So I've been quiet for a bit as photography is not my job, career, etc. It's my hobby and passion to take me away from the stress of everyday life. Life for the past 8 weeks has been insanely busy with just a few small breaks for me to get out and spot with minimal time to upload or post. It seems like every now and then the screening team here decides to have a little fun prompting me to speak up and question...

Let's take a look at two recent rejections:
Rejection Number 1
https://imgproc.airliners.net/photos/air ... 434951f9bf
Original rejection: Dark and Soft
Appeal rejection: Blurry, Personal, Quality, Underexposed with the comment of "sorry Len but quite some of your shots suffer from a slight blur like this"

Anybody want to point out the slight blur... especially when the site has a tendency to accept such examples as this: https://www.airliners.net/photo/Qatar-Ai ... /4156055/L Not to mention there are also accepted images that I have in similar conditions here: https://www.airliners.net/search?datePho ... user=39305

Rejection Number 2
https://imgproc.airliners.net/photos/air ... 5979063555
Original rejection: soft and underexposed
Appeal Rejection: Blurry, Motive, Personal, Quality, Underexposed with the comment of "motive for clipped stabilizer"

Motive? But how can that be a motive rejection when the airliners.net acceptance guide rules on Motive states:

In this image the horizontal stabilizer is also clipped. However since there is equal space in front of the nose and to the right of the tail this is allowed

Let's take a look at the numbers: The nose to the edge of the frame is 7 pixels. The tip of the antenna on the tail to the edge of the frame is 8 pixels. So how again is this not balanced and therefore NOT a motive rejection? The original screener actually had it right in not putting this as motive. As for the exposure this goes back to a prior statement and topic of how the site wants you to overexpose and alter the appearance of the image from how it appeared when you actually shot the picture.


Input would greatly be appreciated.

And while we are at it, if the "blurry" police wold pay half as close attention to color casts maybe, just maybe we will have some consistency. Just utilize N304JB's arrival into JFK on 2/21 as a clear example.

Hi Len,


1.) AA738: Brightness seems okay to me, I personally would not say it is underexposed. As for the sharpness, there is something about the American titles that makes them look soft in my opinion. It might be just from editing though (e.g. working too much on an existing file).

2.) UA738: My first thought was obvious motive rejection for a cut stabilizer on a side-on. I always thought this is a clear motive rejection as it doesn't look properly motivated to be honest. Still having searched for the rejection guide, to my big surprise (and as you stated above) the picture of the Thomson 737 clearly states otherwise.
So either it is acceptable or the guide needs an update. I don't think this point was touched in the last years, still the common sense that was always used in the forum here was that such is a motive rejection.

Sorry if I can't say anything else, but I am irritated as well.

Cheers,
Julien

Thanks Julien for the response.

AA: No heavy work on it. Levels, sharpen, and resize. Equalized to check for dust.

As for the clipped stabilizer, I had a plane on the ground with a clipped stabilizer accepted in early 2016. I don't recall seeing any sort of rule changes in the past year.

Hi Len,

#1: I don't find it underexposed, but the quality looks a bit marginal. The new AA scheme is a PITA to work on, especially the titles. They always get either soft or OS when editing. But there is some sort of slight blur in the front section of the fuselage & titles. Thanks for the A350 link, that photo looks horribly blurry and I will try to get it corrected.

#2: The image does look blurry/soft and quite underexposed. Regarding motive, I guess the Acceptance Guide does support your claim.

len90 wrote:

As for the clipped stabilizer, I had a plane on the ground with a clipped stabilizer accepted in early 2016. I don't recall seeing any sort of rule changes in the past year.

It depends on the angle of the photo and how it would look with the full stab visible. In my opinion, the clipping in your shot is borderline-unjustified (disregarding the rejection guide). I don't think the photo would have suffered at all from including the stab.

Appreciate the responses.

It appears the phantom rejection reasons are continuing....

1. https://imgproc.airliners.net/photos/air ... 1f3a85a4a3
Original rejection: Soft/Low In Frame
Appealed: 10 pixel difference between the highest point of the fuselage and the top of the frame vs the lowest point of the fuselage to the bottom of the frame meaning a redo would be 5 pixels most. Also didn't see any soft spots.
Appeal Rejection: Quality and Blurry.

A look at the full size: https://www.flickr.com/photos/93082249@ ... 94/sizes/l

2. https://imgproc.airliners.net/photos/air ... fd1385f7fd
Rejection: Dark, Soft, Halos
Appealed due to not seeing anything like what the screener is. Maybe give a benefit of the doubt for slight softness on the tail.
Appeal Rejection: Underexposed and High in Frame. Personal comment: "no halos and sharpness fine"

A look at the numbers now: lowest point of fuselage to bottom of frame 224 pixels. highest point of fuselage to top of the frame 257 pixels. So how exactly is this high in frame? I know the argument from the other side will be the wing, but look at the database and you'll see MANY examples framed this exact same way. As for the underexposed... maybe the only plausible reason and that to me is critical.

3. https://imgproc.airliners.net/photos/air ... a9b0150250
Rejection: Soft, Dark, Halos
Appealed: Same reason as for number 2.
Awaiting Appeal.

4. https://imgproc.airliners.net/photos/air ... 3f5b5c3a9b
Rejection: Soft, Dark, Halos
Awaiting appeal queue space

5. https://imgproc.airliners.net/photos/air ... 098ac745be
Rejection: Soft and Dark (at least no halos rejection in this shot).

I think the ironic part here is in both rejections that went through the appeal process none of the original reject reasons were upheld. Instead we probed to find new reasons. The Southwest shot truly baffles me with how a HS wants to label that as a High in Frame when it is the exact same setup as these:
https://www.airliners.net/photo/United-A ... k9qg%3D%3D
https://www.airliners.net/photo/United-A ... k9qg%3D%3D
https://www.airliners.net/photo/Southwes ... k9qg%3D%3D

Hi Len,

1) I agree on blurry/quality. The original photo does look blurry and quite marginal quality.
2) I agree on underexposed, centering is passable for me.
3) -
4) -
5) Looks blurry/soft.

Kas, appreciate the response. Those two in appeal came back with overshaprened, underexposed, quality and blurry. Was that you? Do you agree?

That wasn't me, but I am sorry for the results of your latest batch. That's far from fun for me too.

Regarding the 2 earlier photos, I do kinda agree with the result. Thing is, when the images are slightly blurry and then sharpened, it's a short route to being blurry/OS. The exposure can always be fixed of course. It seems your images are usually underexposed/dark, so perhaps that's something to take into account when editing?

airkas1 wrote:

That wasn't me, but I am sorry for the results of your latest batch. That's far from fun for me too.

Regarding the 2 earlier photos, I do kinda agree with the result. Thing is, when the images are slightly blurry and then sharpened, it's a short route to being blurry/OS. The exposure can always be fixed of course. It seems your images are usually underexposed/dark, so perhaps that's something to take into account when editing?

What does kinda agree mean? Are you on the fence about it? Do you feel it is being a bit on the more critical side?
This batch had that lower sun angle with deeper shadow. I opted to keep it natural as to what it presented with instead of overexposing post processing. I'll bump exposures by like 0.25-0.35???

With that said the original screener was completely wrong. Hopefully that is something that gets looked into on the other end.

len90 wrote:

What does kinda agree mean?

It means I agree with the rejection.

len90 wrote:

With that said the original screener was completely wrong. Hopefully that is something that gets looked into on the other end.

All screeners get the appeals results in their E-mail inbox. We are expected to look it over and adjust our screening based on the results.

Where's the blur on this and how can an image be OS if I didn't apply any sharpening?
https://imgproc.airliners.net/photos/air ... 6333dc4d53

The cheatlines are quite jaggy. If you didn't apply any sharpening, then resizing could've been the culprit. As for the blur, it just looks slightly blurry in general.

airkas1 wrote:

The cheatlines are quite jaggy. If you didn't apply any sharpening, then resizing could've been the culprit. As for the blur, it just looks slightly blurry in general.

Here's the full size: https://www.flickr.com/photos/93082249@ ... 3/sizes/o/

So what do you do in a case where there is no post processing sharpening and downsizing for the site causes it. It seems lately I have come under more critical screening. My acceptance rate has gone down to basically 0 since speaking up. One can only hope it is a coincidence.

The thing that is funny is I always thought the point of screening is to look to accept not find ways to reject.

The full sized image does not show jaggies on the cheat lines. Therefore it is likely happening during resizing. Ordinarily I would recommend uploading at a larger image size, but in this case, the full size image shows areas that are blurry (nose and nose gear) and would probably show. You might also try to resize in steps. i.e reduce from full size to say, 1900 pix, then resize again to 1600 pix and finally to 1200 pix. I have found that it can reduce the appearance of jaggies.

Jehan

Such a livery with some small waivy lines will always show jaggies upon significantly resizing the shot. And yes generally the smaller you go the worse it gets.
So you can try to reduce it by resizing in steps or selectively applying some gaussian blur to these lines.It should help to reduce it.
You can't fully avoid it though.

Hi Len,

Just saw the Gulfstream in the DB, nice! The current version does not look jaggy, what turned out to be the issue in the end?

airkas1 wrote:

Hi Len,

Just saw the Gulfstream in the DB, nice! The current version does not look jaggy, what turned out to be the issue in the end?

Setting with resizing on photoshop. Worked with Manny. Also tweaked a few things on the routine used for editing.

Does anybody see this as being a noisy sky? My main display this week is a Retina so tough to see true pixels for noise. I've looked on my phone and iPad and did not see noticeable noise in the sky as well. Another thing is there was some faint snow falling at the time of the arrival so I wonder if that is what is being taken as noise by the screener.

https://imgproc.airliners.net/photos/air ... 74d2859ee0

len90 wrote:

Does anybody see this as being a noisy sky? My main display this week is a Retina so tough to see true pixels for noise. I've looked on my phone and iPad and did not see noticeable noise in the sky as well. Another thing is there was some faint snow falling at the time of the arrival so I wonder if that is what is being taken as noise by the screener.

https://imgproc.airliners.net/photos/air ... 74d2859ee0

Well, i didn't see any remarkable noise here too. It's ok for me.
Cheers,
Harry

Hi Len,
I am sorry to say but yes the sky is noisy (in terms of a.net standards).

Julien

Julien what's the suggestion then to reduce the noise in the sky....
Select the plane, invert the selection and then do noise reduction or is there something better?

Hi Len,

yes I usually do it exactly in this way.
Should be an easy fix for your shot, as the noise is really not very prominent.

Cheers,
Julien

So in the past few weeks things had gotten somewhat better but over the past two weeks I have been 5/5 on appeals. 5 wrongful acceptances is a bit many and I would definitely like to bring this forward to the screening team's attention. Would I be better just emailing screeners@ or is posting here sufficient.

I have these two that I am still looking at and want some more opinions on.

soft: https://imgproc.airliners.net/photos/air ... eba66e464d
- I was thinking maybe borderline on the titles but really not sure.

soft/blurry: https://imgproc.airliners.net/photos/air ... 76ed6dd2df
- everything else that was rejected from this date has been accepted on appeal. This seems similar.

Hello Len ,
As you said , the first one's Title seems very soft. And the second one i think the title and the tail seem soft too and the windows seem blurry i guess .
Cheers,
Harry

len90 wrote:

So in the past few weeks things had gotten somewhat better but over the past two weeks I have been 5/5 on appeals. 5 wrongful acceptances is a bit many and I would definitely like to bring this forward to the screening team's attention. Would I be better just emailing screeners@ or is posting here sufficient.

Not sure what you mean by 5 wrongful acceptances. Did you mean 5 wrongful rejections? FYI, the screeners get notified of all appeal decisions. I used it for feedback in screening judgments.

len90 wrote:

soft: https://imgproc.airliners.net/photos/air ... eba66e464d
- I was thinking maybe borderline on the titles but really not sure.

Front half of the a/c looks soft, but passable IMO. However, with some selective sharpening, your chances of getting this one accepted would be higher than trying an appeal.

len90 wrote:

soft/blurry: https://imgproc.airliners.net/photos/air ... 76ed6dd2df
- everything else that was rejected from this date has been accepted on appeal. This seems similar.

Looks blurry to me in the titles and tail insignia. You might try this at 1024 pixels + some selective sharpening.

Jehan

jelpee wrote:

len90 wrote:

So in the past few weeks things had gotten somewhat better but over the past two weeks I have been 5/5 on appeals. 5 wrongful acceptances is a bit many and I would definitely like to bring this forward to the screening team's attention. Would I be better just emailing screeners@ or is posting here sufficient.

Not sure what you mean by 5 wrongful acceptances. Did you mean 5 wrongful rejections? FYI, the screeners get notified of all appeal decisions. I used it for feedback in screening judgments.

len90 wrote:

soft: https://imgproc.airliners.net/photos/air ... eba66e464d
- I was thinking maybe borderline on the titles but really not sure.

Front half of the a/c looks soft, but passable IMO. However, with some selective sharpening, your chances of getting this one accepted would be higher than trying an appeal.

len90 wrote:

soft/blurry: https://imgproc.airliners.net/photos/air ... 76ed6dd2df
- everything else that was rejected from this date has been accepted on appeal. This seems similar.

Looks blurry to me in the titles and tail insignia. You might try this at 1024 pixels + some selective sharpening.

Jehan

Jehan... I meant 5 rejections that were accepted upon appeal so 5 incorrect rejections.

HarryLi wrote:

Hello Len ,
As you said , the first one's Title seems very soft. And the second one i think the title and the tail seem soft too and the windows seem blurry i guess .
Cheers,
Harry

Thanks

This one also got the blurry/soft: https://imgproc.airliners.net/photos/air ... 497fe02930

len90 wrote:

So in the past few weeks things had gotten somewhat better but over the past two weeks I have been 5/5 on appeals. 5 wrongful acceptances is a bit many and I would definitely like to bring this forward to the screening team's attention. Would I be better just emailing screeners@ or is posting here sufficient.

Hey Len, you can use headscreeners[at]airliners.net if you want to forward something like that.

Regarding your other 2 photos:
United: Tail logo bit blurry/soft, otherwise passable for me
Swift Air: passable

Len,

Re. the UPS B767, the front half of the image looks blurry to me.

Jehan

Appreciate the responses and Kas for looking into things.

Just had these two:
United 739: Blurry
https://imgproc.airliners.net/photos/air ... 5c29a3a775
- Maybe window line or is it more the conditions that makes it look that way?

NetJets Citation: Blurry, Soft, Noise, Vignette
https://imgproc.airliners.net/photos/air ... d438367ab3
- This one hit with four reasons is troubling me. I don't see any issues with soft, noise, or blurry. The vignette I'm assuming is the top left corner.

United 739: Blurry
https://imgproc.airliners.net/photos/air ... 5c29a3a775
- Maybe window line or is it more the conditions that makes it look that way?

Regarding to this one, i think the window line seems blurry.

NetJets Citation: Blurry, Soft, Noise, Vignette
https://imgproc.airliners.net/photos/air ... d438367ab3
- This one hit with four reasons is troubling me. I don't see any issues with soft, noise, or blurry. The vignette I'm assuming is the top left corner.

And this one , the vignette indeed appears on the top left corner. And the tail and engine seems a little blurry i guess. But i don't consider that it has Noise problem.

UA: Not that blurry, I would probably give you a pass on that one.
CJ: I don't see much obvious noise. Blurry, not that bad. Soft, maybe a litt, but the cheatlines are jaggy (OS). Vignetting I do see, left and right side of the frame, most noticeable in the upper left corner.

Thanks Kas! For the United 739 would I be better off appealing that one or going with this angle: https://imgproc.airliners.net/photos/air ... 204861b282 I think that second angle would still need a little bit of brightening looking at it again

This one was hit for a vignette after a HQ1... will recheck it over the weekend with equalizing unless someone else can give it a glance. Doesn't look like much to the naked eye, especially with the lighting being so bright (sunshine + snow). https://imgproc.airliners.net/photos/air ... e5d969c5c5

RE: UA 737, that's entirely up to you. I agree with you that the second photo would need a bit more brightness.
The CL30 looks quite nice.

Did you get new gear or something? Please don't take this the wrong way, but the quality of these photos looks much better than what I've seen from you in the past.

CL30 being appealed then.

No new gear. My lens was at Canon a few weeks ago for a tweak of the focus but all of these pictures are from before that was done. I worked with a screener who is a friend on tweaking my post processing. There was one or two changes to some settings in photoshop that fixed it up.

CL30 accepted.

len90 wrote:

No new gear. My lens was at Canon a few weeks ago for a tweak of the focus but all of these pictures are from before that was done. I worked with a screener who is a friend on tweaking my post processing. There was one or two changes to some settings in photoshop that fixed it up.

Nice, glad it paid off!

len90 wrote:

There was one or two changes to some settings in photoshop that fixed it up.

I'd be curious to know what these were Len, if you don't mind sharing– always looking for anything that could help my photos!

Thanks Kas!

The two changes I made were resizing before sharpening and it is now bicubic for the sampling. Sharpening now in masks to only selectively sharpen areas that need it.

Three more rejections today:
https://imgproc.airliners.net/photos/air ... d6f90cec04
Dark, low contrast, low in frame
- I personally don't see the low in frame or contrast to be too bad. Dark looks the most plausible of the three reasons given

https://imgproc.airliners.net/photos/air ... 8c3ce0f95c
Low contrast; this one will most likely be one I appeal given how similar the contrast is almost identical to this one: https://www.airliners.net/photo/Saudi-Me ... vqJMMVA%3D

https://imgproc.airliners.net/photos/air ... 349ba0b40e
Low contrast, colour, personal (magenta cast and low contrast)
- not too sure on this one

Regardless, all three are not far off.

Hi, Len
In my opinion, the contrast and the exposure of the above photos are fine. But regarding to the first one, it seems indeed a little low in frame but not very serious. And the color of the last one seems ok for me actually. Maybe the cloud seems a little magenta but .... i think is ok.
Cheers,
Harry

HarryLi wrote:

Hi, Len
In my opinion, the contrast and the exposure of the above photos are fine. But regarding to the first one, it seems indeed a little low in frame but not very serious. And the color of the last one seems ok for me actually. Maybe the cloud seems a little magenta but .... i think is ok.
Cheers,
Harry

The low in frame: looks to be around 10 pixels difference from top most part of tail to top of frame vs the bottom of nose gear to bottom of frame.
Magenta cast: tending to agree with you on the cloud making it look that way. Color similar to this accepted one: https://www.airliners.net/photo/American ... LR/4346143
Contrast on that image looks to be similar to this one: https://www.airliners.net/photo/American ... -8/4342643

Appreciate the quick reply

len90 wrote:

HarryLi wrote:

Hi, Len
In my opinion, the contrast and the exposure of the above photos are fine. But regarding to the first one, it seems indeed a little low in frame but not very serious. And the color of the last one seems ok for me actually. Maybe the cloud seems a little magenta but .... i think is ok.
Cheers,
Harry

The low in frame: looks to be around 10 pixels difference from top most part of tail to top of frame vs the bottom of nose gear to bottom of frame.
Magenta cast: tending to agree with you on the cloud making it look that way. Color similar to this accepted one: https://www.airliners.net/photo/American ... LR/4346143
Contrast on that image looks to be similar to this one: https://www.airliners.net/photo/American ... -8/4342643

Appreciate the quick reply

If according to your method ... it seems ok ... not very sure now ..
But i think others can have a try to appeal .... ~
Best wishes,
Harry

Hey Len,

All 3 look passable.
Snow on the ground, correct?

Correct, taken the day after a snowstorm. Assume contrast can only be judged in these by the tires and maybe windows?

Yeah, I usually go by the tires in those cases.

Thanks Kas. Saw the first two were added. I'll do an appeal on the third (CR2).

Two more today:

soft
https://imgproc.airliners.net/photos/air ... 51d222ba25
- maybe windows around the titles?

blurry
https://imgproc.airliners.net/photos/air ... 5fb544e4bf
- only thing that is burry to me are the props which is supposed to be unless you shoot ridiculously high shutter to freeze them and the plane looks like it is gliding

Hello Len,
The sharpness of the first one seems ok. Regarding to the second one,seems ok for me.

A320: Looks ok to me
DH8A: Looks ok to me

We do not reject for blurry prop blades.

airkas1 wrote:

A320: Looks ok to me
DH8A: Looks ok to me

We do not reject for blurry prop blades.

Thanks so I'll put an appeal on both.

Was on a really nice stretch this week with the one rejection being nicely explained.

Got these 4 rejections today:

Underexposed:
https://imgproc.airliners.net/photos/air ... 4f3c0273da

Dark:
https://imgproc.airliners.net/photos/air ... 0aee6203f7
https://imgproc.airliners.net/photos/air ... 1e4c520b15
https://imgproc.airliners.net/photos/air ... 1404c3bb46

All screened at about the same time.