Thanks for reminding me why I stopped uploading album art.

[billyocean]

He denied that image which I believe wholeheartedly is an uncompressed one straight from the record label to the folks over at iTunes. Here is his earth-shattering, apocalyptic-sized comment for its denial... *reason: scan moire pattern try and descreen and or noise reduction*

Here's a link to the image in question with technical specs below it....

http://is5.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/Mus ... 00-999.jpg

SIZE: 8,299.33 KB (8,498,512 bytes) DIMENSIONS: 4,000px x 4000px

This image is obviously a digital one.
How can it contain scan moire? Its not scanned!
Its simply a perfect image in highest quality.

If a mod is not able to see the difference between a scanned and a digital image, he is out of place here.

And why should you remove the noise? Its original and intentional.

What are you doing here?
Do you post an cover as its intended to be by the creator or do you modify it because of personal perception?

I expect from a website like fanart original covers and not "improved" ones.

Maybe the denial of the image has to do with personal sensitivities. In this case the mod is showing a nonprofessional behavior.

Whatever the reason is for denial, every contributor could only be rejected by such a working method.

[ZincRider]

He denied that image which I believe wholeheartedly is an uncompressed one straight from the record label to the folks over at iTunes. Here is his earth-shattering, apocalyptic-sized comment for its denial... *reason: scan moire pattern try and descreen and or noise reduction*

Here's a link to the image in question with technical specs below it....

http://is5.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/Mus ... 00-999.jpg

SIZE: 8,299.33 KB (8,498,512 bytes) DIMENSIONS: 4,000px x 4000px

This image is obviously a digital one.
How can it contain scan moire? Its not scanned!
Its simply a perfect image in highest quality.

If a mod is not able to see the difference between a scanned and a digital image, he is out of place here.

And why should you remove the noise? Its original and intentional.

What are you doing here?
Do you post an cover as its intended to be by the creator or do you modify it because of personal perception?

I expect from a website like fanart original covers and not "improved" ones.

Maybe the denial of the image has to do with personal sensitivities. In this case the mod is showing a nonprofessional behavior.

Whatever the reason is for denial, every contributor could only be rejected by such a working method.

It's a nice source image, but we don't know what the downscaled image looked like.

Mistaking noise for moire is quite unfortunate. Although they can look a little similar, the difference should be clear when viewed at 400% (which is the zoom level we are supposed to prepare our images for according to the moderator in question ).

That guy just lacks a sense about what's good enough and what's not, what's quality and what isn't, what should be fixed and what should be left a lone, what's an improvement and what isn't. He's just searching for stuff to pick on.

[Silverfox]

It's a nice source image, but we don't know what the downscaled image looked like.

That guy just lacks a sense about what's good enough and what's not, what's quality and what isn't, what should be fixed and what should be left a lone, what's an improvement and what isn't. He's just searching for stuff to pick on.

Here's the image I submitted.... https://fanart.tv/fanart/music/deny/har ... c55a81.jpg

Some background information despite it being nothing more than 'Downscaling 101', and I presume one of several ways of doing so in order to get as close as possible to the original image. I resized the image in steps: I went from 4000 px to 3500, then 3000, then 2500....down to 1000 px. But I mixed things up a bit and compared the results. The very first image I resized without any sharpening, 'Unsharp Mask' or otherwise, and merely took it down in steps to 1000 px. The second image was taken down also in steps to 1500 px, and then I employed 'Unsharp Mask' (read: a small amount) which is customary with most images I work on. I repeat, *MOST*, because some others just don't need it *or* suffer from oversharpening. (Good ol' wisdom, know-how, and many hours of hands-on experience are needed at that point.) The third I also took down in steps to 2000 px, employed 'Unsharp Mask', and then took it down in steps to 1000 px. After comparing things I settled on image #3 despite preferring image #2. I did so because as God as my witness I just KNEW in my heart of hearts he would probably pick up on the "noise" which little to no doubt was intended by the author of that image, and ride with it into the sunset. And that is exactly what happened! It goes without saying since I said it before, but he failed miserably my little test. I will bet anyone any amount of money that image will be put up here on Fanart in no time *and* dare I say either by him or someone else. I'll be waiting on the sidelines with baited breath to see it happen. Unless of course the final image for the upcoming Metallica album gets changed somewhere along the line, or the November 18th date gets pushed again.

Last but not least. I have argued left, right, and center practically ad nauseum and can boil down ZincRider's last paragraph to a mantra: The dude's left hand doesn't know what his right hand is doing.

[ZincRider]

Looks fine to me, I was only asking because some people use nearest neighbour for resampling, which obviously causes problems.

You put a lot of thought into downscaling. I just do it in one step and then apply some sharpening if needed. Not sure if incremental downscaling has any advantages. Some argue it may degrade the image a little more, but I guess it depends on the resampling algorithm?

This one can certainly use a bit of sharpening after downscaling (using bicubic - smooth gradients in Photoshop in one step). The noise is something I'd want to bring out. It's obviously meant to give it some texture.

[Silverfox]

You put a lot of thought into downscaling. I just do it in one step and then apply some sharpening if needed. Not sure if incremental downscaling has any advantages. Some argue it may degrade the image a little more, but I guess it depends on the resampling algorithm?

This one can certainly use a bit of sharpening after downscaling (using bicubic - smooth gradients in Photoshop in one step). The noise is something I'd want to bring out. It's obviously meant to give it some texture.

I have to because that's just the way I am. Seriously speaking, I gather it's no big deal "going down" in one step. But without having to experiment once again like I did many years ago, it's become an in-grained habit. All the same I think it would be ludicrous *NOT* to engage in incremental downscaling with an image like the following one....

http://is5.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/Mus ... 00-999.jpg

Or even this one....

http://is5.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/Mus ... 00-999.jpg

Those two are a small sampling of a number of others I have come across from iTunes. I can't for the life of me recall which ones, but I am under the impression I might have stumbled upon one or two that were even bigger than the Ozzy Osbourne one.

Same here in regards to the 'noise' if only because that is definitely the intention of the individual(s) responsible for that Metallica image. But leave it to Mr. "I'm Strong To The Finish 'cause I Eats Me Spinach" to say or have us believe otherwise.

[ZincRider]

I tried downscaling the Ozzy image in one step and in seven steps using Photoshop's bicubic (smooth gradients) resampling. There's hardly any visible difference at 100%(Funny image, btw. It should be a lot sharper, considering it's only slightly smaller than a vinyl sleeve scan at 600dpi - at least mine measure around 7700x7700px. And why don't iTunes covers come with color profiles?).
Zoomed in it's easier to see what's happened. The incrementally downscaled one looks a little less smooth - maybe slightly sharpened - which may or may not be a good thing. Personally, I use bicubic (smooth gradients) because it's sharp, but not overly sharp. Haloing edges (i.e. a slight sharpening) are an artefact of bicubic interpolation and this particular implementation is designed to look fairly smooth. By downscaling over and over again the artefacts build up and the image gets a sharper. If you're going for increased sharpness it may be a desireable effect, but you'll have to use more steps than I did to make any noticeable difference.
Or you could simply use a sharpening filter and have more control.

When used with bilinear resampling, incremental downscaling seems to makes fine details blurrier.

[zorensen]

First of all to all of you; Sorry about the "silent treatment" from us administrators of fanart.tv. You don't deserve it, we don't deserve it - and the site doesn't deserve it.

I've been very occupied in my "normal" life lately, and that's the reason why I haven't been active here the last month. That changes today. I'm here to help you users, and I don't like to see all of the frustration surfacing here. We need to fix this, and I promise you that the admins will do whatever it takes to grease the wheels around here again.

And just to be clear; No one wil EVER be banned from the site for being honest and let others know of your opinion. Never! Users will be banned if they are direspectful to others users/mods/admins who use a lot of their free-time to contribute to everyone.

I hope that you trust admins enough to know that we will do everything we can to make you guys love this site again and that we will find the best solution for everyone

[ZincRider]

That's very reassuring to hear. I'm glad you're back, zorensen!

[Silverfox]

That's very reassuring to hear. I'm glad you're back, zorensen!

The same could be said for me and I presume numerous other contributors! I'm crossing fingers a number of us can get back on the wagon instead of circling it, and do what we do best. For once I don't have to spell out what I mean concerning the latter because everyone reading from the sidelines should know.

[billyocean]

Zorensen, you are my hero!

Finally its possible to get images approved again.

All my mates here please come back.

It's fun again to work for fanart!

Thank you!