Photos
Why your screen settings change how you judge a photo
If you pick the photo to submit on a dim or warm screen, you are choosing with a bad instrument.
Guides on Photos: Phone camera settings that make repeat photos comparable, Every variable that sits between the subject and the number, A complete protocol for comparable submissions, Everything about submitting more than one image, How to find out how much of your score is you
Your screen is the instrument you use to choose which photo to submit, and its settings change what you see. A dim display hides detail, and a warm tint makes everything look more flattering and more uniform. Pick under neutral settings, or stop picking.
What the screen does to the photo
Three settings matter.
- Brightness. At low brightness, shadow detail disappears and contrast looks lower than it is. Photos that differ in shadow detail look more alike than they are.
- Night mode. Apple describes Night Shift (Apple Support documentation) as moving the display colours toward the warmer end of the spectrum after dark, noting that "warmer color temperatures show more yellow and less blue." Warm tint does not just change tone, it hides the colour cast differences you would otherwise have seen between photos.
- Auto-adjusting displays. Phones that match the screen to room light mean the same file looks different at different times of day.
None of this touches the file. The file is what the tool reads, and it is the same under any screen setting. What changes is your verdict on which file to send.
Why this matters for comparison
A series needs the same sort of photo each time, not the nicest one. The trouble is that choosing by eye on a bad screen pulls in the wrong direction: you select the photo that looks best on that screen, which is a selection on the screen as much as on the photo. That is the same bias covered in why the photo you like best is not the one to submit, with a second source added. Two sessions, one chosen at night on a warmed phone and one in the afternoon, will have different selection criteria built in.
What to do instead
Best option: do not choose at all. Fix the number of frames per session, submit the first one that meets the protocol, and keep the rest as spares for a repeat. A rule applied before you look cannot be bent by what you see.
If you have to choose between frames, do it under fixed conditions. Turn night mode and automatic colour adjustment off, set brightness to the same level each time, and view in similar room light. Better still, choose on the checks that do not need judgement: level, in focus, framed as in the baseline, conditions as logged.
Choosing wisely is partly a matter of what the tool will do with the photo anyway, since what any tool scores is the photo you send, not the photo you remember. Anyone just starting out with these tools tends to pick on whatever screen is in their hand, which is how the habit forms. Whether a score is accurate in the first place is also a different site's question; here the point is only that your screen should not be the thing deciding. If another person helps you choose, what a human reviewer adds is its own argument, and it brings its own screen with it.
Rate Cock exposes the breakdown on public entries, and comparing a few of them on a screen set the same way each time is a fairer test of what you are looking at than glancing at one on a dimmed phone.