M31 Requests for constructive critique · Rodd Dryfoos · ... · 39 · 1178 · 5

Arun H:

PS: I not that the appreciation you expressed in you answer to my post did not bring you to "like" it either. The point here is not to bring you to like my post, but to highlight that explicite appreciation does not equate "like". This certainly applies to image too.

I noticed the same thing about my post too. While Rodd appreciated it, he did not "like" it . Which reinforces my original point about likes being social behavior and not necessarily correlated to appreciation of an image.

I don't often "Like" comments.  I critique and like images, I respond to commets.

Andre Vilhena:

Rodd Dryfoos:

Andre Vilhena:
Hello Rodd,

Looking at a glance to your image, I think the issues might be:

  - field of view does not seem great. I don't agree with Andrea Tasseli when he says Andromeda needs a full view but both ends have interesting features which make a nice contrast with the core. You chosen to cut both ends and the core alone is not that interesting;

  - the blue arms are not very evident - that usually tend to make Andromeda sparkle. I think this is also related to lack of depth;

  - I feel too much contrast - perhaps the sky background needs to be raised a tad more;

  - The stars lack colour

If you zoom in there are other things you might improve but that is out of your stated scope so I won't dwell into it.

Of course all this is quite subjective but there's my 2 cents...

About popularity, likes and followers... I really think that image quality is a factor but one among others and perhaps not the most relevant. 

Cheers,
André

*** Type your reply here I didn’t choose to cut things off  my sensor and FOV did that. Again, your points are subjective and not I believe cause for few likes. The image is not perfect. But I think it is quite decent. As far as star color, that is one of the biggest mistakes in my opinion. Stars are not that ,colorful!  Besides, mine have color, they are not colorless. But we digress, do you really think the people inspected the image to this degree when they passed it over?

Rodd,

My comments:

  1)  I understand the sensor is small for this galaxy but you could have if framed differently, perhaps showing only half of it, from one tip to the center;
  2)  About star color, they have some color but not enough, in my opinion. And perhaps they are not that colourful but neither the Ha clouds in M31 are.

But again, these comments are my opinion and you don't need to agree. But you were the one requesting feedback.

Finally, these remarks I gave you were about the overall look - I didn't pixel peep. And I think our brain grasps contrast, color and brightness really quick so it was not a thorough inspection. But it took a bit more to put it words, indeed.

Cheers,
André

Well. I think the stars are about right and the Ha is overdone--too colorful.  Stars just dont have much color that the eye can see.  And this is an HDR image, so teh stars are not clipped. Images that portray them as colorfil, IMO, are not realistic.  The Ha is over done--but so is the IOTD M31 that showed alot of Ha--but it got IOTD and hundreds of likes.  

But we could talk forever about what could be imnproved in this image-note this was version V.  That makes it the 22 version I posted. Believe me, there are more versions I did not post than what I did.  The question was why so few likes for an image that I believe is over the threshold for 40 likes, deficciencies or not.  Zoom into the image and see the structures--not that common becuase most M31s are not high resolution images.  

Anyway--all this talk defeats the purpose.  Art should not have to be explained.  For the record, I do not view photography in general as art, but I know many do, so the aphorism is fitting.  In case you wonder why I feel this way....photography portrays the beauty of nature, not beauty one creates.  To have the proficiency to bring out that beauty is a skill, a technical ability, not an artistic ability.  There are elements of art, of course--framing....composition...........framing and composition....you get my point.  For me photography is documentary....."me" should not be part of it.

I think sometimes, naw, who am I kidding, most of the time, astrophotographers get lost in the technical aspects of an image. So, think about what that means. Unless your image is technically amazing, it's not going to get much notice. We are a pretty jaded bunch for the most part. I'm sure if your posted it on Instagram you'd get tons of "beautiful, amazing and you did this?" comments. The other aspect that I hate to mention is, well, M-31 is a common object, very common! Look at it this way, how many pictures of the grand canyon can you look at? At the end of the day, we are all photographing the same grand canyon in the sky. Even worse, a lot of us are doing it within a relatively narrow range of focal lengths with small refractors and the same filters. It takes a lot to stand out in this crowd and make us say "wow" because most of us have seen it before. So where does all that leave you? If you want attention, post your images to the general public. If you want attention here then you really need to push yourself. If shooting a common object, think about how can I do it differently. How can I make someone stop and think "hey, what?". Last thing, don't forget about good composition. A lot of people here do not come from a photographic background so tend to ignore that aesthetic. That's a shame because it's one of the easiest ways to give your image more impact.

Tony Gondola:
I think sometimes, naw, who am I kidding, most of the time, astrophotographers get lost in the technical aspects of an image. So, think about what that means. Unless your image is technically amazing, it's not going to get much notice. We are a pretty jaded bunch for the most part. I'm sure if your posted it on Instagram you'd get tons of "beautiful, amazing and you did this?" comments. The other aspect that I hate to mention is, well, M-31 is a common object, very common! Look at it this way, how many pictures of the grand canyon can you look at? At the end of the day, we are all photographing the same grand canyon in the sky. Even worse, a lot of us are doing it within a relatively narrow range of focal lengths with small refractors and the same filters. It takes a lot to stand out in this crowd and make us say "wow" because most of us have seen it before. So where does all that leave you? If you want attention, post your images to the general public. If you want attention here then you really need to push yourself. If shooting a common object, think about how can I do it differently. How can I make someone stop and think "hey, what?". Last thing, don't forget about good composition. A lot of people here do not come from a photographic background so tend to ignore that aesthetic. That's a shame because it's one of the easiest ways to give your image more impact.

I do think this image offers something others dont--view it at full resolution and compare it the others.  Most images of M31 are not sub pixel resolution.  That in itself should be a draw.

I just noticed that you did post an image like that and it did get my attention!

Rodd Dryfoos:
But I have 350 followers, which in itself is a strange thing considering I get 40-50 lies.  T

Followers will not correlate to likes.

Consider someone that follows 200-400 people (yes some people do follow that many imagers). That means their notifications will basically be full - I can imagine them getting 10-15 notifications per day saying someone they follow has posted an image. Do you really think they pixel peep through every one every day? More likely, if it is an image of an object they don't care about, they just ignore it. That, by the way, is the reason I really cut down on the number of people I follow. I got tired of the notifications. I have 230 followers. I get nowhere close to 230 likes on an image. If I was looking for likes, I would do the following things individually or in combination

1. Set up a remote site (cost $100K+?) so I can post very high quality images of very hard to image objects that require a lot of integration time in near ideal conditions
2. Follow a lot more people
3. Like and comment on their images consistently so they in turn comment and like mine

Since I have neither the money nor the time for the above, I just choose to image what I like, follow the people I respect or who image in conditions similar to mine, or have just grown to be friends. And derive satisfaction from what I do image and other aspects of my life. Like it or not, this is a social exercise.

I decided not to post another's image or link to that image.  Enough is enough

All-I have reprocessed the image taking as much of what was offered here as I coukld.  It want a full reprocess--so I couldn't get everything.  Essentially, I used the FSQ 106 palette and the TOA 130 resolution.  Someday I will have to do this from scratch, as it does seem to be the best way to handle the data from the TOA.  Which doies not endear me to the scope.  Maybe it just to0 slow for my sky.  Anyway--thanks for tghe criticism.  Here is the improved and for nopw final image.