On 30/12/2013 12:03 PM, Ciprian Dorin Craciun wrote:
On Mon, Dec 30, 2013 at 7:16 PM, Paul Stenquist <[email protected]> wrote:
Does it sounds crazy? :)
It's a bit over the edge. In my opinion, a trained eye can probably do a
better job of image evaluation than can any software.
Indeed a trained eye (and brain) would be able to make a more
informed decision than a simple-minded algorithm. However even the
eye must use some tools in its assessment. For example a person uses
eye-glasses to aid sight, and this is exactly what I'm trying to find:
a special pair of "eye-glasses" that highlight which parts of the
image are in focus, etc.
You would do better to read some books on composition than to try to
make what you are wanting into a numbers game.
The "tool" that the eye uses to determine if an image is good or
otherwise sits a couple of inches behind it. Educate your brain to have
good judgement.
One of the things I have noted over the past decade is that the very
geeky avocation of photography has attracted geeks from other interest
groups, especially computer geeks. The new photographer who has cut his
teeth on computers is used to success via formulaic approach.
I want this as an end result, and to get there I plug in this line of
code, It's all very cut and dried because computers are very cut and dried.
Photography is not cut and dried. The technical elements of photography
are distressingly easy to master. For the most part, putting the camera
on programmed exposure mode, setting the AF to random search and letting
the camera make the technical decisions will end up with a technically
acceptable photograph that will stand up to scrutiny as well as any
image that the photographer has taken multiple spot readings for, had
angst ridden moments over what shutter speed to use, and fretted over
the aperture chosen.
As technical a craft as photography is, the successful photographer
masters the mechanical parts to the point of not having to think about
them any more, and then concentrates on the aesthetic, in much the same
way that the person learning to drive masters using the controls on the
vehicle to the point that driving is more or less automatic, allowing
the person to enjoy the drive.
You have yet to separate the aesthetic from the technical, and you think
that you can wrap aesthetics up into a formulaic approach that will
allow you to make judgement calls regarding your images, but until you
have the ability to judge the final image for what it is, separate from
the technical elements that make it what it is, you are going to find
this to be a disappointing avocation.
I don't necessarily want a solution that spits out a number and
says "photo (A) is 10% better than photo (B)". I'm just looking for a
solution that "prepares" photo (A) and (B) to ease my evaluation.
There is no formula. Sorry, but it doesn't work that way.
The best you can do is go through your work, first removing the obvious
junk first. The out of focus, the very badly exposed, the ones that
won't make a good print for purely technical reasons.
After that, you can start culling based purely on aesthetics, culling
out the ones that fail for non technical reasons, and this is where
training in the arts comes in.
A good strategy for teaching yourself composition (after doing some
reading) is to take the images from a shoot, take out the good ones and
don't look at them again. They have done their job, they have shown you
that there is hope.
Study the failures, ask yourself why the image failed. By doing this,
you determine what doesn't work. Eliminate what doesn't work from what
you are doing, and eventually, you will find that more of what you are
doing works.
Keep putting the images that work into a folder, either real or digital
for a year. After a year, open that folder, arrange the images by date
and watch how your photography has progressed.
This will make you a better photographer.
bill
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