bob_pictaker

B&W absolutely!

 

I tried Corbis and Getty, but the others are a big help. Thanks!

I am looking for stock shots of room interiors. Living rooms, kitchens, offices,

all the usual.

 

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

 

Thanks!

Thanks everyone! Great info.

The main reason I want a CRT is that I have the LaCie I mentioned. With the Lacie Blue Eye calibrator I've been able to calibrate both monitors to the same settings. This allows me to scan chromes on one Mac while doing digital capture and color work on the other, and have all of this work in the same ballpark. If I went with LCD's I'd need to get two of them. That's big bucks.

 

I admit that I don't know very much about LCD monitors. Everyone I've seem has had excessive contrast and color saturation. If there are some good ones for color work I'd be interested to check them out.

 

I will look into the cinema display, but I think it's pretty expensive. David's link to PC Connection did show some large CRT's in the $500 range. That may be all the budget will allow.

Thanks David. That is fast service!

One of the monitors in my studio just bit the dust. It's a 22" Sony CRT. I tried

to find a replacement but no luck. The world is dominated by flat screen LCD's

these days. I also have a "LaCie Electron 22 Blue III" but it looks like Lacie

is also out of the CRT business.

 

I do high-end art repro work. Anyone have a tip on where I can find Large CRT

monitors? Or any advice on LCD's suitable for art-repro work?

 

Thanks.

I like the new default TRP. Different images from different people - it's fun to look at it again!

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You're right Spaghetti, it is fairly hidden. And it doesn't appear to be solely for "critique only" requests. If you search "No Ratings" - "All" you will get some images that are available for rating (an active link is provided), they just haven't gotten any.

While I'm glad to see that the option of comments only exists, it seems that nothing is really drawing attention to it. I initiated a thread on the subject of a comments only gallery over one year ago. Allow me to paste my introduction to the subject from that thread.

 

******************

 

Bob Hixon , sep 18, 2003; 08:23 a.m.

We've all seen the never ending threads posted about the rating system. I've participated in quite a few of them (to Brian's delight I'm sure :-)), concerning mate rating, revenge rating, yada-yada-yada. It's very clear that this is a problem (depending on your point of view) that has no easy answer.

 

In overly simplistic terms there are two groups of people on this site. The first group wants to be friendly and promote their friends work with high ratings. The second group of people wants to learn and have in-depth discussion about photographs. Why they succeed, why they fail, how they can be improved, and they recognize that ratings have very little value in terms of feedback. These two groups want very different things from photonet, and having these two groups coexisting in the same gallery is what's causing a great deal of the tension that exists on this site.

 

I stated in a recent thread that if a comments only gallery were made available I wasn't sure if I would take advantage of it because I found some amusement in the ratings. I have reconsidered this and am now completely in favor of a comments only gallery. Having a separate gallery where ratings were simply not allowed and in-depth critiques were preferred would allow these two groups of people to gravitate toward the gallery that they were most comfortable with. I've experienced a comments only gallery elsewhere and it appears to be quite popular, works nicely, and is very enjoyable.

 

The top rated pages for the comments only gallery could be determined simply by the number of comments. I know that I am able right now to search for images by the number of comments, but these numbers include the long lists of "WOW's" that accompany many of the "top rated" images. With two separate galleries I'm willing to bet that most of the WOW's will stay in the ratings gallery.

 

Ranking images by the number of comments would introduce a competitive element to the comments only gallery, but a less infuriating one. As things stand now it's not uncommon to see two similar landscapes each with 10 ratings, but one has an average of 4.5, while the others average is 6.5 solely as a result of mate rating. In a comments only gallery if these two images each had 10 comments they would simply exist side by side with 10 comments a piece. Period!

 

Allowing people to opt out of the ratings game by creating an entirely separate gallery may not be feasible given the amount of work piled on Brian, but I hope it could be considered.

 

*****************

 

To continue, I think what we need (as mentioned above) is a comments only GALLERY! A gallery with a prominent link so people can find these images easily. Also, the recent "critique only" requests should be displayed by thumbnails as opposed to a simple list. We all need visibility in order to make posting images here worthwhile, so lets give "critique only" images some exposure.

This is a great addition Brian! Thanks a bunch!

I like your idea very much Jacques. The feature you suggest (which is offered elsewhere) would be a great time saver, and probably promote more interesting and lively threads. And after all, since the ratings are not for us (as we've been told many times) providing us with an easier way to converse with each other would be a help.

I ordered a hat also and Barry is correct about the quality, it's not very good. A few stray threads don't bother me, but the brim is rather flimsy. I'm not all that concerned about it, I just figured I'd pass this along.

Sad to say that I never used that button either. Other sites have any threads with new comments rotate back up to the top of the default list. I think that's a nice feature, and probably the best way to minimize repetitive threads. This would still require people to search for older threads with relevant topics that haven't been brought up for a while, but it still could help.

 

I'm still interested in Marc's original question however, "What are the rules that govern deletion of threads in the feedback forum?" The reason for my interest is since Marc's previous thread was deleted we've had the following threads started by other members.

 

"Ratings by fellow photographers"

 

"Ego and Ratings"

 

"Please Consider the Following Idea Regarding Ratings"

 

These threads were obviously not deleted, although they were addressing the same topic as Marc's thread. I think you can see why this may be confusing.

This is strange timing! I took a look at the shots in question, and Philip Jagow's entire folder. A minute later I went back and the folder is gone! I went to his community page to find that he is deleted! Now that's some quick work!

 

Good detective work Anthony. :-)

I for one have no problem with �[� (by now we should be on a first name basis). I rarely find a rating from �[� that I would take issue with. The truth is I've run across plenty of people who show a lot less common sense than �[� in terms of ratings.

 

That's just my 2 cents.

Dawn, you are experiencing the beauty of the photonet rating system. Matthew and Rob summed things up pretty well in terms of peoples expectation. Scott and SM. represent the growing number of people who who've given up the rating system altogether, and I'm about ready to join then.

 

Just keep rating images honestly and don't worry about anyone's ego getting bruised. To be blunt, if they can't take a bad rating they shouldn't post any images.

For me it's much slower! As with most people I usually got the first 10 ratings fairly quickly after submitting a critique request. I posted a new shot today and the number of ratings has stalled at 5 with no comments. But then maybe my shot stinks? :-)

Brian, at any given moment you stand a very good chance of finding one or more threads in progress concerning the rating system. To have all of these threads in progress means that they were not deleted (like how I figured that out?). So the question pertains to the selective quality of deletions.

 

It's true Stefano you can read the old threads and get the gist, but even if the topic has been discussed before it doesn't mean it isn't a valid topic for further debate. Also, these threads do not have an infinite shelf-life. To pick an old thread to post a comment may very well result in no one reading it.

 

I think that part of the problem stems from the misconception that ratings are for photonet, while comments are for the photographer. Comments only come with visibility, and visibility only comes with ratings. Ratings are used as currency, weapons, and bait to lure other photographers. The ratings therefore are personal, and the system that exists is designed to promote that personal aspect. I doubt that PN cares very much which photographs make the TRP, and why should they? They let the numbers do their things without intervention and the software spits out a TRP full of images. Most people probably are very happy getting 7's and WOW's on every image they post and it makes economic sense for photonet to keep them happy.

 

However that doesn't mean photonet should simply ignore the opinions of others who are looking for more. And it doesn't mean that a solution can't be found. That is of course unless photonet has determined that it simply wants to be a feel-good *fluff* site. If that is the case then please just tell us straight out.

Are we allowed to discuss the issues that concern us or not?

I've had some problems with posted images myself. In my case I've seen a blur that effects only parts of an image. It's happened 2 or 3 times and usually if I delete and repost the file it goes away, but the last time it happened I had to repost several times before I saw a difference. It's pretty strange!

 

On some other images I have noticed a dinginess to my files after posting. I always view my jpeg's in my web browser before posting, and I can see a definite difference between the same file displayed in my browser off my hard drive and the posted image on photonet. I then have to go back and adjust my file to compensate and post it again.

 

I have experimented with file size a bit. I've posted the same image several times with file sizes ranging from 80k to 150k to see if there is a difference. I couldn't see any. This would lead one to believe that the 80k file, which is below the photonet size limit, is getting recompressed anyway. I understand the need to save space, but I would like to see files that are under 100k left alone if possible.

 

I know I spend a lot of time trying to fine tune my files, and even though I can't guarantee what they will look like on anyone else's monitor, the less jpeg degradation the better. I'm willing to bet that G. is like me in this regard, when we see an image take a beating from recompression we see the effect very clearly. And it's rather annoying because it's out of our control.

Very weird!

 

http://www.photo.net/photo/1977339 was posted on 12/14/03

 

http://www.photo.net/photo/2098979 was posted on 2/2/04

 

I don't know, I think Gary may be right. It's probably just a coincidence. :-))

"That being the case, one might ask why there are no better sites." - Bob Atkins

 

Are there better sites out there? Well I haven't explored all of them but it seems the answer may be no. Whether or not there are better sites out there really isn't the issue. When I joined PN it was far better than any other site I saw at the time. The level of photography and the level of critique clearly set PN apart from the rest by a wide gap. That gap is getting smaller, and that is what I believe Marc, Carl, Doug, and others don't want to see. This gap is narrowing not because the other sites are getting better so much as it is photonet is becoming more like the rest. It's sad but true.

 

The fact that some people don't want to just let this happen may be an annoyance to some, but personally I'm glad to see it. Yeah, Marc's "still here" and "still complaining". Good for him!

Just kidding. :-)

 

Overall I'd say the moderators of the POW do a fine job, and I've had a comment or two deleted along the way myself. In my earlier comment I was basically wishing that the same level of moderation that takes place on the POW could be extended to other areas of the site. I do understand that this is asking a lot given the resources available, but it would be nice.

 

As for the length of posts there are several people who can crank out a few hundred words per comment, but so what? For the most part these are bright people saying some pretty interesting things. And it's these lengthy comments that usually spur me into my two finger hunt and peck mode to offer up a response. These long comments don't hurt the conversation, they add to it!

 

 

A Kochanowski, remember that you are of course free to ignore these longs posts of Marc's and respond to an earlier comment if that's the one you found interesting. This happens all the time. You should also remember that even though you found John F's comment interesting doesn't mean I did! The more viewpoints offered up the better.