A system that incorporates teachings of the present disclosure may include, for example, sampling a variable effect distribution of viewing preference data to determine a first set of effects comprising a plurality of first distortion type effects associated with a first distortion type of a first image and to determine a second set of effects comprising a plurality of second distortion type effects associated with the second distortion type of a second image, calculating a preference estimate from a logistic regression model of the viewing preference data according to the first set of effects and the second set of effects, wherein the preference estimate comprises a probability that the first image is preferred over the second image, and selecting one of the first distortion type or the second distortion type according to the preference estimate. Other embodiments are disclosed.