Today, I was catching up on my online reading and I came across an article Larry Berman wrote on his blog site. http://bermangraphics.com/blog/zapp-images/. In the article he claims there is a distinct disadvantage to having vertical or square images, in that, on laptops, vertical and square images are smaller than horizontal ones. This may be a problem for artists applying to shows that use of laptops to do their jurying, as opposed to projected images. About 90% of the ZAPP shows use laptops. In the past all images immediately resized so that they were viewed equally. Maybe Larry could explain this in greater depth, besides everyone reading this article. My question to Larry is: Are we better off having all horizontally shot images? What is the solution?
Jurors who view images on their laptops, at home, can take their time looking and judging the images. One way around the above mentioned glitch, would be to allow jurors to click on the image and view it full screen since they aren't restricted by time. Currently that can't be done even though it would take a simple common script to enable that feature. Another solution might be to require jurors to have a certain size monitor to view the images. I just purchased a 24" monitor 1920 x 1080 for only $150, which is extremely affordable. If we have to pay $75-$100 per image to get shot by the best photographers specializing in art fair images, certainly a juror could be required to buy a good monitor. That would maintain a certain amount of professionalism and fairness in the system.
Replies
Greetings,
As was posted in another discussion on this site, the ZAPP® team is aware of this developing conversation surrounding the display of images following the release of a recent system enhancement. Please know that we are diligently researching this issue with our software development team. After further discussion and analysis, we will provide the field with a more detailed explanation of our resolution. Thank you for your patience.
Best,
Christina
ZAPP® team
Hi Leah and Christina,
Thanks for replying.
I think what's frustrating is that this same issue was proposed the day ZAPP went live in 2004 and wasn't considered in the years of planning that went into the system. When I called it to their attention (Matthew Saunders was the tech person) it was fixed within 24 hours because he understood exactly what I was referring to about it being an issue.
There is an easy five minute fix. Tell the programmers to change the fit image command in the PHP file (if they are using PHP) from 1000x750 to 750x750 or better yet, 700x700. And change the thumbnails fit image command from 160x120 to 120x120.
What's frustrating all the artists is that it was a fair system (the way the images displayed to the jurors) but someone decided it needed tweaking and now it isn't fair anymore. Even what happened three years ago put artists lacking image editing skills at a disadvantage by allowing them to upload smaller images.
I apologize to both of you for what seems like I'm taking out my frustrations on you. It's just that I have no one else at Westaf to contact about this issue. And I'll post this to your response on the other forums also.
Sincerely,
Larry Berman
Hey Barry. Thanks for outing me. But I wasn't ready to go live yet.
I spent over a week researching and testing images in the new ZAPP system and my recommendation to ZAPP is to roll back the upgrade and work out the image issues. Currently every jury image when enlarged is fit 1000x750. What that actually means is that every image is sized to best fit 1000 pixels wide by 750 pixels tall. But that's not the end of it. Then the enlarged image is scaled according to the resolution of the monitor or laptop that the viewer is using, and for most viewers, the images will actually appear smaller than the original enlargement size of 700 pixels square. You must read the article to understand because I also have screen captures showing how the horizontal images without black borders appear much larger than horizontal images with black borders, vertical images with and without black borders or images that are square.
Most shows (about 90% or so) jury on monitors with the jurors working from home. Now no two jurors will see images at exactly the same size unless they have identical resolution monitors. I saw major differences on my new widescreen laptop where horizontal images without black borders look as if they are almost twice the size of horizontal images with black borders.
This is one of those situations where just because you can doesn't mean you should. ZAPP has been allowing non square images to be uploaded into the system for the last three years but they were enlarging them to 700 pixels long dimension so all monitor jurors saw them at the same size. Now they are enlarging them much too large and because monitors are horizontal widescreen viewing devices, they favor horizontal images by a lot. Whoever created the 1000x750 horizontal size doesn't understand artists or art shows and certainly doesn't understand that any size other than square isn't fair for jurying.
If ZAPP is to allow non square images to be uploaded, they need to run scripts on the images and make the enlargements 700 square in our profiles which is used for monitor jurying and 1920 square for projection jurying. Not 1000x750 for enlargements in our profiles.
Even the thumbnails look disproportionate at 160x120 and those are used on the page where the scores are entered for both monitor and projection jurying. That sends jurors a subliminal message while they score.
Art shows and artists should be asking ZAPP to keep the jury process fair and not favor horizontal pictures of art over vertical pictures of art. That's for all the images in the system, thumbnails, enlargements in our profiles and images that are sent to the shows using projectors. ZAPP should be a constant (I used the term rock in my article) and give the shows the tools for a fair jury. Then the responsibility for the jury process falls on the shows. Once the tools becomes unequal, it undermines the entire system.
Read the article and come to your own conclusion.
http://bermangraphics.com/blog/zapp-images/
Larry Berman
http://BermanGraphics.com
412-401-8100
Hi folks, just wondering if anybody on this forum has contacted Zapp about this?