Hi Folks,

This photo I submitted for curation. It scored 99% in member curation, but when expert curators started rating, it dropped to 67% for members and 1% in Expert Curator score all of the sudden. I'm not interested in improving my work, I would like to hear expert curators opinions why they chose "reject", all of them obviously.

So experts, tell me about your dislikes, I'm interested in what makes this the worst landscape photo you've ever seen... Which 1% score tells me.

Hi Mike so I get this right you don't want us to work on this image just give you our thoughts. OK here goes - 

I will divide it up if I may - forground rock structure and mountains 85% - Depth, technique and water movement 65% - Sky 27%

I love the main composition and balance and overall it works very well, Good depth and sharpness throughout. - The main weakness in my view is the sky full of hot spots and washed out texture - also maybe the bright part of the water could use some burning in. No way any part of it is 1% - I do think is could be made to look amazing - As it stands my overall score would be 55% / 64%

Thanks, Danny, not exactly what I was lookng for, but of course highly appreciated! :-)

Mike,

Thank you for starting this discussion.

I am not an 'Expert Curator'.  I sometimes wonder who they are, this mysterious group.  I understand that if members score a high 'accuracy' by voting Publish for the same photos that the Head Curators like, then they become Expert Curators and their votes have more weight.  I don't know if they are told that they are Experts, or if they are added or removed from the group according to how accurate their votes are day by day.  So many questions. 

The easy explanation for the discrepancy in the percentages - 99%, then 67%, and then only 1% from the Expert Curators may be that the all-knowing algorithm was 'adjusted' in the middle of the process.  That's only a guess - but the forums have been getting a lot of similar questions about wide gaps in percentage scores from the two groups - member curators and expert curators. 

The photograph is very good.  It's ticked all the boxes - level horizon, foreground interest, good sharpness and depth of field, interesting location, nice light, fantastic cloud, and the required long exposure to blur the water.  I don't remember voting on this one, but if I had been in one of my grumpy moods I might have clicked 'Reject' because, as good as the photo is technically, the formula is a common theme.  I feel I've seen many just like it.  It doesn't pass my 'So what?' test.  (see 'grumpy mood above).  A beautiful, decorative photo, but nothing more.  I guess I'm looking for something to make me think or feel. 

I'll repeat that I am not an Expert Curator - or at least I've never been informed of that.  I vote Publish for photos that show a spark of creativity, a fresh, clever idea, or a thoughtful concept -  and many of those are just not the type the Head Curators choose for the front page.  I wish that I didn't have to choose Publish or Reject to see the next photo in the queue, but that's how the 1X system works.  A 'Skip' button would be wonderful in my opinion.  

That may not be what you were looking for, but there it is anyway. 

. . . . . Steven

Mike,

Of course I am no expert curator, but I will also give you my vision.  I will  tell you my experience and my vision. First my experience: 

We have enough  experience about quallity and I told you earlier that I wanted to do also some other  subject nature or macro. I placed several that kind of images mostly very low %.  And  if I only take a part of a nice wall and do good edit I become 99% and awarded. And for nice landscape you have to do much more.

Now your composition. For me a very nice composition  and no comment about your foreground.  But than your sky.  I know your quality and i believe this is what you saw . But now we come on one of  aspects we have all and of course the curator to: TASTE. To be honest I have the same vision as Daniel the sky is for me a little bit strange not the composition of the sky which is great special with the diagonal to the cloud but the light and the colour. You know if this is what you saw but for us our eyes good directly there and than you have your first opinion right or wrong. I  think that this could be the reason for NP but 0% is ridiculous.  Quite by accident I did the photo of Helga and your sky is much better but there I had the same experience with the sky .  Mike, this is my honest vision for what it is. 

Thanks Steven T and Theo Luycx for sharing your thoughts. I don't believe this is the best landscape photo of all times, I just don't get the 1% score. There are worse photos awarded, and for sure this is not the worst ever posted on 1x. So I'd like to hear opinions of those who voted it down to 1%. But I think anonymosity is more comfortable to stay in for most, if not all. Curious if I will ever get a response...

Mike, did you have Jacob check the expert curator's rating for technical failure? 1% seems very odd.

Hi Gerda, no I didn't. But thanks for the hint. 

Mike,

Who are the 'Expert Curators'?   Does anyone know?  Are they told that their votes count more than regular members?  Mike, I agree with the others here who think that 1% must be some kind of mistake.  The huge gap between member curation and expert curation makes no sense at all.  

. . . . Steven 

This is a screen shot of my 'Accuracy' graph.  It's very pretty, but what does it mean?  

Well,  it says you are more often correct then incorrect, resp. aligned with choices for publication. And it says you vote a lot :)

Hi Mike, thanks for giving me this chance. I am not an expert curator, but a simple curator and as such I express my thoughts on this shot.

Personally I like it very much, what struck me is the almost divine light that illuminates the scene, the panorama.

I also like the place and the point of view very much, the union between the land and the sea / lake, which marks the meeting point.

It is my humble and simple opinion.

A warm greeting

Franco

I think this response was meant for Steven, right? :-)

Thank you, Franco, you're more a contributor to the 99%, I'd like to hear from the party that made it 1%, though...

Best regards,

Mike

Hi Mike how are you ?

I'm not an expert curator of course, I thought I'd reach a million photos, but I got a discount and I don't think I'll get there.

For me the photo is a bit cut off at the bottom,then maybe if as they say we think of the best photos in the world even in the landscape,the boulders on the beach stop abruptly in the frame. Then maybe it is a good scene technically a good landscape, but it is always a coastline framed from below and then maybe you can hypothesize even more creative vision even by the landscape photographer. The rocks are scattered in the image as in nature and fill the entire lower part with a boulder on the left especially and the high cliff on the right that closes the scene on the right.I can see the transition in the high cliff on the right between the dark area around it and the area where the sun is shining and maybe the transition in the backlight could be slightly smoother.I think we are being pushed to look at a central area of the beach where the light is shining and also the high cliff.However  the rock on the left can be a big element that moves the eye to the left and also a distraction,dividing the attention into two large opposite areas(even if it balances the scene it leads the eye to move between the two sides).If you want you could lower the brightness in the area of the sun in the center of the photo and soften the contrast and even if it is correct considering the difficult situation.

In my diagram of accuracy, the red line exceeds of little the blue line, now that I am improving (I have saved some statistics for curiosity mine). Let's say that from my point of view I do not feel so inexpert, but perhaps it does not help.

As a fake critic I made only a small excursion .

Best regards

Hi dear Mike H.S.C.,

Of this your work, excellent in many ways, I like everything except the rock on the right. According to my taste and opinion - as you should know I deal mainly with street photography - that rock give depth to the scene but unbalances the composition.

Maybe AI probably saw it as a sort of finger in the electronic eye - if it has one -... Or maybe some expert curator knows as much about criticism as a goat does about Philosophy - I apologize to the goat for the insulting comparison -...

Anyway, don't worry, when you're my age you'll get used to the 1%'s... :)

Best regards to all,

Francesco

Steven,

you possibly don't know that you are an expert curator but you are one. You rank place 14 in the top list of curators having achieved curator grade 9.

https://1x.com/curate/toplists/curators/all-time

All members who have achieved at least curator grade 7 (at this time 185 members) are expert curators.

I hope that helps the one or the other.

Flavio,

You're an expert curator as well, you rank place 2 in the all time curator list. 

Good light, Hans-Martin

Hans-Martin,

Thank you for the reply.  I have never been informed that I'm an 'Expert' curator.  You say I am - are you sure?  Can I be removed from the 'Expert' group so that my vote counts as one vote by one member?  That seems democratic.   I've read the FAQ, and found no explanation of how 'Experts' are chosen, except that there is a 'built-in test'. 

From the FAQ:  

"To make sure only very high-quality photos are published, there is a built-in test in curation which determines how skilled each expert curator is. The most skilled curators get much more power in curation, to make sure that all decisions are accurate and taken by very skilled curators."

. . . .  and further down - "The expert curators are members from our community who have proven to be especially skilled in curating photos."

Questions:

What is the 'built-in test'?   How is a member's skill proven?  Is it simply the number to times a member has voted?

Are 'skilled' curators the same as 'expert' curators - or are these two separate groups of members?  

What does 'especially skilled in curating photos' mean?  How is that measured? 

In the section -  'Critique>See Full Statistics' - votes are rated as 'Correct Decision' and 'Incorrect Decision'.  How is that 'Accuracy' determined.  How is 'Correct' or 'Incorrect' measured? 

So many questions . . . . so few answers.  May I suggest that the FAQ be re-written for more clarity? 

Please don't misunderstand me.  I love 1X.  The community is friendly and supportive - almost like having friends.  The photographs are inspiring.  State of the Art.  They challenge me to work harder. I wouldn't mind, though, if there could be a bit more clarity and a bit less confusion and contradiction.

. . . . Steven T.

Steven,

click on the green "Curate" button on the top right of your screen.

The following page appears:

Hans-Martin, 

Thank you very much for pointing that out.  I had never noticed it before.  Duh!  Now I feel stupid!   So, to be clear, are members ranked as 'Expert Curators' based simply on the number of photographs they have voted for?   Is there an 'accuracy' threshold, or is it just the number?  

. . . . Steven

I don't know.

Hello Mike,

it looks like you have restarted the problem that has existed for many months of evaluating and analysing green circles and related percentages. Indeed in no information on page 1X how - in detail - the evaluation of the photo is done. As you can see from previous posts everyone has the same problem and level of ignorance. On top of that there are probably constant changes in the algorithms , which leads to such strange results. I myself have been experiencing this recently when after 100% it suddenly drops to 3% and then rises to 11% only to drop again to 1% and just when I think the photo is gone suddenly it is published and some algorithm has caused the high scores to appear...

I think this is not the final version of the algorithm, we will still be testing for a long time while experiencing various frustrations. 

I don't know if we will get an answer to this now. I don't think so. We certainly need to monitor and report obvious malfunctions of the algorithm. 

I also test it in such a way that I upload a rejected photo once again and it turns out that suddenly some miraculous wand causes it to have high scores and it is published. So it confirms that unfortunately the algorithm and the whole system is underdeveloped.

As for the photo Mike, in my opinion it is good, only the burns would be eliminated - Steven T. wrote about it already.

Regards sincerely

Slawomir Kowalczyk

Thank you, Slawomir,

I will probably fix a few things according to suggestions and re-post it. Would be a laugh if it passed with above 80 or 90%, we will see.

Best regards, and thank you very much,

Mike

Hello Flavio,

First let me say ther eis no "fake critic".  Everybody is invited to share opinions, tips, advices here, especially if it happens in a manner you did. So a big thank you for all your points. You're more than welcome to write critiques in this forum, to any photo. 

The reason the bottom line falls short is my focus on the left rock. I found it a leading object, working as a guiding line to the sunset. The cloud in its bizarre shape was my primary subject, so the overall composition gives enough and symmetrical space for these two elements. You and other may be right about the othe rocks, a matter of preferences in composition, I'd say. I probably tone down the very bright sun spot, that's a common sense of all who wrote critiques. I did not really get what you mean by blue line falling behind the red? Maybe you can spent another minute or two explaining what you'd like to fix and what that menas in regards of colors in the histogram?

Many thanks and best regards,

Mike

Haha, Francesco, 

I'm not sure we're that much apart in age...

I think if there wasn't a rock on the right, the bright cloud would cause imbalance. The rock and bolders shape a L around the sensational shape in the sky for me. That was my take on the composition at least. BUt thank you for sharing your view on it, I'll have a think whether the rock is needed, or it could be less exposed. What ever feels right, I have to try. 

Grae to see you participating here, do that more often! It's fun, don't you think? 

I'm grateful for your time spent, and others will probably be, too.

Best regards,

Mike

Hello Mike,

it looks like you have restarted the problem that has existed for many months of evaluating and analysing green circles and related percentages. Indeed in no information on page 1X how - in detail - the evaluation of the photo is done. As you can see from previous posts everyone has the same problem and level of ignorance. On top of that there are probably constant changes in the algorithms , which leads to such strange results. I myself have been experiencing this recently when after 100% it suddenly drops to 3% and then rises to 11% only to drop again to 1% and just when I think the photo is gone suddenly it is published and some algorithm has caused the high scores to appear...

I think this is not the final version of the algorithm, we will still be testing for a long time while experiencing various frustrations. 

I don't know if we will get an answer to this now. I don't think so. We certainly need to monitor and report obvious malfunctions of the algorithm. 

I also test it in such a way that I upload a rejected photo once again and it turns out that suddenly some miraculous wand causes it to have high scores and it is published. So it confirms that unfortunately the algorithm and the whole system is underdeveloped.

As for the photo Mike, in my opinion it is good, only the burns would be eliminated - Steven T. wrote about it already.

Regards sincerely

Slawomir Kowalczyk

I remember at the beginning of the year I corresponded with 1X support on this issue and it helped for a while but now it's back... let's watch :-)

Hi Mike, I was saying about the photo that the stony beach can seem a bit complex in the foreground because there are many stones around (on the right side near the edge of the boulders  that show a different shape(flat and wide). Then as a landscape photographer you turn a bit around approaching even the coast (you seem almost in the water) or the boulders looking for a foreground more simple and with a geometry, which can work as a guideline.This was my impression looking at the image or that the foreground seemed a bit cut off at the bottom .I think looking at the image we feel the visual weight of the rocks on the coast is shifted down.Another detail that I see now is the top right corner of the sky,which is a bit of an empty space on the side of the cloud,when compared to the whole scene full of details(I was thinking that maybe you can cut it a little bit even).There is a consideration that can be made about seascapes, which often or focus on the rocks and their shape or more rarely on the beach using the guideline of the shore diagonally and sometimes the viewer has to become familiar with that particular landscape to appreciate it.

Speaking of the red and blue line I was referring to the accuracy of the correct or incorrect rating during the curation, as someone showed previuosly (I tried to correct the text, but I was not clear).Since opinions are given, it seems right to try to explain them.I saw the photo a few days ago, I don’t remember if Saturday Sunday or before ,so I thought I was that 1%. In my opinion, we could ask for a system of verification of votes to be used on request but only occasionally.

Best regards

Thanks for the information Hans Martin , maybe i misunderstood but i had read, that only curators who had a high accuracy score were selected as expert curators.It’s curios that we don’t even know, if so would be the proof that it is true(but I do not think).Regards

Mike Kreiten PRO

Hi Folks,

 

This photo I submitted for curation. It scored 99% in member curation, but when expert curators started rating, it dropped to 67% for members and 1% in Expert Curator score all of the sudden. I'm not interested in improving my work, I would like to hear expert curators opinions why they chose "reject", all of them obviously.

 

So experts, tell me about your dislikes, I'm interested in what makes this the worst landscape photo you've ever seen... Which 1% score tells me.

 

 

Hi Mike,

I am not an expert curator, but the 1% sure looks like an anomaly

To me this photo is a case of missing the forest for the trees.  I like the photo and I am reminded that some great photos were unbalanced compositions...

Member curators are the ones that buy photos. If I saw this photo in a gallery, it would stop me for a while.  I like the rocks as a counterpart to the louds.  A 20x30 in. print would sure be tempting.

AL

My pleasure, Mike...

Thank you for your post. I'm gald you like mine. Yes, it's fun! :))

Have a great day, Mike. Good light always.

Interesing discussion, and it comes as I have curated several images with great pain. I kind of like the format where you get somebody that gets to look at your image and pass judgement anonomously. I have a Flickr Acct and it seems that nobody has a chance to see your image unless you are their "friend" or "follower" , so it is political. There is hierarchy here with more experienced people making final judgements. I don't like most images, not because they are bad but they are not unique and I have loocked at thousands. 

Just suppose that you happen to be in Yosemity National Park, and you just happen to be standing in the same spot as Ansel Adams and you just happen to take a B&W image of El Capitan in the same aspect ratio as AA's and you take it home and you just happen to use Silver FX and it just happens to have the same contrast and tone as Ansel Adams used. Your image might actually look almost like his. Still I would reject it.

The problem we have in the world of Flickr, Google, Facebook etc. is that all the photos have probably been taken and placed there. That does not mean that your photo is not good. But to get a pleasing, unique and technically good photo is hard.

It is my opinion that this site has a "style" it likes, more or less but way better than Flickr. I wont' change my style to fit it though and use the critiques as a tool to see if my image can be improved.

Hi William,

Your last sentence of the first paragraph begs for a definition of "unique".  It looks like by unique you mean photo content.    I am assuming 1x has more than 1 million photos by now.  Even if I take an average of 100,000 for each category, that is still a lot of photos.  The more photos there are, the harder it is to be unique.  Eventually, it will be nearly impossible to be unique.

If the first criteria for judging a photo is being unique, most photos will not make it past step one.  They are on their way to being rejected by the algorithm.

Your second paragraph is about trying to copy a photo.  I would reject it too, just on that basis.

I think 1x has certain styles within each category but, I don't like to copy styles.

A counter example to your Yosemite example would be the iconic photos of Yosemite by Ken Rockwell.  They are the opposite of what you describe in your paragraph, but would they be rejected by 1x, as being too far out of style.

Al

Hi William,

thank you very much for your interesting comment, I agree with you in principal except for the critiques part. Humans have been following a hierarchy with more experienced people making final judgments since birth. In times of learning we look to experience. What is being done with that knowledge is a matter of choice. You choose not to follow the critiques as a tool and that is ok, it is what makes us all unique.

Kind regards

Helga Williams

Don't misunderstand, I was not, repeat not, attacking the Hierarchy in critique and I use critiques as a tool for improvement. I suppose that amateur's like myself believe in ourselves and raise the question that Mike raised at the top. I also believe in myself. If you don't like my photo, fine, tell me why and if your critique is helpful, then I benefit. I have asked for critique and curation for that reason. I do, however, ponder while curating, why or why I don't like a photo and would like to avoid being influenced by "historical" works of A. Adams or others. And I would like to avoid being influenced by current "style" or "critic" bias. I am expressing the angst about introducing my own bias on someone's cherished work. I mean there is a "filter" that we each use, like techinical skill, to curate but that does not change our bias about the image itself.  

Hi Mike Kreiten PRO, ...@ I have seen, observed and thought hard for this photo. I have also read the reviews you gave, I have also followed "all the reviews" that have been given by "viewers of this photo". All reviews get my full attention, because all of them turned out to be "very useful" for me as input for knowledge or general knowledge of what happened at 1x.com related to your work... To be honest, this is the first time I have found a discussion "very interesting"...For that I would like to say a big thank you to everyone present in this forum. ...@ Mike allow me not to enter into this discussion, I will return to focus on your photos and I request this to be included as "my sharing" not as "criticism" ...@ Mike... wish I were with you at this location too. I will also be interested in all the recording subjects present. My first attention of course will be on the rocks that are in the foreground, the hills that look far away with the horizon line, for the rock cliffs that look high on the right of course become my attention too, I will only consider later..." whether I will enter in my recording image or not", because I am "more interested" with the large clouds in the sky (later 2/3 of the part I will give for this cloud image). Most likely I will ask you..."what kind of lens do you use" then I'll try to make a "composition according to what I feel"...the subject of rocks as the foreground, I found an elongated rock that leads to the hills, for a moment my attention moved towards the shape of the cloud...'it turns out that some of the profile's shape' also leads to the hills (1/3 of the part I dedicate to the foreground_. From what I found, I decided I would make this part as..."Point I will not ignore the attention (POI) of my photo composition" and of course the reflection on the water surface...So ---> the large rock cliff on the right I will "avoid its appearance". Unfortunately, my filter equipment is limited, so I . .."couldn't overcome the intense light that existed "around the big cloud". ...@ All my imagination, I put it in my experiment by using "your photo works". The results I display also accompany my review of this. Hopefully it can be enjoyed as material for sharing/substitute discussion from me. ...@ This is all from me...Thanks for the opportunity and Best wishes to you Mike as well as to the rest of the viewers...Johanes Januar -- SC