Seems I sent one bad image in once, and ever since, every single one of them has been rejected for silly reasons.

This one was rejected because it was underexposed.... The screeners must be using uncalibrated monitors, or have bad eyes.... Plenty of details in the shadows, and no blown highlights. Seems like a perfect exposure to me, sure it is somewhat gloomy looking due to the smoke cloud overhead, but it is well-exposed when looking at the histograms, and on a real monitor.



Sometimes I wonder about them...

Their loss is our gain. Thank you.

Maybe it needs a well-exposed woman.

It looks dark to me.

Looks dark to me too, it also looks like its been photoshopped. Look at the brown in the clouds as well as the color in the clouds to the right. Doesn't look "real" nor does it grab my attention.

It comes up underexposed on my monitor, too. However, I'd rather see it than have someone else decide that I don't want to see it.
But haven't we seen it before?

The photo is a little dark when you view it on an HD screen... but the clouds are definitely not faked... if you go outside, you'll see similar clouds over the course of the day. Just guessing, but there could have been a storm rolling in? or late in the afternoon/early evening?

Yep, clouds are definitely not faked, neither is the rest of it. I adjusted the levels/curves on a calibrated monitor, and did some minor work, but none of it was 'faked'.

Guess its one of those images that will look great on a calibrated monitor, but not so great on other equipment.

Yes, it may be a bit soft, but the world doesnt revolve around sharpness. I was going for a very specific look, and acheived it.

It's underexposed. It appears the scene is in a shadow of a cloud so that doesn't help. The computer program just pulled the white of the cloud out and not much else. Even if this was film it would be hard to make a good print.
Speaking of which, I was pleased with Trains magazine's submission guidelines for their photo contest. They called digitally edited photos "illustrations" and will not be accepted. The prize is a digital camera though.
I'll take film any day.

I'm just happy it's color! Not "Artsy" black and white. Your tring to recrate a monent in time past. I don't care what year it is bad light, clouds, shadows or what not is part of life. The sun is not always out and on the "right side". If you had a time machine and went back in time it wouldn't be in black & white when you got there.

I can see how one might say it is underexposed according to how it looks on my monitor. However, I cannot decide whether I read that exposure as a problem. I think it is a captivating shot, and the lighting seems to contribute to the effect.

I played around with it in PICASA, and was able to bring the engine up to what seems like the best lighting and contrast. The only thing that is lost in that process is the detail in the clouds. However, that detail and its warm color seem to contribute to the effect of the shot as you posted it. If you get rid of that detail in the clouds to make the engine lighting better, then the bright cloud itself seems objectionalble because it contributes nothing tends to conflict.

I do not have any software that can leave the cloud as it is and bring up the lighting and contrast of the engine and truck.

Interesting comment about TRAINS photo contest. Can they tell if a photo has been digitally edited? How?

RTK

Jason, the following is offered with all due respect, and only because you're obviously looking for comments - the screeners are right on. Aesthetically, it's a very nice image, but it's very clearly technically flawed. And yes, I run nothing but regularly calibrated (hardware calibrated) quality monitors. It's part of my job.

Bringing the image into PS, I see exactly what I'd expect to see in the histogram based on initial viewing. The problem has little to do with whether either the blacks are blocked up (though in this case they are - look again at your histogram and note the heavy clipping) or highlights blown (they're not) but rather your placement of the midtones, which are shifted well into darker tonal levels. Further, this has that slightly "painterly" look which digital images get when they're exposed too far "to the left" where there're fewer tonal levels available (the whole linear sensor capture vs logarithmic final output thing).

Again, compositionally it's a lovely image and I enjoyed looking at it. But yours is hardly the first very nice image rejected by Railpictures due to technical flaws. They're doing just what their guidelines suggest they will do.

Scott

Trains wants unaltered photos with the original image file name from the camera such as IMG03461.jpg not a renamed file like bnsftrain.psd. Although it's real easy to rename an edited image to any name.

who wants that?
not sure who you mean by "trains"..
railpictures.net does not require 100% unaltered pictures, color/density edits are fine..just no "photoshop" edits that change something in the image, like adding or removing scene elements.

Scot

Chris Salmonson brought this up in a post in this thread on 7/21. It is in reference to TRAINS MAGAZINE photo contest rules. I was wondering if they could detect the photo editing by some positive method. Since they have banned editing, they must have some way to detect it. I find this issue of the legitimacy of editing photos to be quite interesting.

RTK