Some database users are rejecting my screenshots

[catfer]

17 minutes ago, neil9000 said:

 

So once again to clarify, NO FILTERS/SHADERS IN UPLOADS TO THE DATABASE.

Thank you.

the launbox database is not used to query the original sizes or appearance of video games. they are used together with emulators for personal computers almost in their entirety, and to consult the real state of emulation. I do not force anyone to view or download my screenshots, other users should also have an opportunity to choose what they like best.

[neil9000]

6 minutes ago, catfer said:

other users should also have an opportunity to choose what they like best.

No.

If they want images with terrible shaders on them they can make them themselves.

7 minutes ago, catfer said:

I do not force anyone to view or download my screenshots

You cannot preview images when downloading in Launchbox, so yes people would be forced into downloading your images, and then would have to manually find and delete them after.

[catfer]

@neil9000 
ok perfect, then add your new rules to the database, because i think these new rules have been made just for me and for daring to ask
and the hundreds of bullshit images that exist and that I have to delete manually when they are downloaded is not important. Only mine are the problem.

[neil9000]

2 minutes ago, catfer said:

@neil9000 
ok perfect, then add your new rules to the database, because i think these new rules have been made just for me and for daring to ask
and the hundreds of bullshit images that exist and that I have to delete manually when they are downloaded is not important. Only mine are the problem.

No filters/shaders applies to EVERYONE.

 

2 minutes ago, catfer said:

because i think these new rules have been made just for me and for daring to ask

Can you not see that this is the complete opposite of that? You are asking to be excluded from the no filter/shader rule that applies to everybody else. You want to be the only one to be allowed to upload these images, this will not happen.

[neil9000]

This is how Asterix should look.

Retroarch, no shader, no bezel. Simple.

 

[catfer]

@neil9000 No filters/shaders applies to EVERYONE.

I have never seen these rules in the database

@neil9000 This is how Asterix should look.

That is your personal opinion that imposes on everyone.
This is not what Asterix looked like when it was released for CRT televisions in the past.
I do not like his image for many aspects such as size, pixels. But I respect your alternative and would vote to keep it in the DB.

With emulators we do not only have the possibility to reproduce the games in an original or similar way to the original. We have the possibility to improve the games to adapt them to our current screen technology

Edited July 4, 2020 by catfer

[Lordmonkus]

4 minutes ago, catfer said:

This is not what Asterix looked like when it was released for CRT televisions in the past.

It's exactly how it looked, the difference is the display it was seen on which changes how it looks but the actual rendering of the game by the system was exactly how it looks in the screenshot.

4 minutes ago, catfer said:

I do not like his image for many aspects such as size, pixels. But I respect your alternative and would vote to keep it in the DB.

I agree, I don't like playing my games this way either but for the DB it should be the pure pixel image.

5 minutes ago, catfer said:

With emulators we do not only have the possibility to reproduce the games in an original or similar way to the original. We have the possibility to improve the games to adapt them to our current screen technology

This is purely subjective but like I said, for the purposes of the DB it should be the pure pixel image and not your subjective opinion.

Play the games how you want but submit screenshots in their pure pixel state.

Continuing this argument is pointless.

[neil9000]

5 minutes ago, catfer said:

We have the possibility to improve the games to adapt them to our current screen technology

Yes we do, and you are free to do so when you play games on your system. What we will not allow though is those images in our database.

You have been told time and time again that we will not allow images with filters/shaders in our database. Please just do as asked, and we can stop with this pointless discussion.

Images with filters/shaders should NOT be uploaded to the database, if they are, they WILL be rejected. If you continue to upload them regardless i will simply ban you from the database.

[Jason Carr]

@catfer Not really sure why you're arguing here. To be honest, the only reason it's not a rule in the database is because it never came up before (it was pretty much assumed). Screenshot images with filters is not something that we have a lot of anywhere else in our database. We created this rule because it was the first time we've noticed that it was a problem. We've explained why it's a problem, and any further arguing (or continuing to upload images with filters) will be grounds for a ban.

[Freestate]

On 7/1/2020 at 11:47 AM, catfer said:

Some database users are rejecting my screenshots

Hello my name is Fernando (catfer)

First of all, I want to say that I love the launchbox application,
and in gratitude I am uploading screenshots of various systems for those games that do not have screenshots yet.

I try to make the screenshots I upload to the database have the best possible quality and sometimes it is necessary to rescale an image too small to appreciate the details,

one of those users who reject my screenshots said that the original resolution of the nes is 256x240

I have multiplied the resolution 4 times so that all users can appreciate the current quality of emulation of the games.

We all know that launchbox is an application that is used in conjunction with emulators. Is there someone who can play and not being blind with the original resolutions of the games on our FullHD and 4k screens?

If the rejections continue, I will have to abandon the collaboration, despite the fact that there are thousands and thousands of games without screenshots (something necessary).

and it's a shame, because I love the launchbox system and I only want to help within my limited possibilities.

i've uploaded hundreds of images and new games added, and never had a problem until now.

Pd, sorry about my bad english, my native is spanish from spain

Resolutions must be native. Is not necesary to spare a lot of space. 2x could be tolerable, anything higher is commonly refused. Thanks for your contributions but you need to see the big picture, We are adding HQ SCANS, WALLPAPERS, SOME PEOPLE ALSO HAVE MP4 GAMEPLAY HQ SNAPS, in this ones adding high resolutions or low compression could be necesary to achieve eye candy quality. But with screenshots launchbox scales images without problems and keep it gorgerous if they are in png format. No need for ultrascales.

[neil9000]

2 hours ago, Freestate said:

Resolutions must be native

No, no they must not. Thats what this whole thread is about. Higher res/scaling is fine, it's screenshots with shaders/filters on that we are objecting to here.

[Freestate]

On 7/5/2020 at 2:46 AM, Jason Carr said:

@catfer Not really sure why you're arguing here. To be honest, the only reason it's not a rule in the database is because it never came up before (it was pretty much assumed). Screenshot images with filters is not something that we have a lot of anywhere else in our database. We created this rule because it was the first time we've noticed that it was a problem. We've explained why it's a problem, and any further arguing (or continuing to upload images with filters) will be grounds for a ban.

@Jason Carr may i ask you for a suggestion?. When some debate like this one arises, we could offer some questionary to vote changes or a forum section for new suggestions for guidelines?. Most of the time we are moving by our intuitions of what decision could be the best considering how the database and aplication works. Maybe could be good to separate our doubts about missing links or adressed issues in some specific part of the forum named like Guidelines changes debate and suggested additions. The common trait of any contributor is to improve the database and eye candy features of launchbox. i´ve suggested in the past. The guidelines need constant updating and additions when some doubts or missing rules trigger these issues.

 

Edited November 18, 2021 by Freestate

[kurzih]

On 8/21/2020 at 12:14 PM, neil9000 said:

No, no they must not. Thats what this whole thread is about. Higher res/scaling is fine, it's screenshots with shaders/filters on that we are objecting to here.

Sorry neil9000, but I have to debate this. I'm on @Freestate side of view on this one. And bringing this topic back on.

Just recently I'm seeing moderator changes from native PNG resolution to slightly upscaled JPG screenshots - with older games like from the Spectrum ZX etc., claiming that it's "better quality" making a bigger sized JPG screenshot. I think that is misleading and a bad mistake to approve those changes. Why is that? Because JPG files when saved (or should I say auto-scaled by  Launchbox/BigBox) into a different resolution will add grain/noise especially around texts etc.

PNG has lossless data compression and looks great auto-scaled in HD of whatever resolution (smaller or bigger) and it will also preserve the colours. No user should need to make screenshot image bigger than what they are in their native resolution if they are saved in PNG. I don't mind if someone upscales a PNG image (even if it's not really of any use), but changing perfectly fine PNG screenshot files into JPG is making the quality worse, not better - especially with BigBox.

I'm sure there's people here in this forum who are very familiar with these formats and I'm quite sure they would voice it for PNG as a preferred format for screenshots. And anyone can google more about the benefits of PNG and problems with JPG for screenshots or in general, like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Network_Graphics

EDIT: I'm emphasizing "screenshots" here. I don't wish people to start changing Box - Front/Back / Flyers images from JPG to PNG. Since that would only fill everyone HDs. High/Maximum Quality JPG files are OK for these kind of files but are not good for screenshots (especially old games with low native resolution).

Edited November 18, 2020 by kurzih

[neil9000]

1 hour ago, kurzih said:

Sorry neil9000, but I have to debate this. I'm on @Freestate side of view on this one. And bringing this topic back on.

Just recently I'm seeing moderator changes from native PNG resolution to slightly upscaled JPG screenshots - with older games like from the Spectrum ZX etc., claiming that it's "better quality" making a bigger sized JPG screenshot. I think that is misleading and a bad mistake to approve those changes. Why is that? Because JPG files when saved (or should I say auto-scaled by  Launchbox/BigBox) into a different resolution will add grain/noise especially around texts etc.

PNG has lossless data compression and looks great auto-scaled in HD of whatever resolution (smaller or bigger) and it will also preserve the colours. No user should need to make screenshot image bigger than what they are in their native resolution if they are saved in PNG. I don't mind if someone upscales a PNG image (even if it's not really of any use), but changing perfectly fine PNG screenshot files into JPG is making the quality worse, not better - especially with BigBox.

I'm sure there's people here in this forum who are very familiar with these formats and I'm quite sure they would voice it for PNG as a preferred format for screenshots. And anyone can google more about the benefits of PNG and problems with JPG for screenshots or in general, like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Network_Graphics

EDIT: I'm emphasizing "screenshots" here. I don't wish people to start changing Box - Front/Back / Flyers images from JPG to PNG. Since that would only fill everyone HDs. High/Maximum Quality JPG files are OK for these kind of files but are not good for screenshots (especially old games with low native resolution).

That was never the debate in this thread. The issues here were the user was using shaders/filters in his emulators that change the look of the game, he was then uploading these to the database for use, we rejected them and told him not to submit images like that. Both .png and .jpg are fine for the database, that was never in discussion here.

[kurzih]

38 minutes ago, neil9000 said:

That was never the debate in this thread. The issues here were the user was using shaders/filters in his emulators that change the look of the game, he was then uploading these to the database for use, we rejected them and told him not to submit images like that. Both .png and .jpg are fine for the database, that was never in discussion here.

Yes I agree, but I thought this was related enough to continue the discussion in this thread with an issue with screenshots that is occurring right now on the database. Just moved this "new" discussion here: 

 

Edited November 18, 2020 by kurzih

[aquishix]

On 7/1/2020 at 12:38 PM, neil9000 said:

Thats not true though, they have a "max" resolution, but not a fixed one. Just taking the above image and reason for rejection above, "The Nintendo NES have 256x240 internal resolution" Thats only true for PAL region, NTSC was even lower at 256x224, so if a 256x240 image was added with a US region tag, that should technically be rejected if we are only using "native resolution", that is if we go on the logic the rejector offered up.

Then take something like the PS1, we gonna just limit the database to just one of its many supported resolutions?

 

Just to set the record straight, the NTSC NES's resolution was 256x240.  Period.  Go hook up an NES to a PVM and you'll see all 61,440 pixels.  It's only because a lot of the outside edge was cut off on a typical CRT TV in the 80s and 90s that people have this misconception that its vertical resolution was cut off to 224.  It probably adds to the confusion that the SNES really *did* have 256x224 video output, because that system cuts off the beam at the 225th scanline.