Image Quality and the Aesthetic Judgment of Photographs: Contrast, Sharpness, and Grain Teased Apart and Put Together

We examined the individual and combined effects of contrast, sharpness, and grain degradations on the aesthetic judgments of photographs depicting natural and human-made scenes. Our systematic approach demonstrated that certain degradations, and their combinations, had more impact on aesthetic judgments than others, and that the effects varied depending on the type of scene. We also showed that the degradations were additive in that the more degradations to which an image was subjected, the less it was liked. Finally, we found evidence for a contrast effect in which the aesthetic judgments of high-quality images were more positive as the images they were presented with were more degraded.