# Which photo is better?



## Sylvanite

Here are two similar pen photographs:

Picture A:








Picture B:






Which one do you think is better and (if you have a preference) why?


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## seamus7227

photo b appears to be more crisp


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## Dan26

I agree...photo B. It's a sharper and brighter picture.


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## D.Oliver

I can't see a differnce in the two and I have eagle eyes (Just look at my avatar).


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## ianjwebster

I must be getting old - I can't see a difference.


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## joefyffe

I have to agree with Seamus, but the difference, in my opinion, would be no more than 5 units of contrast or Gama Correction (whichever way you do your P/S), to the average viewer.     In other words, "who's gonna notice"?  Dang it!  Going back and looking at it, I think A has a little more power in the highlight area than B.    Sylvanite, are you screwing with our minds???:biggrin::biggrin::biggrin::biggrin::biggrin:


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## BRobbins629

I prefer the darker background in A


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## seamus7227

one of the ways i saw a difference was by looking at the nib on both pics


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## D.Oliver

seamus7227 said:


> one of the ways i saw a difference was by looking at the nib on both pics


 
Is your monitor HD?


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## longbeard

Gonna have to agree with Seamus and Dan, i think B is alittle more crisp and clear.


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## Ironwood

Viewing on my lower quality monitor at work, I like the first one better. Because its showing the highlights a little less. But its very negligable.

I will have a look on my 27" Mac tonight and see if my opinion changes.


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## OKLAHOMAN

The hell with the photos, tell me about the pen.


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## cwolfs69

i think "B" as well. i cant tell a significant difference in sharpness but i do think it looks that way because is is a little lighter. "A" seems a bit dark.


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## Pioneerpens

I like A better.  B seems to add a little too much brightness and 'washes' the color out a bit.


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## Marc

I first did not notice a difference, but as I looked closely at the reflection lines I decided B had a slightly less fuzzy reflection than A.  Keep in mind that I wear tri-focals so....


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## peterborough66

I also think B, a little crisper


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## mikespenturningz

I went back and forth between them and cannot see any difference here. They both look great! I have to agree though the pen is awesome.


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## seamus7227

D.Oliver said:


> Is your monitor HD?



Actually it is!


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## JD Combs Sr

Sylvanite said:


> Here are two similar pen photographs:
> 
> Picture A:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Which one do you think is better and (if you have a preference) why?


I had to put them side beside, even then I can see very little difference, they are both outstanding photos of an outstanding pen.  If I absolutely had to choose one I couldn't, however if pressed I would have to say that "A" is a little "warmer" then "B", there seems to be a slight reddening of the back ground in "A".

Edit: they were side beside in the preview pane but went back to over and under after I posted.


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## MikeL

I can't see a difference. Both pictures are great and the pen is spectacular.


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## avbill

B b/c detail in the highlighted areas


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## 76winger

I don't know. Either it's my old CRT monitor that hasn't died yet (and generally still looks good) or my new progressive lens that's a pain to get used to (especially on the computer), but I can't tell the difference.  :frown:


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## turbowagon

Venturing a guess --- one was taken with a ~$600+ macro lens, and the other with a < $100 kit lens (or perhaps even a point-and-shoot camera) to prove a point???


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## lorbay

B
Lin


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## jttheclockman

turbowagon said:


> Venturing a guess --- one was taken with a ~$600+ macro lens, and the other with a < $100 kit lens (or perhaps even a point-and-shoot camera) to prove a point???


 

 This was my thought also. To me there is no difference and if there was it is not even worth mentioning it. Use whatever setup you did to take either photo. Works for what we do here.


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## AnachitlPut

Wow both are great. B looks sharper to me. Thanks for the good photo haven't seen that pen since the CCc contest. Glad I got a hand in making it.


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## LarryDNJR

Plot Twist:  He forgot to upload the alternate picture and these are both the same.


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## triw51

ianjwebster said:


> I must be getting old - I can't see a difference.


 
I could not say it any better


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## Carl Fisher

If I had to guess, I would say there is just a touch of contrast difference between the two, but not much else.  Of course it's going to vary on everyone's monitors depending on how well or even if they are calibrated.

Either picture is fantastic though.


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## Sylvanite

Just for grins, let's try this.  Which is better now?

Picture B:







Picture A:


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## Carl Fisher

I really can't find anything that stands out as different.  I think the contrast difference I'm seeing is just where the picture falls on my monitor relative to my viewing angle.  If I scroll them to the same place they look identical.


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## nativewooder

I don't know that A or B is better, but I prefer A.


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## Smitty37

A seems a bit darker....other than that not much to choose but side by side I like b a little better.


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## John Den

IMHO

Sharpening artifacts would indicate very, very small amount of increased sharpening to picture B.
Color balance on both pictures is the same to a close degree and a fairly neutral gray.
There is a approx 5% decrease in brightness in picture B.
I have interpreted this as Both pictures are the Same.
And yes this is visible - only just - on my color calibrated 22" monitor and my color calibrated 17" Laptop.
Both pictures are vastly better than 99% of the posted images on this site.


> Just for grins


The first thing I did was load both pictures into Gimp and combine them into a side by side picture
Comparison was done using the color picker tool.
Was this a joke?
Regards,
John


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## Sylvanite

*When the poll is over...*

Ok, the poll has expired (in hindsight, I should have done just a 1 week poll, as nobody voted after the first week) and the results are now visible.  They aren't what I expected.  I had thought that "neither" would far outweigh either preference.

I don't think that's due to a significant difference between the photos though - rather I think it's due to the psychology of perception.  Almost everybody who expressed an opinion preferred one because it was "brighter", "darker", or "crisper" than the other.  In fact, the two photos are nearly identical in both brightness and contrast.  They do have a gradient background (meaning the background is darker at the bottom and lighter at the top).  When viewed one above the other, the mind interprets that the top photo is darker and the bottom is brighter.  Because it seems brighter, the bottom photo also appears to have greater contrast - which we interpret loosely as "crisper" or "sharper".

That is why I made the additional post with the two images in reverse order - so people could see that although B looks brighter in the first, A looks brighter than B in the second.  If I view them side-by-side, whichever one is on the left looks a little warmer to me (I see colors a bit differently in each eye).  I flipped a coin to determine which picture to post first, but am confident that had I swapped them, the poll results would still show preference for the one on the bottom.

When viewed side-by-side at regular display size, I can't tell a difference.  When enlarged, I see aliasing differences from the resampling (but neither is "better" than the other), and a very small difference in "purple fringing" (a form of chromatic aberration).

So, why did I post two nearly identical photographs?  Joe hit the nail on the head (spoilsport :biggrin.  One was taken with a Canon EF-S 60mm f/2.8 Macro lens I just purchased, the other with a Canon EF 28-135mm f3.5-4.6 IS lens, which is about 2 generations old and came bundled as a "kit" lens with a camera I bought 6 years ago.  Both images were shot with the same camera settings (camera position, framing, shutter speed, aperture, white balance, shooting style, focus point, etc.).  Both were post-processed the same (crop, levels, fill-light, brightness, contrast, resampling, sharpening, etc.) except that one lens produced significantly warmer images than the other, so I color-corrected them both to neutral.  Either picture could be made better with additional post-processing.

My point is that you don't have to spend a lot of money on a fancy lens to take good pen photographs.  Although the EF-S 60mm macro lens is a little better (optically), the EF 28-135mm IS lens is plenty good enough.  It is also less expensive and far more versatile.

I hope the exercise was interesting,
Eric


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## edicehouse

Eventhough I do not understand a lot of the camera lingo, not my thing; I really appreciate your demonstration.


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## johncrane

Eric! the pen is Awesome colors are the best what's going on with the clip by the way i recon the 2nd pic wins.Awesome pen mate.


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## hard hat

photo B shows the depth and clarity of the clear center piece better as well as the stripes on the body of the pen further back. 

either way, they are good photos


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## jimdude

Picture B has less contrast and is flat.

Jimdude


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## Dave Turner

The highlights are a little too bright for me in B with loss of some of the contrast.  I prefer A.  Fantastic pen!


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## turbowagon

Sylvanite said:


> So, why did I post two nearly identical photographs?  Joe hit the nail on the head (spoilsport :biggrin.  One was taken with a Canon EF-S 60mm f/2.8 Macro lens I just purchased, the other with a Canon EF 28-135mm f3.5-4.6 IS lens, which is about 2 generations old and came bundled as a "kit" lens with a camera I bought 6 years ago.



For my prize, I'll take that 60mm f/2.8 off your hands.  You don't need it anyway.  :tongue:


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## log2lumber

good photos.  you could bounce light off a white or grey board to get rid of the hot spot.


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## TurtleTom

I think most missed the difference which is in the shadow detail.  Photo B is clearly better.


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## Sylvanite

TurtleTom said:


> I think most missed the difference which is in the shadow detail.  Photo B is clearly better.


Take a look at post Just for grins, which has the same two photos but in reverse order.  There, I suspect you will think that photo A has clearer shadow detail.  The difference is not in the photos, but in which one appears on top.

Regards,
Eric


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