Friday Q&A

Questionable Colorization

Greetings, crickets and trolls. Welcome back to another edition of the Friday Q&A. Season's greetings to you all, unless you disagree with me. Christmas is just a few short days away! I love to spread peace and joy during this magical time of year, at least amongst the dozen or so people who haven't made my shit list. Thanks for joining me today. This week's questions address a number of concerns with the quality of recently approved Photoshop links.

Q: Why are people so mad about the queue?

A: There will always be a level of frustration with the Photoshop queue. PSers have varied tastes, and too many greenlights of a specific type will cause rumblings amongst the various factions. Last year's flap concerned the abundance of so-called "jumping O's." The carping over that particular type of image became somewhat of a cliche itself. In 2008, black and white pictures are fast becoming the new "jumping O." Their presence in the queue has dwarfed that of themes and Iron Photoshop contests. Thus the unrest has begun anew.

Q: What's the best kind of contest?

A: That depends on whom you ask. Some PSers prefer working with an O, whilst others enjoy the freestyle nature of theme contests. Admins have the unenviable task of accommodating both sides. If enough themes aren't approved, or if too many of the O's are black and white, people start bitching. It takes a soft touch to please the Photoshop masses. Unfortunately, displeasure with the queue seems to be fairly universal right now. Themes have taken a back seat in recent months, with many going live on weekends or late at night. Approved O's have increasingly been b&w, blurry, too busy or otherwise ill-suited for Photoshopping.

Q: How do we solve this problem?

A: First of all, not everyone sees a problem with the recently approved Photoshop links. Some people like colorizing pictures, after all. However, even they have to admit there's been an over-abundance of b&w images in recent months. Short of complaining to the PSAEF, there's not much the average PSer can do. Boycotting the contests won't work. Neither will voting -1 on a thread that people have already posted entries in. That just insults anyone who actually tried to make something of the image. The best course of action is to submit stuff that you do like, and hope it gets approved. Flood the queue with open-ended themes and good quality color images. Short of a DDOS attack on Shorpy.com, that's pretty much our only option.

That's all for this time, gentle reader. Thanks so much for stopping by. I want to congratulate TheSniperZERO, who recently took time out from trolling the Clinic to actually make some Photoshops. He even helped out during this week's theme drought by submitting a thread. Way to go, TSZ! Hopefully no "stewpid newbs" brushed up against you in the process.

Stay tuned for more sanitary concerns from the Doctor!