You know I'm sticking my neck out on this but: this past week I submitted two DVD's of the same UPC ( One Canada and One USA region - High Plains Drifter ) Both DVD's to me looked terrible., I submitted both with exactly the same Scanned covers. The USA got voted down so fast ( especially from Skip,-Existing images are also ORIGINAL release note the Copyright date at the bottom, and they are FAR SUPERIOR ), So I pulled the plug.,, But the Canadian one just sat there with no votes and today it got approved !!  LOL  I guess Gerri Liked it . 

Everyone's eyes are different; everyone's training, monitors, skill, and attitudes are different. When Invelos (the Coles) evaluates their final decision, they weight the votes, the comments, and (surprise!) it is not a democracy. Everyone here can make cover scans which are significantly superior than some of the current images in the database. But there comes a point when the subjective interpretation of the concept of "significantly" becomes a matter of personal taste. I like a scan which looks like a photograph, ready for a printing press. Skip (I believe) prefers scans which are more saturated in color than I like, and he seems to like scans which have significant amounts of sharpening. His monitor is different than mine. I learned a certain trade; he learned another -- and our eyes and experience differ greatly.

So what to you looks like a significantly improved scan, might by other criteria, might be not so significant, or even worse into certain viewer's/screener's/voter's eyes.

Very subjective, and despite certain pieces of software, this relies on the skills of the person doing the scan, their tastes and viewpoints, and also those of everyone else involed in the process. Especially the Coles. This leads to some lively (and occasionally unpleasant) debates. Not all which glitters is gold, nor is black always black.

Quoting skipnet50:

Quote:
...and unless Cliff knows something I don't , there is no method to calibrate eyeballs.

Skip

The only way I know (and I don't know much) how is by training, experience, talent, luck, and finding out (very slowly) that other professionals trust your eyes better than theirs. -- Kind of like being a futbol (football, soccer) referee -- what you see & what others see may not always coincide.

But even if you are very good at it, even then, there will be a client (or a press operator) who thinks you're nuts.

Most of the cover scans I've seen in the updates to my db look no better than what was already there.
I haven't taken the time to determine where either of them came from nor do i care. There are just to many variables.

Not sure if this helps - but I calibrate my monitor screen and when  sometimes I look at new covers, everybody else is raving about them but I think the colour is wrong.

so it really is a matter of the monitor and how its calibrated..

Quoting ninehours:

Quote:
Well someone has definably taken a dislike to my scans

It Came From Beneath The Sea [5-035822-173132]
Forbidden Planet: 50th Anniversary Two-Disc Special Ed [7-321900-669122]

Both declined with all Yes votes

Maybe they all end up looking like your avatar