, AP has a very good search engine optimisation. It is free hosting!

I still have piles of photos on A.net and JP.net for that same reason.

Enough the first queue is sitting at 609 with 8 in the second, so time to make a Wallace sized dent in them.

Andras, your idea of everyone following the same workflow simply isn't realistic. Just as all photographers have different shooting styles, all screeners have different screening styles, and to expect everyone to work in an identical way is unrealistic. The key to consistency isn't trying to get everyone to screen in the same way, it's discussing things openly and in depth to make sure everyone's on the same page. It doesn't matter how screeners do what they do as long as they're working to the site's criteria.

Of course, A-P's problem is essentially there is no criteria! A great idea in principle but it does bring about its own problems as we're seeing here.

This post has been edited by Paul Nichols on 23rd July 2012 - 20:13

Hi Paul, that is the exact word i was looking for, work/follow with the same criteria.. :)..

So just to clarify!.. You mean you'd like to see all screeners working to the same site criteria, rather than meaning all screeners working in an identical way in terms of screening method?

This post has been edited by Paul Nichols on 23rd July 2012 - 23:58

Yes, bloody english language, Instead of workflow fill in "criteria"..:) Sometimes, when you want to explain, it just doesn't pop in mind.....

It is called Selective Sharpening, the cornerstone of good photography but to many there will only ever be one way to sharpen and that's the one pass Unsharp mask way.

For any member willing learn more about sharpening this is one that I can recommend.

http://www.ronbigelow.com/articles/sharpen1/sharpen1.htm