Curious about OPR Backlog?

[HeidiB]

Hi - I'm new to OPR, only 12 super easy rescues completed.  But...being a numbers person, I can't help but wonder what our total  back log of rescues is?  So, collectively how many have been completed and how many do we have to go?  Certainly, the most important thing is quality work and a rescue of a photo in the manner the owner expects, but just thinking it just might be fun to know how many have been returned home and how many are waiting rescue. 

[Mhayes]

Hi Heidi,

I hope some time this week to be able to post some numbers on how we are standing with our backlog. Between DigMyPics and NAPP's call for action, we have shipped out 300 prints in a month's time. However, that doesn't tell the whole story, because we do not ship out any photos for printing until all of the their photos come back complete. Hannie is on vacation right now and literally out of the country with only her notebook in tow, so it might be hard for her to crunch some numbers. I will get with Tess and Jan, plus check my own gallery numbers and will let everyone know.

Congratulations on completing 12 restores in such a short time.  :up:

Margie

[Mhayes]

Hi Everyone,

Thanks to all of you that have really stepped up the effort to get our backlog down; we are now looking at approximately 780 photos left to restore. These are photos that have yet to be picked out of the distributor's gallery and those in the archive waiting to be downloaded. This number does not include all those photos that are being worked on and yet to be downloaded back to us.

You guys are great!

Margie

[Atlantis]

Are these 780 only Katrina or including the other disasters that had copyruns? And how many are "under construction"?
I was thinking maybe there is a techie interested in math and graphics around here that could translate the OPR related numbers into a graphic representation. Like how many restores have already been sent home, the growth of volunteers over the years, how many are actively restoring, what is the average of restores per volunteer, what if the current active volunteers do x more in the next few weeks ... will the backlog be gone before a certain date (do we have enough potention to make the backlog gone as a huge christmasspresent?), etc.
I love numbers (and Numb3rs  :) ) but am not capable of making graphs.

[Tess (Tassie D)]

I have about 55 under construction and I'd guess the other distributors would have about the same?

[Mhayes]

Atlantis, of the 780 photos in our backlog, they include photos from Hurricane Katrina, flooding in Coffeyville and Winona. In my gallery at the start you will find the DykeM family and that is all that remains for Coffeyville, with the exception of a few outstanding photos from a couple other families. The rest of the photos in my gallery will be from Winona and account for about 1/8 of the total overall. Getting the photos out and back in is only part of the equation. When they come back they are looked over and put in a done folder for that family. After that family has all of their photos done, they are sent on to Quality Control where they are gone over to make sure the photos meets QC standards and then they are returned to Jan to get the order ready to be uploaded to DigMyPics for printing. Before she uploads the prints, she has a template according to size and she must also contact the owner to verify the mailing address.

At some point, I hope to have a ball park figure of total of restoration that have been done, but because of time limitations on us, a more involved graphics table will have to wait until another day. We are delighted that in little over a month, we have increased our membership by 210. However, when you are new there can be confusion on how to maneuver the OPR site as well as PhotoShelter. Plus, what we require for a restore sometimes takes several attempts and reloading back to PhotoShelter. I am very happy that I am seeing most volunteers returning their work within a week. Much as I love seeing the backlog go down; I do not want to start a push for a certain date. The reason for this is that when speed becomes the driver, quality will be sacrificed. Too often we see photos returned in a day that still have damage left on them that should have been caught by taking more time with the photo. If we continue as we are right now, our numbers will be down in good time and it will allow us to move on to another disaster area.

Margie

[glennab]

Hi Margie

Your comments about time to completion vs. quality begs a question.  I wonder if we should amend the estimated times for the levels of difficulty (at least for the moderate to difficult images), eliminate them altogether, or have a combination of a general time table with a note to keep in touch with one's distribution coordinator on the progress of a restoration that's taking a while.  As much as I tease you guys, all of the distributors have been great in keeping me aware of any time constraints on the restorations I have.  Since I love to do the difficults and I work full-time, it'll sometimes take a very long while to get to a point of satisfaction with my work. So far, keeping you apprised of my progress has worked well, and unless you're being WAY TOO GENTLE on me, no one has seemed to have a problem with whatever time it takes to get to a stopping point.  I trust that if there were a time problem you'd let me know.  I've seen posts by several newbies who are agonizing over the time they're taking on a restoration, which may be the reason you're getting restorations that need more work.  Volunteers may be overly concerned that our time estimates are carved in stone and are returning files too soon because of that feeling of time pressure.

I'd also like to raise another issue.  I know that if any of my restorations goes through QC and needs more work, I'd want to be advised so I could know how to better complete the next one.  Usually I send you the best I can do (unless I have to stop and holler "Uncle"), so returning it to me would be counterproductive.  However, I don't want concern for my ego to prevent any of you from letting me know what you did to polish a restoration, or even send a copy of what went to the printer if it differs considerably from what I submitted. I don't know how the rest of the volunteers feel about this, but my take is that unless we know what we need to improve, there'll be little or no improvement, and QC will spend inordinate extra time working on issues that we might be able to address in our original work once we know what needed fixing.

Food for thought!

GK

[lurch]

What Glenna said.

[Mhayes]

Hi Glenna,

If volunteers can restore their photo and return them within a week, that is great. For those photos that are really difficult, we realize that they will take a longer amount of time. Also, if the volunteer needs more time and informs us of what is taking place that lets us know the status of the photo. All of the distributors keep a spreadsheet of the photos for each family. After a certain amount of time, we check on the progress.

We never put the pressure on volunteers when we know that they are struggling with their restoration. The photos that are being returned too soon are usually being done in record breaking time, so I don't think this is a case of pressure causing their quick return. I think part of what is causing a lot of anxiety for new volunteers is finding that these damage photos are a lot harder than expected and are not just a case of clone and you're done. The case of spots and clone marks left on photos is a case of needing to go over at full magnification and looking for remaining damage before uploading. The other problem is doing a simple color correction as outlined in the OPR Handbook before doing the repairs. 

It's great that you like to tackle the difficult ones and if you pick from a family that has a large number of photos, that doesn't cause much of a problem. It does become a problem if all of the family's photos have been returned and you are still working on yours. If a difficult photo is going to take a month to work on, you would help more by picking an easier photo that could be returned sooner.

All of the distributors look over the returned photos and if there is a problem, we get back with the volunteer. If the photo looks fine, it goes into the family's done folder. After all of the photos for that family are finished, they are sent on to Quality Control. They will done in the order that they are received and if you have a large order of from 50 to 80, it is going to take QC longer to work on them. Let say that you have an order in QC that needs something fixed: wrong color space, wrong dpi, spots, clone marks, etc that we didn't catch, but QC does. Take it even further that this photo was in a group of about 80 that has been in the gallery for maybe 6 months before all the photos have completed. Quality Control would have to take note of the volunteer, send an email back to the distributor to notify the volunteer of the mistake. The distributor sends out the email to the volunteer that we caught a mistake he/she made 4 to 6 months ago. I think you can see that we don't have the time for this and it would make more work for everyone.

I know first hand that all of the distributors do their best to give positive feedback and if there is something wrong with a photo, we do get back with the volunteer. On an average, probably 5 to 6+ hours a day are spent doing this work and as a whole I think the system works very well! It may seem like there are a lot of problems right now, but that is more of a case of those new coming in learning the system and getting used to restoring different kinds of damaged photos.

Margie

[glennab]

Margie, I appreciate your taking the time to explain how the QC process works.  I don't think I ever got the full description of how the restorations are handled once they're returned.

I definitely don't want any of you in admin to have to take unwarranted time to contact me if you catch a glitch 4 months down the road.  Maybe the thing to do would be to post a list somewhere (maybe even in the handbook) of the most common problems you find on returned photos. That would give all of us a check-list to go over before sending the restorations back.

I've been taking the very difficult photos because I can pretty much guess by now which ones are going to sit in the galleries for months before anyone is willing to make the attempt.  I prefer to do that than to grab the easy ones, which feels like cheating on my part (my problem, not yours!).  You've been great about letting me know when you'd prefer that I work on one or two easier ones to finish a family's collection.  Believe me, I have NO complaints about the way things are done.  I just don't want anything I do to make the process more cumbersome for distribution or QC if it could be handled in a different manner by volunteers on the first go-round.

Cheers

GK

[HeidiB]

Very interesting comments everyone.  I sure learned a lot about the backlog and the process. 

Also, thanks to Margie for her great and constructive feedback.   :hug: