Alamy

[faisal]

I've tried three times already to upload my images on alamy.com and my pictures have failed the Quality control due to it being 'Soft or lacking definition'. My pictures originally don't meet their size requirements(as 10mp is less) so following the general steps provided to increase the size I got them to meet their requirement. All my shots were shot a ISO 100, are in focus, and perfectly sharp normal size. Obviously if I increase the size, they will lose some sharpness I assume. Any pointers to what I'm doing wrong???

Thanks!!

[Rooz]

post some of the images you tried to upload. you do a fair bit of PP on images and i know they're not a fan of that as a rule.

[faisal]

Interpolation artifacts
Soft or lacking definition
http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q121/faisal7/400D/IMG_1014.jpg

Soft or lacking definition
http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q121/faisal7/400D/IMG_4385.jpg

Soft or lacking definition
http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q121/faisal7/400D/IMG_9861-2_stitch.jpg

Soft or lacking definition
http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q121/faisal7/400D/IMG_9725_colorstitch.jpg

[Rooz]

yes they all are showing signs of it at small sizes so in large size it will be very pronounced. alot of it has to do with the PP you use fais.

that doesnt mean to say they are bad images in any way. i like them all, (apart from the first), but from a purely technical pixel peeping point of view, there are definately artifacts, jaggies, haloing and saturation noise etc in those shots that come from extensive post like contrast, sharpening, colour, saturation adjustments.

compare it to the original. if it looks vastly different then you know you;re not on the right track for that sort of submission.

[cdifoto]

I don't see any issues at this size on my laptop screen, but you can't judge the quality of 10MP images on a per-pixel level by looking at .5MP images.

[Rooz]

how slow is your freakin mail system ?

[faisal]

yes they all are showing signs of it at small sizes so in large size it will be very pronounced. alot of it has to do with the PP you use fais.

that doesnt mean to say they are bad images in any way. i like them all, (apart from the first), but from a purely technical pixel peeping point of view, there are definately artifacts, jaggies, haloing and saturation noise etc in those shots that come from extensive post like contrast, sharpening, colour, saturation adjustments.

compare it to the original. if it looks vastly different then you know you;re not on the right track for that sort of submission.

So I'm better of not PPing my shots for alamy and uploading them. Basically letting the people who buy these to do the PP.....

I do see a bit of noise, haloing and atifacts in these shots but when viewing the original at 50%, they don't appear as much as they do here. 100% is a different story when it comes to artifacts/noise and I doubt any of my images are any good at 100% even when no PP is done....


I don't see any issues at this size on my laptop screen, but you can't judge the quality of 10MP images on a per-pixel level by looking at .5MP images.

I'll post some 100% crops of these for you...


how slow is your freakin mail system ?

I don't know what you mean exactly...

[faisal]

100% crops
http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q121/faisal7/Test/IMG_1014.jpg

http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q121/faisal7/Test/IMG_4385.jpg

http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q121/faisal7/Test/IMG_9725.jpg
Original(RAW file)
http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q121/faisal7/Test/IMG_9726.jpg

http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q121/faisal7/Test/IMG_9861.jpg
Original(RAW file)
http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q121/faisal7/Test/IMG_9862.jpg

yup, all of them look horrible!!!

[Rooz]

So I'm better of not PPing my shots for alamy and uploading them. Basically letting the people who buy these to do the PP.

you're better off nailing the shot in camera as close as possible. the more post you do, especially if its aggressive post, the more the quality degrades. post some originals say of the city or the wing in the clouds. check your histogram aswell as a good indication cos you will see alot of gaps in there i reckon.

or...forget alamy altogether. lol



I don't know what you mean exactly


sorry, was talking to don. lol

[cdifoto]

Yeah those 100% crops look like crap. No offense! Looks like high pass sharpening that was set too high. Are those before, or are they after, uprezzing?

Rooz, our domestic to domestic is pretty good but international varies wildly. I had one item from china within 7 days and another one took more than 30. Both were small and light but I couldn't read the postage to know whether the services used were the same or not.

[faisal]

I've posted originals....^^^^

I thought I'll try alamy cause the local stock images sites are horrible.

cdifoto...those are after uprezzing and the originals are untouched RAW files....

High pass sharpening was set to 2 for those night shots....none for the clouds and maybe 1 for the building....

[Rooz]

yeah they could look better. the last compasion shot is exactly what i'm referring to with your PP fais. adding that much contrast and sharpening looks great for the web or even a small print, but for large commercial sizes its gonna look messy.

all pretty tough exposures though bound to push even the best sensor/ lens combinations let alone a rebel with the kit lens.

[cdifoto]

Yeah I tend to avoid stock sites since they neither pay enough nor have realistic expectations. They want 39MP Hasselblad @ ISO100 images but they'll only give you a buck for it. heh.

[Rooz]

High pass sharpening was set to 2 for those night shots....none for the clouds and maybe 1 for the building....

fais; saturation, colour, contrast adjustments can have a more severe effect. the s curve on that last night shot must have been extreme to get your final result.

[faisal]

Hey...none of these shots were taken with the kit lens.... I have other lens you know... ;)
But I guess you're right, the rebel isn't the camera for such work....plus some L glass would help!!

Btw does 50cm*23cm count as a small print?? that's the size I printed the two panoramas and A2 was the size I printed the cloud shot. All looked fine to me in those sizes....though I know it's nothing compared to those billboard size prints....
I did bump the saturation quite a bit in the last one to achieve the look.

Hmm....this is too much hassle....back to concentrating on a marketing strategy for my photography and bugging people to let me borrow there lighting equipment to practice on...

Thanks Rooz and cdifoto!!! :)

[cdifoto]

Hmm....this is too much hassle....
I agree! :D

Seriously though some people have good luck with microstock but I don't see much benefit. I'd use it perhaps as a dumping ground for images that would otherwise be tossers, but when they're anal-retentive about what they take then it defeats the purpose. It becomes a full time job to optimize images that bring in less than minimum wage at best. My personal opinion is that you're better off putting your efforts elsewhere. Hell I'd rather flip burgers. At least then you can shut off your brain.

[Rooz]

that makes 3 of us

[Paradox]

Tried it, made sure the images fit all their requirements to the best of my ability, batch got rejected, decided it was in no way worth the effort. And some of the images on there are really pretty appalling imo. I don't get their 'quality control'. *Shrugs* I don't think microstock is my game...