failed Alamy QC..why?

Johnny1982

Johnny1982

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Johnny
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Okay I just noticed that 3 of my 4 images have failed QC but I dunno why but I do have a huntch.

It says this

alamyfail.jpg


So it says the first one has a processing error which will mean they all fail so what do you think?
 
If one fails the whole batch will fail.. Is the understanding I have ;)


md(y)
 
was the images large enough? perhaps overprocessed
 
You have to understand that Alamy don't edit your images and wont make the slightest effort to correct anything wrong with them. They'll reject them for dust bunnies. If they find a single dust bunny on one of your initial QC test set they'll reject the lot. With a huge 50mb image you have to scroll all around the image and make sure there's no dust bunnies hiding anywhere.

The other thing is unless you're fortunate to own a camera which outputs 50mb images, you'll have to upsize (interpolate) your images to 50mb size and it always involves degradation of the image to some degree. The greater the degree of upsizing, the greater the degradation. You need to look very critically at yoiur 50mb images before you submit them for signs of interpolation artifacts. The more you crop your original image, the more difficult it will become to upsize to 50mb while retaining decent image quality. Alamy will just look at the 50mb image and reject it out of hand if it shows obvious signs of interpolation degradation. Your best chance is to submit full frame images which are uncropped before upsizing and choose only sharp good quality images.

Alamy take the view that the customer may want any size image from a poster to a postcard, so they don't compromise on image quality at all. Once you have an initial set accepted then they assume you can meet their QC standard and future submissions may just be subject to the occasional random check.

EDIT.

Alamy specify absolutely no sharpening to submitted images btw and will reject them for that too. An image which started out pin sharp can look pretty ropey interpolated to 50mb , but they're not concerned with it not looking pin sharp, they want the customer to be able to sharpen to the required file size. They'd be more concerned about obvious interpolation artifacts. I wont say I've never sharpened an Alamy image, but you need be careful and make sure it's not obvious.

Acceptance to Alamy isn't any judgement of the quality of your work or your abilities - you could submit a shot of the back of your head and they'd accept it provided it met their technical requirements. ;)
 
I have had some of my photos rejected for Interpolation artifacts.
I used the Canon software to interpolate my images. I have GIMP and Picasa - would that be better/suitable.

I do not have Photoshop - can't justify the price.....

help appreciated:)
 
Mav2006 said:
I have had some of my photos rejected for Interpolation artifacts.
I used the Canon software to interpolate my images. I have GIMP and Picasa - would that be better/suitable.

I do not have Photoshop - can't justify the price.....

help appreciated:)
Click to expand...

I have successfully used Canon's DPP to upsize to 5200 pixels along the longest edge, when converting raw files. Also used Photoshop Elements bicubic and bicubic smoother methods and in all honesty can see sod all difference in the 3 approaches. I expect you should have no problems with GIMP's upsizing tools as it appears to be a serious alternative to Photoshop.

As far as Alamy goes, I follow the following steps and have had no QC failures yet:

Shoot in raw
Open file in Canon's DPP
Tweak WB/exposure/noise/lens correction as necessary
Turn all sharpening to zero
'Convert & Save' to 16 bit Tiff, upsizing to 5200 pixels as part of the process
Open in PS Elements
Tweak levels,saturation and anything else as necessary
Occasionally add a little USM sharpening if I feel original pic is borderline soft (usually as a result of using my kit lens instead of my posh glass)
Convert file to 8 bit and save as level 12 .jpg
 
Thanks.

I think I started with JPEG not raw. Will try some more RAW.

Also I was using Zoombrowser not DPP - just found it!

The work continues....
 
image processing error - usually means an error in the file upload, but check the images you submitted for dust and processing errors - was this your first submission?? If this was your first submission then they would have checked all of them.
 
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