ben_hampel's profile

498 Messages

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8.7K Points

Tuesday, September 23rd, 2025

In Progress

To letterbox or not to letterbox

I think the quality of images being added to galleries needs to be discussed. First, aren't letterboxed images mentioned in the guidelines as something not to be accepted? Under Image Quality it states 'Bars or framing around the outside of the image' is not allowed. And yet we still get a ton of letterboxed images which make the gallery look like this.... https://imgur.com/a/hpVYAXi The black bars need to be cropped out. Second, there needs to be a way to eliminate duplicate images. Especially copyrighted images. Netflix is a big offender of this. They put doubles of images whenever a new trailer comes out announcing some new show or series. It makes the galleries look like a sloppy mess. https://imgur.com/a/GphlmW2 And IMDb refuses to delete the duplicates since they have a copyright on them. Plus many times someone will put up a First Look from Vanity Fair or Entertainment Weekly so now you end up with three of each image. The First Look images can be deleted but in some cases the actor or their publicist has them locked so then we are stuck. When I recently mentioned all this to the editors I got contradictory responses. One said put it up to a vote here on the Community Board. Maybe I will but has anyone seen a change due to voting on here? Third, when creating a screen capture they tend to come out darker and more green than the original image. You need to brighten and color adjust to match the original. Otherwise they have a puke green tint to them. https://imgur.com/a/w6unACA Fourth, @AlbertoMazarro brought this up in his thread 'Nonsense number of images for a movie'... There needs to be a common sense amount of images. I just came across 'Defending Jacob', an eight episode series with 1204 images. That comes out to 150 images per episode. How many images of JK Simmons on a phone do you really need? https://imgur.com/a/gyFnMTC 'Mare of Easttown' has seven episodes with 1402 images. Average of 200 images per episode. That's just dumb. Fifth, behind the scenes images.... enough with the clappers and labeled director chairs. 'Killers of the Flower Moon' has 400 behind the scenes images. No more images from 100 yards away of someone walking to the set. Or images like this.... https://www.imdb.com/title/tt30144839/mediaviewer/rm3088925441/?ref_=ttmi_mi_21_1 I would be interested in feedback from anyone especially an IMDb employee. Is there a way to get more eyes on this problem? Or any problem mentioned on the Community Board? Many good suggestions on how to improve this site never seem to get the attention they are due here. Also how come Imgur links no longer show up as images on here?

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Employee

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5K Messages

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53.2K Points

10 days ago

Hi ben_hampel- Thank you for your comprehensive feedback about our image galleries. You've raised important points about image standards, duplicate management, quality control, and quantity limitations. We value your input and will ensure your feedback reaches the appropriate teams for review. First, regarding letterboxing, our image quality guidelines specifically prohibit images with black bars, frames, or letterboxing. If you encounter such images on the site, please report them for removal. We appreciate you bringing this recurring issue to our attention, and we will work with our team to ensure these guidelines are being consistently enforced. Second, regarding duplicated images, we have forwarded this to the respective team for visibility. Third, thanks for sharing this observation with still-frame screen capture images. As with quality in general, anytime you encounter low-quality images they can be reported. Fourth, thanks for highlighting the idea thread and commenting with some examples. Our staff is monitoring activity/votes and the suggestion has been forwarded to our product team. Fifth, we have removed the image and have reported the processing error. If you spot behind-the-scenes images that violate our guidelines, please continue to report them. I've noted your concerns about the consistency of these submissions and are working with our team to improve the review process. As per your last question, regarding links not showing up as images on Sprinklr, we are still working to reinstate image display functionality within the community and will share updates as they become available on the following thread: https://community-imdb.sprinklr.com/conversations/imdbcom/imdb-community-site-is-back-online/67c7463ff1f6982721eb235d Cheers!

498 Messages

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8.7K Points

I always thought it might be helpful when you go to upload an image if the copyright field is filled out a prompt could appear that asks 'Are you certain this copyrighted image is being uploaded for the first time?' Or something like that. A sort of speed bump to maybe make people take more care.