What am I doing wrong with Alamy?

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bulb763

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Name
Jon
Edit My Images
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Tried uploading my first lot of images and it's saying the uncompressed size is too small. Their own guide says minimum of 48Mb uncompressed, which they are (all are >55Mb .TIFs). When compressed the smallest is ~7Mb .jpeg. So I don't understand :confused: I guess it's probably something really obvious that I'm missing but I don't know what :shrug:
 
Hi,

I had the same problem when I started with Alamy. The image has to be 48mb uncompressed as an 8 bit tiff. I was transferring them as 16 bit but they were coming up as too small, changed it to 8 bit and no probs since.

Hope that helps.

Arron
 
I was going to post one of these thread, but for a different reaon, I got Soft or lacking definition

Alamy said:
The image may appear soft and/or lacking definition because:

it has been interpolated beyond its limitations (i.e. if camera used is “not suitable for Alamy”)
of over use of software to remove blemishes, dust or scratches such as “Digital ICE”. Try to use it selectively and sparingly taking care not to degrade the image to an unacceptable degree. Many of these techniques work by softening the image.
the scanner is poor quality. A scanner should have good quality optics and you should use a designated film scanner for 35mm negatives for best results. For more information visit images from scanners.
the camera lens is poor quality, affecting the clarity of an image.
Click to expand...

I'd used a 20D (meets criteria), Lightroom for processing (didn't need to remove scratches etc) and L series lenses (surely they aren't poor quality).

I'm a bit stumpted as to where I went wrong, I'm thinking it could be the upscaling process (I only have photoshop CS) or possibly on one of them I used a large aperture to throw the bg out, but surely they know this.

I'm going to have another try soon, but with applying a bit of sharpening, as surely putting the sharpening slider to 0 in Lightoom is going to make images soft, as even jpegs get sharpened in Camera.

Does anyone else have any other suggestions?
 
Dont know how much help I can be so sorry in advance.

It wont be your lens, I dont know if it is the camera or not but I doubt it as I think I had images from a 30d uploaded before I got the 1dmk3. The only thing I can think of is the resizing to get the correct file size. Are you resizing an 8 bit tiff or a 16 bit tiff? I assume you are shooting high quality raw files?

Sorry that I couldnt be of more help.

Arron
 
Yup, I'm shooting RAW then converting to an 8bit Tiff then upsizing in Photoshop...

I believe 30D and 20D is the same sensor, so there shouldn't be a problem there. It seemed to pass all the other criteria.
 
:thinking:

Thats me out of ideas, sorry. I use CS2 to upscale the images but wouldnt imagine CS being much different.

Have you tried uploading anything else?
 
If you are still bemused save from raw into tiff at 16 bit-uprez to 48 meg before saving as a high quality jpeg and then converting to 8 bit

Thats what i do and get accepted everytime.
 
PP thicko question.

How do you upsize in CS3?
 
Same way you do in all picture software-not sure where the link is but just look for the change image size. Using photoshop its easiest to uprez with percentage-on a d300 its about 127% to get 50 meg
 
digitalmaniac said:
Same way you do in all picture software-not sure where the link is but just look for the change image size. Using photoshop its easiest to uprez with percentage-on a d300 its about 127% to get 50 meg
Click to expand...

Thanks..........(y)
 
digitalmaniac said:
Same way you do in all picture software-not sure where the link is but just look for the change image size. Using photoshop its easiest to uprez with percentage-on a d300 its about 127% to get 50 meg
Click to expand...

Maybe that is where I am going wrong, I had read that it was best to resize in lots of smaller jumps, 10% increase each time, rather than one bigger jump (say 127% to use the example from the D300, although it'll be more for a 20D) I'll give that a go first.

I'd have thought that the 16 bit resizing would lack the pixel count, but if it works for you it might be worth a go...

I've also found some special image upsizing software with a free 30day trial, I may have a go with that too (I apologise in advance to anyone else planning on hearing anything from Alamy QC over the next few days :LOL:)
 
If you're shooting RAW then open the file in cs3 and it'll open in the RAW viewer. Then, there's a little linky under the pic in the middle of the screen at the bottom (i missed it several times). In here, you can choose a number of size options and 16bit or 8bit.

I just select the max 8bit size and when I click for photoshop to actually open the file it is already at a decent enough size (usually bigger than required)

HTH
 
When they tell you not to sharpen for Alamy, surely that depends on if you have taken the pic in RAW or jpg? JPGs will have been sharpened already in camera... but if you take a RAW then convert it to jpg and send to them without sharpening it will be much softer than shots done entirely in jpg wont it.
 
Janice said:
When they tell you not to sharpen for Alamy, surely that depends on if you have taken the pic in RAW or jpg? JPGs will have been sharpened already in camera... but if you take a RAW then convert it to jpg and send to them without sharpening it will be much softer than shots done entirely in jpg wont it.
Click to expand...
That was my thinking, in my tests I'll try some with sharpening, although I believe that is best left to after resizing though, if I don't have any luck with the other methods of upsizing I'll try sharpening slightly...
 
Janice said:
When they tell you not to sharpen for Alamy, surely that depends on if you have taken the pic in RAW or jpg? JPGs will have been sharpened already in camera... but if you take a RAW then convert it to jpg and send to them without sharpening it will be much softer than shots done entirely in jpg wont it.
Click to expand...


yes but you wont want to shoot in jpeg for alamy-especially as youll then have to covert to tiff before uprezing and then back down to jpeg.

If you are shooting in jpeg turn sharpening off in camera.
what they are looking for is iq at 100% they dont care about sharpening-as this is what the client will do if required. if its uprezzed right and in focus and good comp and an all round good pic-theyll accept it.
 
digitalmaniac said:
If you are shooting in jpeg turn sharpening off in camera.
Click to expand...

Well, Im not.. as it was a "what if" question.. but if shooting in RAW then NO sharpening is done at all, anywhere in the processing?
Lightoom has a degree of sharpening done as its default, do those sliders need to be turned off too?
 
ideally yes-but I havnt tried sending any images that have been slightly sharpened-so it a gambit.
 
I always do capture sharpening, either in Lightroom or photoshop. I never actually use an image that does not have capture sharpening. Also if I do Noise reduction, I will include a step of creative sharpening as well. Never a problem with Alamy QC in regards to sharpening.
 
Craikeybaby said:
I got Soft or lacking definition

possibly on one of them I used a large aperture to throw the bg out, but surely they know this.
Click to expand...


I'm not sure they do know this. As I said in another post, I suspect that they may just look for sharpness without looking at the content. I don't think they understand about misty (but stunning:D) images either.

Perhaps the answer is to play very safe with your first submission and send in four very standard but very sharp images, and once they get accepted, begin to get a little bit more ambitious.:)

Alamy itself has a forum where photographers discuss this type of thing amongst themselves.
 
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