Tudor Rating System

Quality guide in photography

Quality guide in photography - Tudor Rating System 53.46 KB

Download

Introduction

This guide is an attempt to standardize the common understanding of quality in photography. Despite the large area of subjectivity, there is a need to bring all elements together into a recognized established and valuable system which brings all aspects together and eliminates 90% of subjectivity.

Having a standardized system is also an education path which helps photography students to get their attention towards the important aspects of photography and make their work better.

This guide will be subject to constant improvement as information will be collated over a period of time and more people will adopt, refine and use it

Description:

Tudor Rating system is assigning a numeric value, or a mark to 3 separate aspects:

1. Content = how interesting is the content, quality of the story, how is the subject presented.

Content will be first categorized into a specific photography field and analysed within that field.

Categories to be separated and not compared to each other

–       street photography

–       landscape

–       photojournalism – events

–       portraiture

–       children

–       newborn

–       weddings

–       product photography

–       sports

–       automotive

etc

For each category the 1 will be assigned to the most uninteresting image presented in a poor quality and the 10 will be assigned to the most interesting one

For example

1. self portrait in a bathroom , half naked taken with a phone camera in low light – will receive a TRS (Tudor Rating System ) mark of 1 out of 10
2. a portrait which is presented in an interesting visually appealing method that reflects personality as intended TRS mark 10 out of 10

For each person a 10 will be probably different than the others as there is always subjectivity, taste and visual education playing their parts, and that applies to each mark.

The system will work better with at least 5 different people assigning their own rating , including the image author, and the final TRS mark for content will be the average

1. Composition – language – how the story is presented. This aspect breaks down and analyses the visual components of the picture in relation to each other and assesses the knowledge and understanding of composition.

In terms of composition a 1 will be assigned to an image taken randomly with no consideration of composition, and a 10 will go to an images which follows several compositional elements in the same time creating a visual appealing arrangement. For example a an image combing rule of thirds, rhythm or repetition, perspective lines and diagonals in the same time, using balance to establish the very well positioned subject.

1. Image quality – how good you are with your camera settings and how good is your equipment. This aspect analyses the core visual quality of an image, such as sharpness, colours, contrast, depth of field etc.

TRS mark 1 will be assigned to an image taken with a phone, a low quality camera, in low light, grainy , dark or in such a way the subject is confusing and un-appealing, and a 10  will be assigned to an image perfectly executed by an experienced and skilled individual with high quality equipment.

Since this is also prone to subjectivity if you would hand the image on a wall in your living room for the rest of your life, that would be a 10

Final TRS Mark = (Content + Composition + Image Quality)/3

The above is a guide and it does not content any examples intentionally to allow any user to interpret images in their own way.

The accuracy of the value will increase if there will be at least 3-5 different individuals using the system and provide independent assessments