mikemorrellNL

I assume that the mods/admins are doing everything possible to prevent Spam using the options in the 'Administrators Control Panel' (ACP). That said, I reported 3 or 4 'members' as spammers this morning simply by searching the forum for the word 'Airlines'. Together, they had posted hundreds of spam messages in different forums in a matter of hours. Probably, it was the same bot switching 'members' (and messages) every so often. Given the prevalence of specific 'keywords' in the flood of spam posts we're seeing, I wonder if we're making full use of the 'block post if it contains a keyword' function in the ACP. It was intended to flag posts for moderator approval (and/or remind members that specific words in their posts do not comply with forum guidelines). But perhaps the 'keyword list' and flagging/blocking could be applied to 'SPAM keywords' too. Just a thought. Mike

FWIW, I've just finished reading the novel Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell. One of the themes of this novel is IMHO relevant to this thread: - we tend to want to stick 'labels' on everything and to put things into 'categories' - reality is much more fluid, diverse and complicated The question 'at what point does a photo become an illustration' implies that there are two distinct' categories' (photos, illustrations). And some kind of variable 'boundary' where one category merges with (or crosses over into) a different 'category'. TBH there are currently many more genres of 'creative imaging than these two. Some incorporate photography (or film), others don't. IMHO, 'creative imaging' (as in most other areas of music/art/craft/hobby) continues to innovate and evolve. In hindsight, art historians can perhaps place imaging (including photography) as 'move: ments/developments' in history as they do with other art forms. I come back to my original 'story': currently (and for the foreseeable future) images are just images. Some out-of camera, others tweaked in PP and other incorpotatec (or not) into 'image creations'. So IMHO image reality is fluid, diverse and complicated.

Thanks Tom! I took this photo so long ago, I'd completely forgotten where. Interesting to know the name and history of the castle!

I know very little about portraits. IMHO both are good. I do note that your original is larger, has more 'context' and is relatively 'unedited'. In contrast, your edited version is more tightly cropped to the face. Your edits also include some (limited) 'blemish removals' (notably the wart) which the judge might have noticed. I have no idea what the competition was or what the criteria were. Perhaps your 'score' might have been better on the original, That said, I think I prefer your edited version🙂.

Apologies, I missed this request in January. FWIW, I think you're a very good editor! This 'high contrast' (dark room/bright windows) situation is IMHO a) very difficult to expose 'in-camera' and b) not at all easy to improve in Post Processing. Your first edit looks good to me: perhaps (only) the mid-tones could be lifted just slightly. I'm not sure whether HDR always 'flattens' a photo (I never use HDR) but my guess is that it's difficult to get just right. I agree with previous 2 comments that your HDR edit does look flat and removes any sense of 'atmosphere'. It could just be that you were a bit heavy-handed on the exposures used in HDR. It could also be that a 'default' HDR setting tends towards 'average exposure' in all parts of the photo. In situations like these, I find manual adjustments work better.

Let's have fun while we learn (and show) how we use our imagination, creativity and skills in post-processing. There are no rules or guidelines: your post-processed images can be 'adjustments' that you think improve the image or 'wildly creative' interpretations. Entirely up to you. Please summarize your PP so we can all learn from each other.

@jordan2240 Good point. My thanks - and congrats - for posting the very first PP challenge back in 2014. And of course for proposing the initial PP challenge guidelines. I see what you mean about it never being the original intent to create pictures that are pure fiction. I'm not quite sure how or when the weekly PP challenges (gradually?) came to accept 'fictional pictures'. I can only guess that this acceptance grew as the active participants changed over the years. For some years, the invitation to participate in the challenge has been generally: "there are no rules or guidelines: your post-processed images can be 'adjustments' that you think improve the image or 'wildly creative' interpretations. Entirely up to you." Another factor, perhaps, is that current versions of PP software and plugins make a wider range of 'creative transformations' more easily accessible than they did 8 years ago. It'll be interesting to dip into some of the PP-challenges and responses over the years! Mike

Good observation and prediction. The sophistication of 'deep fake' photos and videos steadily increases. I read somewhere that a photo competion requested the 'Raw data' + all Exif data f⁴rom candidates in order to determine the degree of enhancement/manipulation. In principle, the same kind thing can be done with videos. For both media, some additional 'forensics' can be done both on a macro-level (lighting, color) and on a micro-level (pixel peeping the 'edges')⁴ I fully agree with you that 'deep fakes' are a real danger to society, notably through spreading misinformation through social media or 'non-independent' (?) traditional media (printed and digital). My hope is that social media companies develop automated (AI) processes whereby 'deep fakes' are detected and prevented from being posted and shared. But I suspect that the 'deep fake' situation is similar to the 'Spam' situation. Many 'deep fake' prevention processes can be introduced but these will never be 100% effective. So social media companies may also rely on 'the community' to flag possible 'deep fakes' The 'achilles heel', as see it, is that people - and their (social) media channels are organised into 'bubbles'. So one 'fake post' may be welcomed and fully accepted by groups of participant towards which it is targeted. Other social media participants may never even see the socially targeted 'fake post'. Even if they do, they may struggle to give their opinions the same weight as 'supporters' do (via likes, share⁵s, enz.) ⁴ /⁴

I really do value and appreciate all you guys and the mods are doing to prevent and clean up Spam! But my feeling is that there is perhaps more that could be done in terms of 'Honeypots', the complexity of Q&A challenges and 'crowdsourcing' effective 'antispam' plugins (Cleantalk: $12 a year?, Hell, I'd gladly pay this subscription fee for PN myself!)

Fully agree that flagging posts as Spam helps a lot to clean up Spam. Invisioncommunity offers additional spam prevention measures in the Admin Control Panel. Such as Q&A challenges. Not all of these were implemented on Jan 28 (see link to my Jan 28 post below). I'm not sure how many of these have been implemented since then. I also read about the 'Honeypot' approach (a registration form field invisible to humans but not to bots) to distinguishing between legit members and bots. In a recent Invisioncommunity/forum thread, (other) Invisioncommunity admins also report a recent deluge of Spam despite implementing anti-spam measures. One admin (Luke Z) suggested investing $12 a year on a CleanTalk plugin. I don't know it, but it claims to distinguish between spam and legit 'registrations'. It also check IP-addresses against a continually updated database of 'Spam' IP-addresses. Perhaps worth checking out. So while I too continue to flag spam, perhaps there's more admins could do to tighten up our spam prevention measures. Mike

I like the concept of combining 'Ukraine Spring' with bullet/shell casings. But the way the concept is expressed in the photo is a stretch for me too. I personally associate 'Spring' with early flowers (snowdrops, crocuses, daffodils) and the first green buds on shrubs and trees. Maybe there's a way of 'integrating' the bullet/shell casings into an outdoor 'spring scene' or (indoors) into a 'spring basket' which - at least where I live - shops and florists are starting to sell.

I really like this too! Well spotted! A matter of taste but personally, I find the frame a bit 'heavy' (and distracting). A heavy black frame always reminds me of funeral notices 😉. You might want to try a 'lighter, thinner' greyish-white frame. Perhaps a similar color to the ice crystals?

This looks to be a very difficult photo to get a 'balanced exposure' out of the camera. Shooting directly into the sun with deep shadows in the foreground. Given the situation, it looks fine. As @jordan2240 says, waiting a little longer might have made the sunlight less intense. TBH, I have no idea how to take this kind of photo any better than you have have. The only thing that occurs to me is 'exposure bracketing' so that you have multiple exposures to choose from and/or use in post-processing. The main improvement in post-processing that I would suggest is brightening (exposure/curves) the foreground, especially bottom left and right. This would bring out more detail and texture in the foreground.

+1 for @samstevens's comment. That said, I sometimes take photos of interesting sculptures too without noting who the sculptor is/was. This is an interesting sculpture and worth photographing. I'm not sure about the post-processing. For me, the detailed frame competes with - and draws attention away from - the sculpture. The amount of added 'noise' is a matter of taste. You might want to experiment with a finer 'texture'.

Haha, I'll take 'skillfully' as a compliment🙂. The PP challenge threads are of course just for fun. Wikipedia has a good summary of 'photo manipulation' dating back to the earliest days of photography (19th century). Bottom line: you can't really 'trust' any photo to faithfully represent what the photographer was seeing through the viewfinder. For me, 'trust' is more in the photographer or publisher than in the photo. FWIW, I recently saw the 'Theatre of Authenticity' photo exhibition by Natacha de Mahiu. Through skilful photo manipulation (overlaying tens of hundreds of photos of the same tourist destinations) she illustrates how many seek out the same nature spots in search of an 'introspective and authentic experience'. I found it an interesting social comment and innovative application of photo manipulation.

Desert Landscape is CC0 by Dan Gold sourced at negativespace.co

I like this photo - a great location, full of character! I tracked down where it is and the hiking boots don't surprise me 😉. I read that while the Olympus OM-1 standard saturation is 'modest' it tends to 'push' reds more than other colors. Given the high 'red content' of this photo, you could consider a slight desaturation of the reds. I like the 16:9 crop because it makes your friends more 'the subject' of the photo (with the cottage as the background). Another cropping option might be 4:3 and losing a bit of the foreground and the right-hand side of the photo. My guess is that even without the right hand side of the cottage, there would be enough 'cottage left' to express the scene.

Kudos to the admin/mod team! Absolutely no spam in my 'unread content' this morning (European time)! Mike

Someone's up early!😀 When I logged in to PN 30-60 minutes ago, my 'unread content' was full of Spam. It's now all disappeared so my compliments and thanks to mods/admins who have cleaned all this 'spam' up so quickly!😁 I'm sure mods and admins are aware of this, but IMHO much of the so-called 'Spam' we have seen on PN is actually 'Scam'. In other words, not designed (or published) to advertise a legitimate product or service by a legitimate company but simply to lure people into calling a false phone number, sending an e-mail to or visiting a false website. All with the intention of (for example) allowing scammers to deduct ludicrously high phone charges and/or gain access to your personal information e-mail address, IP-address, ...) without your knowledge. Not to mention the risk of installing 'malware' on your computer/phone. At least one of the phone numbers posted in my 'unread content 'spam' (now thankfully removed by mods/admins) was flagged as a 'known scam number' on scammer.info. I don't think for one moment think that any PN member would actually interact with any content in the 'spam' ads. I just want to note that even calling the advertised phone number or e-mailing the advertised e-mail address to complain (or visiting the published website) is risky. Chances are, whatever you motivation for contacting 'scammers' you run the risk of being 'scammed' without even knowing it. OT: wherever you live, it's worthwhile visiting some 'reliable' anti-scam websites (police, government, etc.) to stay abreast of past and current 'scams'. Even being reasonably 'tech savvy' and aware of many 'scam techniques', I did get scammed once a couple of years ago by a so-called 'help-desk' which perfectly emulated my prior (corporate) experience with remote help-desks. A year later, I was amazed at the sophistication of another scam attempt in which 'my daughter' (with her photo) texted me, saying that she had a 'new phone' and number on which the audio wasn't working properly. It took hours for 'her' to ask me for a loan which would help her pay some pressing bills. Something didn't quite ring true (my daughter wouldn't do this) and I didn't fall for it. On a police-run 'anti-spam' website, I later read that this was a common scam through which other parents had lost thousands of dollars. It's sad but 'scammers' are becoming ever more sophisticated. By comparison, the PN 'scams' look primitive, obvious and more a 'blunderbuss' attempt to lure victims rather than individually targeted attempts.

Good to hear! In the Invision Community (Admin) Antispam guidelines, various levels of 'anti-spam' prevention measures are suggested. All are easily (with one click) configurable. I'm glad to hear that the 'Admins/Mods' are now more focused on measures to prevent spam rather than on 'cleaning up' spam that gets through our 'prevention measures'. Once again. I've offered to help out with Spam prevention and removal but as yet I've received no reply.

Dutch Shuffleboard

Think UK english. Wonderful topic!

FWIW, I came across this Shotkit review of AI Photo tools to try in 2023. One of the most interesting for me was 'Aftershoot' which uses AI to help its users 'cull' (and select) photos from a batch. It provisionally rates photos in the batch based on the user's criteria such as blur, open eyes, duplicates, etc. and sorts these into different 'buckets' which the user can then quickly review. The user can at any time manually change the rating of a photo or move photos from one 'bucket' to another. It can be used before importing photos into Lightroom or CaptureOne or - with a bit more prep - be used within these apps. Another interesting development is that users of the web-based and mobile versions of Lightroom can use Adobe's AI Sensei tech to search through photos that are synched to their Adobe cloud storage. So users can for example search their photos in the Adobe cloud based on terms like 'water', beach' or 'red'. At the moment, this AI search only works with photos stored in (synched with) Adobe's cloud storage. I hope that it at some stage also becomes available for 'Lightroom Classic' and for locally stored photos. Ideally, the 'Aftershoot' type of AI tech would become fully integrated in Lightroom. Interesting times ahead! If I live that long 😉. For me personally, manually rating/selecting/culling photos from a photoshoot is (as an amateur) part of the fun. And these days, I rarely take more than than 100-150 shots at any 'photoshoot.' And not very often. But for professional (wedding/sport/...) photographers, I'm sure that these kind of AI apps can really speed up their workflow. What I like is that these AI apps is that they only make 'recommendations' to make final rating/selection/culling easier and less time-consuming The final choice about which photos make the grade is always made by the photographer (or human assistant).