Dear Advertisers...

Ade

Ok like most people nowadays I normally don't notice banner ads, but one NRF ad caught my eye, not because its superb content or deep discounts but rather due to horrible posterization / banding:



I mean, non-photographers probably won't be bothered, but if you place an ad specifically targeting professional photographers, wouldn't it make sense to have top quality images?

In similar vein, I watched a broadcast TV news interview recently where the production quality was so low... full of moire, aliasing and audio issues, that I simply had to turn off the TV. I guess all the downsizing really has taken its toll on production quality.

(The chief piano technician at a nearby conservatory told me recently that he can't listen to the radio anymore since he notices all the out of tune instruments. So I guess it's a common issue.)

Have you been noticing quality problems everywhere?

WestEndBoy

I used to own about $15,000 worth of audiophile equipment in the 90s. I could barely listen to CDs (they have the audio quality of a 2.5 megapixel camera). I found most popular music frustrating to listen to.

With photography, I can pick my own quality instead of relying on somebody else.

PB_PM

My personal favorite ads on the site are the Canon ones that pop up from time to time.

framer

I'm sure it not the picture but the advertiser concerned about bandwidth. They don't want their images to slow down the page loading.

They are compressed and optimized for smallest file size.

framer

Ade

That and likely a rather clumsy conversion of the source images to .GIF format to enable animation. This conversion to .GIF, if not done very carefully, will frequently produce banding -- a definite faux pas among photographers.

Msmoto

There is an unbelievable amount of garbage in the images used today. And, for the most part, I suspect the client simply is unaware of this, either because some art director does not know a hole in the ground from….. …or financial constraints are dictating no budgets for images.

But, please look at the images on http://hondajet.honda.com. These are done about three miles from me…. not by me, but no doubt by a very first class photographer.

[Deleted User]

There are two things I noticed. My daughter had a photo shoot by a well known Dutch photographer, he produced perfect photo's, but the prints in the magazine were garbage.

Most of the photo's I see on internet are a guick and (very) dirty job. I think we are going to see lots more in the future, photo's made by a 12mp phone and processed with PS touch.

kyoshinikon

I will say the photos in the ad at the top arent horrible, the compression is. I do agree with Msmoto because there are so many horrible images in use today it is not even funny.

Photobug

Those are nice photos Msmoto of the Honda Jet.
Totally agree, there is so much junk being used in today's ads.