Pictures rejected

[Umberto28037719557m]

Hi guys, I would like to know which are the defects of my pictures that are refused like official motivation "quality issue".

Thank you very much for your help!

[Abambo · Accepted solution]

IMG20220916113349_v2: Did you compare the competition of a cup of coffee? The framing with that Jeans leg in the picture is not really appetizing. The two coffee stains also do not contribute to improving the picture. I dislike to drink coffee now.

IMG20220919172852:

Nice try, but the foreground and the background need to be worked separately. The foreground is too cool, the background is overexposed. You have that painterly look, that makes any rescue effort lost. There is no detail left in the marked area:

IMG20220919170510_v2

You guess: painterly look:

The overall image could be darker, especially the sky and the hills/mountains. It's a nice perspective, however.

IMG20220919171732_v2:

I suppose you submitted a model release for the people in the picture. If not, you will need one.

The white balance is off, too yellow.

As for the rest, the picture is overexposed (the sky is blown out) and you have this painterly look of overly noise reduction:

IMG20220916102005_v2:

All those pleasant details get lost by your excessive noise reduction.

You also have chromatic aberration:

With all your images, you reach the limits of your camera. The best of your images (from a camera POV) is the coffee cup, and here also, you have strange reflections and low quality for the plates.

Most of your shoots are nicely framed, but are lacking simply the required quality that your camera does not provide.

[Umberto28037719557m]

Hi ABAMBO, what do you mean when you say "painterly look"? I suppose you mean as a defect.

[Ricky336]

The so-called 'painterly' look is to say, that the pixels are compressed so much that it begins to look like brush strokes in a painting.

(Correction - The so-called 'painterly' look is to say, that noise reduction is aggressively used so much that the pixels begin to look like brush strokes in a painting.)

Another thing to consider is that ...

Most cameras use JPEG to save storage space. The pixels, which make up the image, are compressed together using a lossy compression method.  The file size of the image being compressed is permanently reduced by eliminating unnecessary (redundant) information. This results in artifacts - JPEG compression is the result. 'Painterly' can be used to describe this 'blocky' compression that @Abambo  has used. (Although, it is probably not a great word to use as it could cause some misunderstanding.)

In all your shots this 'blocky' appearance can also be seen. If it is a smartphone camera, JPEG compression can be more noticeable, especially if you enlarge the image! (As could be the case when used commercially.)

Using JPEG compression is great though, as you can have a lot of photos on one card.

However, there is always a trade-off - space vs quality!

Noise reduction and JPEG compression among others are important things to consider when regarding quality!

[Umberto28037719557m]

So you always suggest to take picture in camera RAW.  In this way you haven't this type of problem, exactly?

[Ricky336]

Yes, if you can. Although taking in raw takes up more space and involves more work, and you need an application like Lightroom/Lightroom Classic to post-process the photos. When saving as JPEG, you choose the compression amount, and how much noise reduction to use.

[Abambo]

So you always suggest to take picture in camera RAW.  In this way you haven't this type of problem, exactly?

By @Umberto28037719557m

You choose your processing and have a chance to save many of the details. If the picture is bad, it stays bad, however. I use raw for all my pictures.

[Abambo]

The painterly look is like brush strokes on a canvas: you do not have the fine details that a photograph would have. What you love on a painting

is a defect in photography. It happens when noise reduction is applied strongly with a following sharpening operation. Small sensor cameras have this problem very frequently, as they have to fight the noise aggressively. On the small screens of the phones, those pictures look great, but as soon as you zoom in and look at the pixels one to one (100%, one pixel on screen = one pixel in the picture), you see the defects. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Painterliness

No noise reduction (I've chosen an especially noisy image, and I've taken out all noise reduction for this):

Noise reduction (my result is near to what many phones produce):

It's not related to the blocks in the JPEG compression, even that an aggressively denoise picture is easier to compress.

[Ricky336]

Yes, I misspoke (or mistyped!), although JPEG compression is an important thing to consider, another is noise reduction, which gives that painted kind of look, if used too much!

I explained a different issue, but still important when regarding quality!

[Umberto28037719557m]

I think that I have understood what you mean. If it depends also by the capacity of camera could you give some examples of good camera? I had an old entry level (d3100 Nikon) and I would want to change it between for example new mirrorless? 

[Abambo]

There are two considerations:

1. More important than the camera is the lens. I've seen enormous changes in picture quality when going from consumer to professional lenses and from zoom to prime lenses on the same body.
2. I have pictures in my database from my old EOS 20D, that, when I stumble upon a nice picture, I still submit and that gets accepted. So, it's not the camera, it's the subject and the quality of the picture.

Whatever new camera you buy today, it should be a mirrorless, as this is currently the best available technology. Then you should consider full frame above APS. Then you should consider handling and compatibility with your current lenses and other equipment. However, this said, the latest full frame DSLR as used equipment may be a bargain. And they are still good enough for most photographic challenges.

I look mostly into https://www.dpreview.com/ for tests and test images of cameras I'm interested in.

One last remark: The really very latest camera of any manufacturer may not yet be supported by your preferred software. If that is important, and it is hell important for me, you should wait to buy, until the support is implemented.

[Umberto28037719557m]

Thank you very much.

[Abambo]

You're welcome.

[Jill_C]

I agree with all @Abambo comments. It should be easy to detect whether the image is in focus by zooming in on the roads sign in this  image: IMG20220919170510_v2.jpg.  It's not readable, therefore not in focus.

[jacquelingphoto2017]

Hi @Umberto28037719557m,

The first image is underexposed and not completely in focus. You either went in too close or had too much of a shallow depth of field.

The second file has a white balance issue. The highlights/exposure is a bit too high.

Too much of the third photo is out of focus. I believe you had too much of a shallow depth of field and also you place the focus at the wrong place.

There's also a white balance issue with the fourth photo. It's too cool.

The fifth image also has a white balance issue and a small amount of chromatic noise.

Best wishes

Jacquelin