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Salient-Centeredness and Saliency Size in Computational Aesthetics

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posted on 2024-05-19, 23:33 authored by WK Hoh, Fanglue ZhangFanglue Zhang, Neil DodgsonNeil Dodgson
We investigate the optimal aesthetic location and size of a single dominant salient region in a photographic image. Existing algorithms for photographic composition do not take full account of the spatial positioning or sizes of these salient regions. We present a set of experiments to assess aesthetic preferences, inspired by theories of centeredness, principal lines, and Rule-of-Thirds. Our experimental results show a clear preference for the salient region to be centered in the image and that there is a preferred size of non-salient border around this salient region. We thus propose a novel image cropping mechanism for images containing a single salient region to achieve the best aesthetic balance. Our results show that the Rule-of-Thirds guideline is not generally valid but also allow us to hypothesize in which situations it is useful and in which it is inappropriate.

History

Preferred citation

Hoh, W. K., Zhang, F. L. & Dodgson, N. A. (2023). Salient-Centeredness and Saliency Size in Computational Aesthetics. ACM Transactions on Applied Perception, 20(2), 1-23. https://doi.org/10.1145/3588317

Journal title

ACM Transactions on Applied Perception

Volume

20

Issue

2

Publication date

2023-04-21

Pagination

1-23

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)

Publication status

Published

Online publication date

2023-04-21

ISSN

1544-3558

eISSN

1544-3965

Language

en