Editing discussion

[ZK-Brock]

QUOTE (toprob @ Feb 5 2008, 03:29 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

...which would discount one of my all-time favourites...

Yes, I should have mentioned this as an exception, I voted for this one.

As for Charl's idea of the last 3 winners being ineligible, maybe make it the last 1 or 2 winners? Good idea in principle though

[ardypilot]

Seeing as I run the screenie comps, I've been interested to hear your opinions as members before I make my comment.

QUOTE

The hard thing is the middle-ground I've seen develop over, I think, the past six months - real sky, grass etc inserted into otherwise true FS screenies. I'm tending to believe, despite my personal dislike of the concept, that this form of editing should come under pure screenies, rather than taking up a life (and bandwidth winkyy.gif ) of its own.

My opinion is: screenies are screenies, and FS planes in real-world (or other non-FS) settings are something different.[/quote]
That pretty much sums up the debate, I'll make the rules clearer next month enforcing only minimal editing allowed in the competition thread.

QUOTE

1. Winners of the past 3 competitions are ineligible
2. The winner must be announced at a declared date and time, so everyone knows by when their vote must be cast.[/quote]
1. Well perhaps the past 1 month's winner should be ineligible, 3 months is quite a long time and may discourage some.
2. I try to make it either 3 or 5 days depending on how busy I am, but again I'll be more clear on this next time, perhaps adding a midnight voting curfew on the final day.

Cheers for the input!

ardypilot

NZFF Pro

 

Joined: Wed Apr 26, 2006 10:01 am

Posts: 6802

Location: Auckland

Top

[victor_alpha_charlie]

QUOTE (Trolly @ Feb 5 2008, 06:07 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Seeing as I run the screenie comps, I've been interested to hear your opinions as members before I make my comment.


That pretty much sums up the debate, I'll make the rules clearer next month enforcing only minimal editing allowed in the competition thread.


1. Well perhaps the past 1 month's winner should be ineligible, 3 months is quite a long time and may discourage some.
2. I try to make it either 3 or 5 days depending on how busy I am, but again I'll be more clear on this next time, perhaps adding a midnight voting curfew on the final day.

Cheers for the input!

I'm actually with you, even though I have entered such shots in the past.

I believe that having a better computer does give you an advantage (duh) that some think is unfair, but seeing as these people spend more time and money on their sim (and probably NZFF as well), wouldn't they be more deserving of the prize?

Will such shots still be allowed in this month's comp? It's not very 'professional' to change the rules half way through the comp.

[toprob]

QUOTE (Kelburn @ Feb 5 2008, 04:31 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

He's right we should try and do that as it's not much fun any more with all this editing.
All I really do is sharpen but lets have the same prize (if the prize giver allows for two) and a non-editing and an editing contest. That way everyone can be happy.

QUOTE (Brennanx @ Feb 5 2008, 05:25 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

on other flight sim forum they have competitions for non edited pictures and edited pictures and it makes it a bit more fair. I never vote for edited pictures I vote for the best non edited one thats how i rebel against edited pictures

I'll repeat what I've said before -- the heavily edited shots may get the most feedback, but they don't win the competition. The difference between an edited and an unedited shot is not the difference between brilliance and mediocrity. Editing doesn't give a shot an unfair advantage -- as we've seen from some replies here, it can work against it. If we were to get to the stage where most winning shots are edited, it may be time to look at it again, but I doubt this will happen.

Splitting the competition would really only work if we had 5 times the number of entries, and 5 times the voters.

For the same reason -- limited number of entries -- I wouldn't want to exclude recent winners. This assumes that the same folk win all the time, which isn't my impression. Or maybe it assumes that those will editing skills will always win, which isn't likely either.

QUOTE

"Wingman" Warren got away with that banner because of the sheer brilliance of it, and he's the only one who has had that privilege.[/quote]

For me, this is the clincher. Banning heavy editing would take away the opportunity to be truly brilliant. He didn't win because his shot was edited -- he won because it is genuine humour.

I feel that I'm a bit of a devil's advocate at the moment, considering I'm already said that I don't get much out of the heavily edited shots, but I just want to make the suggestion that there is really no reason to change the current rules.

However it does appear that there's an agreement that the rules should be changed.

[benwynn]

Im happy for editing to occur, aslong as basically the whole picture (minus the plane) is real. I think using Real grass makes a very nice affect.

[K5054NZ]

Agreed gents. And Trolly, thanks for acknowledging my view. I like seeing real grass - it's tons better than anything I've yet seen in the sim itself! - and I feel it really adds to the shot.

So, do you think we can consider the topic effectively closed?

[HardCorePawn]

I think Charl was correct. As soon as you start 'importing' bits and pieces it is no longer a screenshot, it is FS art.

By all means, fiddle with the colour/contrast/lighting, add some 'effects' like blur/engine exhaust haze etc... but that should be the only sort of editing allowed.

UNLESS, it is specifically labelled as a 'no holds barred' competition... then people are free to cut and paste whatever they like into the shots.

Personally, I very rarely vote for pics that have 'real world' bits cut into them, simply because I dont consider them screenshots. I'm looking more for originality, composition and how well it fits the theme. Some of the ones I have voted for have had mean as jaggies, or 'average' lighting, but I thought the idea behind the shot was great and deserved recognition.

As for those with the best PC being able to get the best shot, I disagree... there is no reason you need 20+FPS to be able to capture a good pic. All you need to do is line up a good shot (slew, rotate etc), pause, save the flight, then crank everything up to MAX and reload the scene. Sure your PC might suffer a little and you'll have to wait, but it will render it eventually... then printscreen and you're done!

But whatever the final decision on this, as long as it is clearly spelled out in the rules what is and is not acceptable, then there can be no arguments...

[Brennanx]

I still wont vote for any editing picture even if it has a little colour brightened

[toprob]

QUOTE (Brennanx @ Feb 6 2008, 01:16 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I still wont vote for any editing picture even if it has a little colour brightened

How would you tell? What about gamma correction? What about sharpening? What about resizing?...

...given that since my normal resolution is 1680x1050, I need to resize my screenshots. If I resize them, I then need to run an unsharp mask, otherwise the softness introduced by resizing ruins them.

Editing is not an option, it is a requirement of the competition:)

[Brennanx]

well then know 1 will get my vote

[victor_alpha_charlie]

That's a terrible threat! Take it back! Also I believe it is spelled no-one.

I think editing should be allowed, just not putting pieces of real-world photos in. Things like Heat blur, Motion Blur, Colour Adjusting, cropping and resizing is what makes a screenshot a winner. Minor editing has been and always will be a part of screenshots. Can someone please supply a link of the last time a completely un-edited shot won the comp? Actually, no, Can someone please supply me a link to ANY un-edited screenshot that will make me go 'wow'?

If you feel that editing a picture at all gives the editor an unfair advantage because you are unable to edit screenshots, you probably shouldn't be allowed outside without a helmet.

[Q300]

QUOTE (victor_alpha_charlie @ Feb 6 2008, 02:48 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

If you feel that editing a picture at all gives the editor an unfair advantage because you are unable to edit screenshots, you probably shouldn't be allowed outside without a helmet.

I dont realy have any thing to add to this thread because ive never entered an NZFF ss comp,
My own editing skills are very minimal so if I do enter in future comps I will only be croping resizing and playing round with the coulor
So there for I wouldent expect my picture to 'add up' to some of the others but as has been said those people have those skills so why not use them...

[Ian Warren]

And look at me .... still hanging on that wing ................. lucky i did'nt put 'Homer Simpson' on the wing ............ now hes REAL

[toprob]

Ok, definitely my last post in this thread, but I need to have one more go...
1. There are too many rules in the world;
2. The competition has survived -- and thrived -- for a long time without any restrictions;
3. The 'anything goes' nature of the comp has led to some amazing experimentation, some great, some not so great;
4. I'd hate to see it stifled because some folk are afraid of the competition.
There, I had to get that out...

[Charl]

Meh, maybe we should be listing what can't be put on the banner...Homer Simpson...Our Dear Leader...the list goes on

[Kelburn]

editing aint that bad it just makes it unfair on those who don't have the money for Photoshop (or you could just use a school or work computer - I might try that if the graphics dept. get new pc's - the current ones were made for Win 98 and are running XP with Photoshop and archicad! they take 20mins to turn on and log in! )

[AlisterC]

QUOTE (victor_alpha_charlie @ Feb 6 2008, 02:48 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Can someone please supply a link of the last time a completely un-edited shot won the comp? Actually, no, Can someone please supply me a link to ANY un-edited screenshot that will make me go 'wow'?

How about this one?


Thanks to all who voted for me of course. This won unedited except for cropping (from memory)

[victor_alpha_charlie]

That's like asking ANZ to go easy on you if you start an airline- it doesn't happen. You can't expect someone to submit a worse shot than they could've just because you can't match it.

[Ian Warren]

QUOTE

unfair on those who don't have the money for Photoshop[/quote]
i suppose it unfair having a better computer and being able to fly better and make movies , build scenery ,oh and own a joystick
nah there are lots of freeware photo editing tools out there and there have been posts on nzff about where to find them before .
I think alot of the comments in this topic are "because i cant ,no body else should be able too types of altitude ..
,and if you dont like editing and the likes just vote differently , the rulz have been just fine / fair and dont need changing ,this will only ruin what has been just fine for those who want to learn and make that time in there lives to do so..

you could always buy a lotto ticket , tell me what chance have you got to win that ..

opinion

[Ian Warren]

QUOTE (toprob @ Feb 6 2008, 03:40 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Ok, definitely my last post in this thread, but I need to have one more go...
1. There are too many rules in the world;
2. The competition has survived -- and thrived -- for a long time without any restrictions;
3. The 'anything goes' nature of the comp has led to some amazing experimentation, some great, some not so great;
4. I'd hate to see it stifled because some folk are afraid of the competition.
There, I had to get that out...

I'M WITH THAT GUY,

Homer J Simpson