In preparation for the introduction of new screeners to the IrishAirPics.com / WorldAirPics.com website I'd like to give you all an idea of the screening stats for the website.
Since the 31st July 2005
30,434 pictures have been uploaded. Out of that number
23,879 have been accepted, and,
6,504 have been declined, the balance have still to be screened
A total of
30,383 pictures have been screened, this gives a declined rate of
21%, in other words
1 in 5 pictures are declined.
The Top 15 reasons for a picture being declined are as follows:
| 1 | Picture Not Level: | 834 |
| 2 | Picture Too Grainy: | 746 |
| 3 | Aircraft Blurry: | 483 |
| 4 | Aircraft Too Dark: | 433 |
| 5 | Aircraft Not Centered: | 421 |
| 6 | Picture Too Small: | 411 |
| 7 | Aircraft Too Small: | 384 |
| 8 | Aircraft Not In Focus: | 379 |
| 9 | Poor Quality Picture: | 293 |
| 10 | Sharpening Required: | 212 |
| 11 | Aircraft Obstructed / Part Cut Off: | 193 |
| 12 | Badly Scanned / Pixelated: | 189 |
| 13 | Dust Spots: | 149 |
| 14 | Heat Haze: | 148 |
| 15 | Oversharpened: | 98 |
The above figures for rejections should actually be higher except for the fact that I hate declining pictures and I would make "tweaks" to an otherwise good picture in order to accept it. Unfortunately this is a carry over from the time when the website was originally setup and I used to edit every picture before manually adding it to the site.
Over the last few weeks and months I have been declining pictures but where the reject reason might not have been obvious I've included additional comments which has has led to an improvement in uploads.
The thing is, if I can make an adjustment to an upload then so can the photographer who originally uploaded the picture.
However, sometimes it feels as if the photographer is just dumping the contents of their hard drive into the upload queue.
There is nothing more frustrating that declining an obviously bad picture and having the photographer complain about the picture being declined. Compare the picture you want to upload with other pictures on the website before uploading to see if the quality is good enough.
A lot of the pictures that are declined can be improved upon with editing prior to uploading, if you don't know how to edit the picture correctly then please learn how to. Here are links to tips on how to edit aviation pictures in Photoshop:
http://www.jid.me.uk/workflow/Workflow2/index.htmlhttp://www.airliners.net/faq/editing_guide.phphttp://www.airshows.co.uk/blogs/photography/(Photoshop is pretty much the industry standard but if you don't have Photoshop or Photoshop Elements the above instructions can more than likely be translated into whatever photo editing software you use.)If you feel I'm being too harsh in my decision to decline your picture feel free to question it or appeal the decision. And if you still aren't happy with my decision then I suggest you try submitting the picture in question to the likes of Airliners.net or JetPhotos.net and see what they have to say about it.
These websites have accepted pictures I wouldn't accept and I have accepted pictures they wouldn't accept but the fact is these websites are setting the "industry standard".
All feedback and comments, as always, are welcome.
Regards,
Frank.
