Advice on rejection

[AndrewinSing]

I'm not sure why this pic was rejected.  There are a number of similar shots from the same spot but in my, obviously biased, opinion, this is one of the better ones.  If you search for "fishing boats Fremantle" you'll see the other shots.

I'm really keen to learn so if anyone has any tips (for editing as well) that could improve chances of acceptance that would be great.  As it is this photo hasn't been edited or processed.

[Jill_C · Accepted solution]

You didn't indicate the reason for rejection, but I see technical issues as well as IP issues. There are blown out highlights and a slight magenta cast in the sky. The focus on the boats is not very sharp. The shadows are a bit underexposed. Regarding the IP issues, you will need to eleiminate every identifying mark on every boat and mast including hull numbers, boat names and manufacturers trade names.

[AndrewinSing]

Thanks Jill - the rejection was just for "technical issues".  I didn't realise I would have to de-identify the boats as well.

I can see the magenta cast - personally I feel this is more subjective than neccessarily a technical as such.

With the blown out highlights, is there a way to identify these and adjust just the highlights in Photoshop.  I am a retired television camera operator and we used to have something called zebra in the viewfinder which we used when shooting - it applied a cross hatching to over exposed areas so appature could be adjusted on the fly.

Thanks for your help!

[Jill_C]

I use Lightroom Classic for the majority of my edits, and it's easy to adjust the whites, blacks and shadows under the Basic panel. The histogram will indicate whether you have blown out areas, and the Whites slider will indicate where.

[AndrewinSing]

Thanks Jill.  Will check it out.

[Abambo]

I can see the magenta cast - personally I feel this is more subjective than neccessarily a technical as such.

By @AndrewinSing

The magenta cast is not subjective as it is present in the shadow area on white:

This means that the overall picture has a colour cast.

The equivalent of your zebra is this:

It shows overexposed areas in your picture. In the histogram in Camera Raw or Lightroom, you can enable those, by clicking the buttons to the left (under exposed) and right (overexposed).

You see, however, on the right of the histogram, that there are ugly peaks. On the second boat on the left, you see that you are missing detail. The white is simply too clean.

Your iPhone also swallowed detail. Both, the overexposure and the missing details are irreversible if they are not induced by manual correction and still having access to the original (best would be raw) picture.