BTW, I didn't realize you could open them wide, so I went back and revised my votes after looking at them again... not much changed but after looking at the B&W of the tree I noticed the river in between the tree and buildings. That added to the excellent quality made it pull ahead of #1 by one star in my book... if the tree was leaning away from the buildings and the image were flipped horizontally I'd give it a perfect score.
Contest #1: Mother Nature Due 11.02.08
- Thread starter Jeremy Ordan
- Start date
I agree... something about 1200 x 675 sized, vertical or horizontal obviously being a choice.
Adam J McKay
Veteran
I as well did not realise you could open them larger. I am going to go review now.
Adam J McKay
Veteran
I am drawn to #6. It looks like something out of No country. I like it.
For me and my voting I am finding it hard because I can't seem to distance myself from thinking about the things I would have done to suit my tastes, which doesn't necessarily make any image bad, just not what I would have done. It's interesting voting on photos and comparing them to your own without trying to be biased. I was one of the people who voted my image(s) 10 automatically. Not because I think they are better then everyone else but because individually I think they are worth a 10 because they are my babies. But to be fair I have dropped an image down from it's 10 spot to a 9 because I am not all that happy with it.
As far as rating goes. I am trying to base my ratings on each individual image I am not so much comparing one image to another.
long story short. I have a hard time rating photography.
Maybe we should have a ratings guide?
thoughts?
For me and my voting I am finding it hard because I can't seem to distance myself from thinking about the things I would have done to suit my tastes, which doesn't necessarily make any image bad, just not what I would have done. It's interesting voting on photos and comparing them to your own without trying to be biased. I was one of the people who voted my image(s) 10 automatically. Not because I think they are better then everyone else but because individually I think they are worth a 10 because they are my babies. But to be fair I have dropped an image down from it's 10 spot to a 9 because I am not all that happy with it.
As far as rating goes. I am trying to base my ratings on each individual image I am not so much comparing one image to another.
long story short. I have a hard time rating photography.
Maybe we should have a ratings guide?
thoughts?
Jeremy Ordan
Major Contributor
Rating systems are going to be individual and I will not endorse a rating guide. That being said, future contests will not allow you to vote for your own images
Good idea Jeremy. And what about a standard size?
I was thinking something that will fit on most monitors while keeping it as big as possible. 1024 x 768 is certainly the minimum. How about pushing it just a bit higher. And how about making then a standard aspect ration too... widescreen 16:9 probably the most popular and many cameras shoot that or close to it now. That's how I came up with 1200 x 675...
Though maybe there could be a maximum with and maximum height also allowing you to make a 768 (or some other number) the vertical count but having to keep it 16:9.
I was thinking something that will fit on most monitors while keeping it as big as possible. 1024 x 768 is certainly the minimum. How about pushing it just a bit higher. And how about making then a standard aspect ration too... widescreen 16:9 probably the most popular and many cameras shoot that or close to it now. That's how I came up with 1200 x 675...
Though maybe there could be a maximum with and maximum height also allowing you to make a 768 (or some other number) the vertical count but having to keep it 16:9.
HorseFilms
Look ma no hands
That being said, future contests will not allow you to vote for your own images
Good. I did not and will not rate my own stuff, even if it costs me an easy 10.
Adam J McKay
Veteran
I third the idea. Great idea. I think I am going to make my own rating guide to keep my on track when rating a photo. So to be fair, can you not include my ratings for my own photo's for this one as well? I could go back and give them all 1 star but it be better if I didn't get any of my own cred.
Thanks a bunch
Thanks a bunch
Good. I did not and will not rate my own stuff, even if it costs me an easy 10.
Which was yours? So I can ruin your average. Muahahha... :beer:
Larry Rutledge
Fest Master
The original idea was to allow full res images to be provided, but to scale them down for easy viewing within the context of the page. For those who haven't discovered it yet, clicking the image on the page will pop up the full res version of the image. For those who are asking for predetermined size constraints, what is the reasoning behind it? Why not allow for the larger version to be accessible? It is certainly possible to make the initial display larger, but we have to make sure it is viewable by the majority of viewers who might come by to view/vote.
Regarding the voting ... the system we are using is the same one we use for the DVXFest Film Festival. Each image is rated on its own, not ranked amongst the other images. Take each image on its own ... view it and decide where that image falls, in your estimation, on a scale of 1 to 10. You represent your choice by selecting the equivalent number of stars. The moment you click the representative star it is instantly recorded, but until voting closes you are free to change the vote.
The idea is not to rank the photos, do not give one image 6 stars because it is slightly better than an image you gave 5 stars. Rate each film on its own. We then total the votes entered by all users and calculate the average vote and rank the photos based on that average.
The advantage of this system is it prevents people from swaying the results by giving 1s or 10s. There are people who will give their own, or their favorite, photo a 10 and give the others all a 1, thinking that they are pulling down the other images and boosting their own. But because it is an average it doesn't have significant impact. The average actually tells us what the overall consensus of the image is. You might only give it a 1, but if it really is a 6 then the bulk of votes will be between 4 and 7, thus giving an accurate representation of the voters.
The other advantage of this system is that as long as at least 5 people vote honestly for each entry it doesn't matter if everyone votes for every entry or not. One entry may get 50 votes and another only get 10, but because it is an average of the total votes for that entry the result comes out the same.
When we initially devised this system we ran a tremendous amount of theoretical numbers through the system and proved this to be the case. Then during the recent TimeFest Film Festival we watched the system in action and saw that this was truly how the system worked. There were people who tried to sway the outcome by giving 1s and 10s, yet they had no significant impact on the total average, and definitely didn't push the entry up or down a single position.
The only way to sway the system is to get all voters to agree to under vote, or over vote, but unless the majority go along with you it won't have an impact.
This means that even if you vote 10 for your own entry it doesn't really have an impact. Some people have argued that you should give yourself a 10 to counteract every one else giving themself a 10, but as I've explained it has no significant impact anyway.
There is also the argument that you should give yourself a 10 because if you were running for president wouldn't you vote for yourself? This argument doesn't work. That is a count of votes only, so of course you include yourself because you, as a competitor, definitely want to win. But in this case the entries are being ranked, not just providing a vote count in favor of one over another. We don't pick a single entry and ignore the rest. So there really is no reason to vote for your own entry and really isn't a realistic representation because most people can't be objective about their own entry ... and if you give your self a 10 then you aren't being honest (unless you are Ansel Adams )
So for those of you who voted for yourself but now wish you hadn't, don't worry it won't significantly impact the system. If you didn't vote for yourself, again it won't have a significant impact.
Going forward we will change the system so when you see your entry come up in the voting it won't have an option to vote for it, but the remaining entries will have the stars.
Hope this clears things up.
Larry
Regarding the voting ... the system we are using is the same one we use for the DVXFest Film Festival. Each image is rated on its own, not ranked amongst the other images. Take each image on its own ... view it and decide where that image falls, in your estimation, on a scale of 1 to 10. You represent your choice by selecting the equivalent number of stars. The moment you click the representative star it is instantly recorded, but until voting closes you are free to change the vote.
The idea is not to rank the photos, do not give one image 6 stars because it is slightly better than an image you gave 5 stars. Rate each film on its own. We then total the votes entered by all users and calculate the average vote and rank the photos based on that average.
The advantage of this system is it prevents people from swaying the results by giving 1s or 10s. There are people who will give their own, or their favorite, photo a 10 and give the others all a 1, thinking that they are pulling down the other images and boosting their own. But because it is an average it doesn't have significant impact. The average actually tells us what the overall consensus of the image is. You might only give it a 1, but if it really is a 6 then the bulk of votes will be between 4 and 7, thus giving an accurate representation of the voters.
The other advantage of this system is that as long as at least 5 people vote honestly for each entry it doesn't matter if everyone votes for every entry or not. One entry may get 50 votes and another only get 10, but because it is an average of the total votes for that entry the result comes out the same.
When we initially devised this system we ran a tremendous amount of theoretical numbers through the system and proved this to be the case. Then during the recent TimeFest Film Festival we watched the system in action and saw that this was truly how the system worked. There were people who tried to sway the outcome by giving 1s and 10s, yet they had no significant impact on the total average, and definitely didn't push the entry up or down a single position.
The only way to sway the system is to get all voters to agree to under vote, or over vote, but unless the majority go along with you it won't have an impact.
This means that even if you vote 10 for your own entry it doesn't really have an impact. Some people have argued that you should give yourself a 10 to counteract every one else giving themself a 10, but as I've explained it has no significant impact anyway.
There is also the argument that you should give yourself a 10 because if you were running for president wouldn't you vote for yourself? This argument doesn't work. That is a count of votes only, so of course you include yourself because you, as a competitor, definitely want to win. But in this case the entries are being ranked, not just providing a vote count in favor of one over another. We don't pick a single entry and ignore the rest. So there really is no reason to vote for your own entry and really isn't a realistic representation because most people can't be objective about their own entry ... and if you give your self a 10 then you aren't being honest (unless you are Ansel Adams
)So for those of you who voted for yourself but now wish you hadn't, don't worry it won't significantly impact the system. If you didn't vote for yourself, again it won't have a significant impact.
Going forward we will change the system so when you see your entry come up in the voting it won't have an option to vote for it, but the remaining entries will have the stars.
Hope this clears things up.
Larry
Adam J McKay
Veteran
Sounds good to me.
Andrew Brinkhaus
Veteran
Agreed.
Yeah, aspect ratio should definately be decided by the photograpers!
But if I may make a humble suggestion, it would be to simply remove the flash applet that pops up, when you press the image. If the thumbnail is simply a direct link to the large JPEG, most browsers will actually bring it up, as close to fullscreen as possible, and with an option to zoom in. The problem with the flash is, that even very large pics gets shown 1:1 meaning that they go way beyond the screen area, even at very high resolutions.
But if I may make a humble suggestion, it would be to simply remove the flash applet that pops up, when you press the image. If the thumbnail is simply a direct link to the large JPEG, most browsers will actually bring it up, as close to fullscreen as possible, and with an option to zoom in. The problem with the flash is, that even very large pics gets shown 1:1 meaning that they go way beyond the screen area, even at very high resolutions.
I agree.
Thanks for the long post.
Also, I agree that photographers should pick the aspect. Gi-jone's idea fixes my concern. First you see the small re-sized version, then by clicking it you have it pull up full screen, but with the option to then click it once more for a 1:1 display. I've seen that often, like Jared's comic drawing of a Red robot beating up on Sony and Panavision monsters over at Reduser. I am sure it is a simple web feature to adopt.
Also if you would want to take it to a whole 'nother leve... how about making an other level yet, where you get thumbnails of about 20 pictures per page?
Then it would be:
small multiple thumbnails > current smaller re-sized version > full screen > 1:1 original file
Thanks for the long post.
Also, I agree that photographers should pick the aspect. Gi-jone's idea fixes my concern. First you see the small re-sized version, then by clicking it you have it pull up full screen, but with the option to then click it once more for a 1:1 display. I've seen that often, like Jared's comic drawing of a Red robot beating up on Sony and Panavision monsters over at Reduser. I am sure it is a simple web feature to adopt.
Also if you would want to take it to a whole 'nother leve... how about making an other level yet, where you get thumbnails of about 20 pictures per page?
Then it would be:
small multiple thumbnails > current smaller re-sized version > full screen > 1:1 original file
Jeremy Ordan
Major Contributor
Moving forward we will not have a standard aspect ratio or file size. As a viewer/voter you should click on each image to view the photographers original intent and interpret the original files as simply thumbnails.
What Larry said about voting is dead on and he has worked tirelessly to ensure that we have a quality first experience being back with these photo fests.
What Larry said about voting is dead on and he has worked tirelessly to ensure that we have a quality first experience being back with these photo fests.
HorseFilms
Look ma no hands
Thanks for all the hard work you guys are putting into this. It's much appreciated.:beer:
Adam J McKay
Veteran
For the record, I never thought the voting system was flawed. I was just having a hard time with the voting. It was strange for me. Maybe because my stuff was in it...but all my concerns have been addressed and resolved and I can't wait for the next one. Woooo. :beer:
Adam J McKay
Veteran
Results?