Poll-Subjective IQ

[arash_hazeghi]

What is your subjective opinion about the image above?
1) Good
2) barely OK
3) poor

[Flavio Rose]

OK I'll go way out on a limb. Nice generally, maybe 1 1/2 on your scale of 1 to 3. The bird is kind of small in the frame, being represented by too few pixels to do justice to the complexity of its plumage. It looks a little soft, can't pin down why. The background looks posterized -- maybe this is my eyesight playing tricks on me, but look at the blue areas near the bottom of the frame directly beneath the bird's head, which seem too uniform, perhaps as a result of cloning something out. Whatever is underneath the tail (undertail coverts? claws?) looks like a smear to me. The white above is a bit bluish.

You have left off the exif so inquiring minds want to know: 7D or D700?

[Desmond Chan]

I have to say poor, primarily because, on my monitor, it looks like what you get when you apply too much noise reduction.

[Lance Peters]

Dont look like d700 to my eyes.

[arash_hazeghi]

Thanks guys, I am just trying to optimize my NR process, doesn't matter which camera it came from.

[Alfred Forns]

Having trouble with the image Arash Quality is not there !!!

[Ed Cordes]

I voted OK as it looks like a large crop in need of sharpening, but I don't think the image is beyond recovering. If you used overall NR, I would use some software like Noise Ninja which allows you to selectively apply NR to specific areas like BG without diminishing the detail of the subject.

[Dan Brown]

I'd like to vote ok because I love the BG colors. If you could smooth the BG noise, produce a print, I'm sure that the print would be attractive from a distance, but then the viewer would come in for a close look and see problems with the bird (probably noise and fuzzy edges). This would kill the print. So, I must vote poor. I have shot many images that fit this catagory and I love them on my laptop, but in the end, I delete most of them because I just don't want to store them in the hope that they will be useful:o. I do save some of these "poor" images and use them to produce illustrations like those posted in OOTB where the noise can be wiped out or exploited with software apps such as DAP or Seeram's illustration actions:).

[Kerry Perkins]

I went with "poor" due to washed out colors, lack of contrast, and not sharp at all. Would like to see overall image brighter also.

[Alan Lillich]

My first impression was OK. But after reading that the purpose was to evaluate NR, I voted poor. I see a lot of chroma noise in the BG.

hope this helps,
Alan

[Cliff Beittel]

In addition to the noise and blotchy banding, there are several areas where the noise is suspiciously absent, leading me to suspect cloning was done. Love the color though, and assuming this was done in low light, as it appears, I certainly wouldn't brighten it unnaturally (why get up early and then process to make it look midday?). Assuming the image hasn't been hugely cropped, I'd think the background noise could be softened much more effectively.

[WIlliam Maroldo]

Subjectivity is a personal preference. Based on opinion, belief, likes and dislikes, etc and varies from person to person. Subjectively a person might really like this image, since he likes soft images lacking detail. But most of what we do here is objective. Sure, we might include "I like this image" but not much we can do about other people's likes and dislikes. Although we often give what we call opinions, they are very often objectivity cloaked in subjectivity. Objectivity is where the value lies. An image that is sharp and contains lots of details has nothing to do with "liking" such an image. In the objective world we deal primarily with logic, and logical argument. A proposition is made, with reasons, counter propositions made, and hopefully we come up with a logical conclusion. For example: this image is soft and contains very little detail. Reasons and facts come into play. The light was dim, the light direction was wrong, the sensitivity of the sensor was insufficient, and the cause is what we seek to discover, for only by knowing these"facts" can we improve. Facts, reasons, logic.
Objective is observable, often measurable, and based on fact. Objectively good photographs have specific attributes: such as(but not limited to) good exposure, composition, image detail and clarity, and color balance. Reasons for lack of any or all of these are what we should hope to learn as it relates to our own photography.
This image fails on nearly every objective measure. Exposure:under/ composition: poor(rule of thirds, placing more space in front of a moving subject, or other compositional frameworks neglected/clarity and image sharpness:poor, There's more, but you get the idea. Now the question that should be asked is how can I improve my technique, equipment, or even post processing and not "subjectively how do you feel about this image". regards~Bill

[arash_hazeghi]

Subjectivity is a personal preference. Based on opinion, belief, likes and dislikes, etc and varies from person to person. Subjectively a person might really like this image, since he likes soft images lacking detail. But most of what we do here is objective. Sure, we might include "I like this image" but not much we can do about other people's likes and dislikes. Although we often give what we call opinions, they are very often objectivity cloaked in subjectivity. Objectivity is where the value lies. An image that is sharp and contains lots of details has nothing to do with "liking" such an image. In the objective world we deal primarily with logic, and logical argument. A proposition is made, with reasons, counter propositions made, and hopefully we come up with a logical conclusion. For example: this image is soft and contains very little detail. Reasons and facts come into play. The light was dim, the light direction was wrong, the sensitivity of the sensor was insufficient, and the cause is what we seek to discover, for only by knowing these"facts" can we improve. Facts, reasons, logic.
Objective is observable, often measurable, and based on fact. Objectively good photographs have specific attributes: such as(but not limited to) good exposure, composition, image detail and clarity, and color balance. Reasons for lack of any or all of these are what we should hope to learn as it relates to our own photography.
This image fails on nearly every objective measure. Exposure:under/ composition: poor(rule of thirds, placing more space in front of a moving subject, or other compositional frameworks neglected/clarity and image sharpness:poor, There's more, but you get the idea. Now the question that should be asked is how can I improve my technique, equipment, or even post processing and not "subjectively how do you feel about this image". regards~Bill

Thanks Bill, but this is not what I asked, it is just a poll not to trying to debug anything. Just pick one out of three choices based in your opinion, no explanation needed, I just want the numbers.

Thanks.

[Dave Leroy]

I'd have to say poor also. It seems to have some odd colours in it for Harriers around here to boot. Hopefully you will let us know your conclusions about NR. Dave

[Dan Brown]

Not bad for a "Poor" image Arash! I added "flood" and Topaz clean2. Oops, this isn't OOTB:eek:

[WIlliam Maroldo]

Sorry Arash! Point well taken, and I should actually read what I write before I post. I really didn't think it was such a bad image, and I obviously misunderstood your post's intent. Anyway, I sure like what Dan did to it, and indeed the image could be resurrected! I am a big fan of Clean 2 and Flood as well. regards~Bill