Automatic prediction of the aesthetic quality of a photograph has been an important research problem in image processing and computer vision. While assessing the aesthetic quality of a photograph by human is highly subjective, most existing studies have considered only objective (or general) opinion of multiple viewers. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive investigation of the issue of subjectivity in aesthetic quality assessment using a large-scale database containing photos, user ratings, and user comments. First, we analyze how the mean aesthetic quality level and the level of subjectivity have evolved over time. Second, we examine the feasibility of automatic prediction of the level of subjectivity based on visual features, and identify which features are effective for the prediction. Third, we analyze the users’ comments given to photos to understand the sources of subjectivity of aesthetic quality rating. Our results show that several factors are simultaneously involved in determining the level of subjectivity of a photo, but it can be predicted with reasonable accuracy. We believe that our results provide insight toward personalized aesthetic photo applications.

中文翻译：

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数码照片审美质量评价的客观性与主观性

自动预测照片的美学质量一直是图像处理和计算机视觉中的一个重要研究问题。虽然评估人类照片的审美质量是高度主观的，但大多数现有研究仅考虑多个观众的客观（或一般）意见。在本文中，我们使用包含照片、用户评分和用户评论的大型数据库对审美质量评估中的主观性问题进行了全面调查。首先，我们分析了平均审美质量水平和主观性水平是如何随时间演变的。其次，我们研究了基于视觉特征自动预测主观性水平的可行性，并确定哪些特征对预测有效。第三，我们分析用户对照片的评论，以了解审美质量评级的主观性来源。我们的结果表明，有几个因素同时涉及确定照片的主观性水平，但可以以合理的准确度进行预测。我们相信我们的结果提供了对个性化审美照片应用的洞察。