Hey everyone,
This is a long post The short of it is: Showcase quality means that an image is an exemplar of its class, largely free from artifacts. Too many rules? Just submit to Image Abyss, and you can ignore all this!
In our continuing journey to make sure rules and terminology is clear, here is a post about what 'Showcase Quality' means!
In the rules for uploading, you will notice that some sites have a large green 'Showcase Quality Only' text
An important note: NONE of this is about whether something qualifies for our creator program! The rules and guidelines for the Alpha Coders creator program can be found at https://alphacoders.com/creator/join . You can submit creator content that is not considered showcase quality! It just needs to go to a site that isn't marked for only showcase quality submissions.
Now that we have that out of the way, lets move onto what showcase quality means for the different parts of Alpha Coders that only accept showcase quality content:
Part 1: Showcase quality means the image is almost entirely free from artifacts, or other image quality problems.
Example 1: https://pics.alphacoders.com/pictures/view/326900 Load up the image at full size. You'll notice the lines and text are reasonably crisp. It's just an image generated from a template at 100% quality. As we will read later, it's not really showcase quality because of other reasons, but the image quality is fine.
Example 2: https://pics.alphacoders.com/pictures/view/326901 Again, load up the image at full size. You'll notice the lines and text have artifacts around them. The image appears ok before its viewed at full size, but not at full size. Artifacts hurt this image, and completely bar it from being considered showcase quality.
Below are the thumbnails of both examples 1 and 2 side by side:
Can you tell the difference? Don't worry - I definitely can't. We compress thumbnails to help them load fast - but never compress original images. The point of this is that it doesn't matter if it looks fine at a thumbnail size, or almost full size. Image quality is determined when the image is viewed at full size.
Part 2: Showcase quality for Wallpaper Abyss means the image must be an exemplar of its class
So if it's an image of a car, it needs to be a really good image of a car. If it's a picture of a bird, it needs to be a really good picture of that bird. If it's an abstract image, it needs to be really good.
- If you can have multiple variations of the same image with simply different colors, it's probably not an exemplar.
- Spending a large amount of time on something does not automatically make it showcase quality
- Simply being large and an image without artifacts is not enough
- The barrier for something being showcase quality is slightly relaxed if you are submitting your own work.
- Most general photography would not be considered an exemplar, unless it presents as professional/semi-professional
- For media, no cinematic black borders.
- For video game content, see our video game content guide.
With the showcase quality guideline, it's impossible for it to not be at least somewhat subjective. So please see what decisions moderators are making, and tailor your submissions to how moderators move things around.
Lets do some examples
Below are a few abstract images that I generated.
None of the above are showcase quality. They are all 4k resolution rendered as JPGs with 100% quality. But nothing about them is particularly exceptional, noteworthy, or not reproducible by anyone that can click a few buttons in an online photo editor. Red and black isn't really any better than blue and black, green and black, etc.
Lets take another quick example:
It's not showcase quality. I think a desert tortoise semi-burrowed by a cactus is cool, but it's not an exemplary example of photography, cactus, or tortoises. I personally probably like it more than someone else would because it's one of my tortoises.
For Mobile Abyss:
The above applies
For Art Abyss:
We allow exceptions for your personal bests. If you are sharing content from a source other than yourself, all of the above would apply. If you are submitting your own art, you would be able to share your high effort pieces, independant of whether they are truly exemplary. Beginning artists and photographers are more than welcome!
A final point for now:
- The criteria for something like a brand new movie, vs a really old movie will be slightly different. Common sense says that there will be more high quality content for a newer movie in the HD age, than one made decades ago. So there's probably less good HD content of the old movie, making meeting the criteria of an 'exelmplar' of its class a bit easier to obtain.
I hope this helps, and keep in mind - you can create what you want to create. We just need to keep the showcase quality sections of Alpha Coders exactly that. If you aren't interested in all these rules, just submit your content to Image Abyss! We know it's a lot to take in, and can be hard to understand, so we made a place to bypass all that - and let people be a bit more free.
Please let me know if you have additional questions or comments.
David West
Alpha Coders