Stylized or original photos?

[MerandaC]

The stylized photos turn a nice photo into photographic magic. When you post a review, which do you prefer, the magic or the natural? 

[LucioV]

Usually, when i upload photos to maps they came straight from the smartphone camera.

When i create virtual tours, i have to use a more complex workflow, including develop of raw files with Adobe Lightroom, composal of 20 photos for stitching panorama in Kolor, then i have some Photoshop for final touch on the panorama.

[Csaba]

Hi @MerandaC, you should not post (too) stylized photos at all. Please, have a look at these guidelines: 

https://www.google.com/streetview/privacy/#publishing-acceptance-criteria

Under Image Clarity and Quality, it clearly says: "Stylistic adjustments (such as applied filters) are acceptable, provided that these stylistic changes are minimal..."

Indeed these images may look very nice but Google's goal in case of Google Maps is to show the world as it is in reality.

[BillMeier]

Cameras,  especially those on the phone, rarely show the world in "reality." I always find that rotating the photo helps, and brightening the shadows a little bit brings out some of the extra detail. Of course, cropping the photo is also useful to get rid of spurious areas. I find that using the app Snapseed with some. quick touch-ups to adjust the photo helps make a really nice picture. I don't consider any of those operations altering reality just refining the photo to show what you want as best you can. 

[MerandaC]

Good points here. I agree, I try to get the most organic image but it does sometimes help to do the auto lighting so it's easier to see certain aspects of the photo. Those help make the quality of the image better, I think.

[MerandaC]

Well typically, the photos I post personally are organic, with some adjusting of the light or cropping to see better. I'm not taking through the filter process on Instagram or adding a Snapchat image. Mainly, when I say stylized, I was referring to how the Google Photos app creates the lightened images that look really great, just highlighting the natural one. I have on occasion used that one as long as it still looked pretty legit. 🙂 

[Csaba]

Well, yes, of course, "adjusting" photos is okay. I always do that before adding them to a map listing. Google Photos is great to quickly do the minimum basic settings and I do actualy use that as well before publishing photos on maps. 

What I meant that should not be used is some extreme, artistic filter. Here is an example (of what should not be used): 

Original

 Artistic filter applied

[Csaba]

Getting back to the topic after a "geo-walk" yesterday, @MerandaC... 

I took this picture of the ruins of a monastery yesterday. Processed it slightly with Google Photo's basic tools and although this is not the greatest ever photo, it "describes" the place well: 

Slightly edited - acceptable

Now Google Photos, from time to time, creates "stylized" images randomly from our photos. I am glad it picked this one as it turned out pretty nice and I do like it a lot. However I would not recommend using it on Maps as it seems to be over the borderline of the acceptance criteria (not to speak of the added frame which is not recommended either): 

Stylized - not recommended

 I only brought up the topic again because my previous example was so extreme that it's obviously not acceptable. This one is not that "bad" - still not recommended.

[DheerajSudesh]

I prefer and post original photos on map .We should not fool people with edited photos of places