I believe at least part of the problem is with the way the IOTD guidelines are written:
- Excessive noise reduction: i.e. delicate details appear over-smoothed.
- Topaz NR Overdone: i.e. over-sharpened structures and creation of nonexisting ‘Hubble like’ details.
- Overly saturated colors or banding.
- Inadequate background correction: gradients, light pollution, or vignetting.
- Clipped highlights or blacks: space generally isn’t rendered pure black.
So if someone finds an image that was promoted that has (in their opinion), clipped blacks, over saturation, or excessive NR, the above gives them grounds to say that either the judge was not paying attention, or the judge was unfair. While that may be true at least in some occasions (judges are human), it could very well also be that the judge considered the impact of the image enough to override these other issues. But in the absence of other information, people will always assume the worst (bias, lack of attention). So this where I think being more transparent about why a judge highlighted an image becomes beneficial. Yes, it to an extent forces judges to be deliberate, but more importantly, the community can see that they are being deliberate.
At the risk of disturbing a hornet's nest, I would (respectfully) push back against the following statement by Luka Poropat (my emphasis on the word "win"):
"I have few points to say about equipment:
1. Astrophotography is pay to
win. If you dont accept that fact you will drive yourself crazy. "
This should not be about "winning" and "losing", though I am sure this was not Luka's intention when he wrote it, as the rest of the post makes clear. But the statement bothered me enough that I felt I should bring this up. Just because your image was not selected for IOTD, TP, TPN does not mean you have "lost". While it is clear that the IOTD is not
intended to be a contest, you can read some of the posts early in the thread to see that quite a few people see it that way. I think that is in large part what is responsible for the negativity - viewing this as a contest is an invitation to have fights about rules, fairness, and bias. You simply cannot avoid it. I hope that all of us appreciate the images shared on site - all taken with different levels of time, money, and effort to the various extents people are able to put in - and not think in terms of winners and losers.
but who cares