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TOPIC:

Removal of low quality images 6 years 9 months ago #1188

  • Glenn Pure
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All members should have received an email by now about an initiative to remove low quality images from our main image library. Only images more than 2 years old will be removed and only if they are of 'low quality'. Two BLP committee members - myself and Rodney Appleby - are going through all the old images for this purpose. And we are only looking at the Main Library at this time. Images in competition galleries or elsewhere will not be reviewed in the first phase. If you didn't receive the email, please check your 'Junk' email folder or log in to the BLP website and check your 'My Account' settings for correct email address.

Some members have raised questions about the process, the answers to which might be of wider interest. If you have any other questions or comments, please feel free to contact us directly or post here as it may be of wider interest...

1. When will the process start? We intend to begin around the end of this month (ie end of June 2107). As such, we'll consider deleting images that were uploaded before 1 July 2015.
2. What is a 'low quality' image? FIrst, it's worth commenting on why we are doing this: it is to raise the overall quality and standard of images on our website. We want to be the first place people go to on the internet if they are looking for the best Australian bird photos. The definition of 'low quality' will essentially mean images that have a significant deficiency particularly poor technical quality: this will include soft or out of focus images, are very noisy, have serious white balance problems or are too dark or too light. We will also consider images of poor composition for culling but will be more flexible here as that is a more subjective.
3. Will we advise a member before deleting one of their images? No! With more than 10,000 images to review, it simply won't be practical to contact a member every time we find an image to delete. We ask members to review their own images and, if you don't have copies of them all, download them from the website assuming you want to keep them - there are instructions in the email that went to all members.
4. How will we go about the culling process? We intend to go through the Main Library on a species basis. That way we'll be able to look at our entire holdings for a particular species when deciding what to delete. Where we have lots of great shots of a particular species, we'll be a harsher judge of image quality. The reverse will also apply. Where there are only a few photos, we may not delete any of them even if the quality is poor. We are more likely to delete an image if it is small in size. BLP only allowed images up to 1024 x 768 pixels in the past and changed this to the current size a few years ago (to 1400 x 1050 pixels). Smaller images have less visual impact and are less able to show finer details of bird topography. They are also much less useful to bird conservation and advocacy organisations that occasionally request our images for use in publications and campaigns.
5. When will the job be finished? As Rodney and I are doing this when we have time and given there are more than 10,000 images to review, I anticipate it is going to take months to complete and will hopefully be completed before the end of the year.
6. Will other image libraries be culled, for example, the competition galleries? A decision has not yet been made. You will be notified if and when a cull is conducted of other galleries. For now, we have enough to get on with.
The following user(s) said Thank You: Warren Wilson

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