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Why on Earth do Alamy reject an entire batch if just one of the uploaded images fails QC ?

That means I have to re-upload and submit all images from scratch

Ridiculous method, makes the workload far to great to be worthwhile continuing wit Alamy or upload one at a time which again makes it just not worthwhile

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A question that has been asked and answered many times before.  Alamy expect all contributors to behave in a professional manner and perform their own QC before upload and only submit images that meet Alamy's technical standards.  They then sample the submissions and, if one of the sample fails QC, they reject the entire batch.  They do not have the time or resources to examine every image in a submission.  The onus is on you as the contributor to critically examine each and every image for defects before submission.  Fail in that and you will have entire batches rejected,

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19 hours ago, TerryBrooks said:

Ridiculous method,

Ridiculous? A manufacturing philosophy that's been followed for a century or more? Hardly.
Alamy has always applied this policy and it will not be varied for your convenience. If you consider it "not worthwhile" to produce images which meet Alamy's standards, perhaps your work isn't ready for the professional market.
 
Try the dictionary.
 
quality control
noun
noun: quality control
  1. a system of maintaining standards in manufactured products by testing a sample of the output against the specification.
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19 hours ago, TerryBrooks said:

Why on Earth do Alamy reject an entire batch if just one of the uploaded images fails QC ?

That means I have to re-upload and submit all images from scratch

Ridiculous method, makes the workload far to great to be worthwhile continuing wit Alamy or upload one at a time which again makes it just not worthwhile

 

Breathe, chill. 60,000+ other contributors deals with this. Take the time to properly understand the rejection reason and use what you learnt when you re-check all the images in the failed submission at 100%. Alamy fails the entire submission if one image fails, so assume they haven't looked at the other ones, only the failed image. What you learnt you keep in the back of your mind for any subsequent submissions.

 

If you struggle to understand the rejection reason(s) there are plenty of fine people in the forum that will give you a hand - just post a link to the image at 100% and ask for help. Good luck.

 

Also, this could be handy;

 

Alamy QC Failure Reasons (pdf)

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19 hours ago, TerryBrooks said:

Why on Earth do Alamy reject an entire batch if just one of the uploaded images fails QC ?

That means I have to re-upload and submit all images from scratch

Ridiculous method, makes the workload far to great to be worthwhile continuing wit Alamy or upload one at a time which again makes it just not worthwhile

 

Not ridiculous at all, tell me another agency where you can shoot, upload and have your images for sale within 24 hours and if you are lucky, as I have a couple of times, sold the next day!

As John  say ' ... The onus is on you as the contributor to critically examine each and every image for defects before submission ...'  Not Alamy 

 

 

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1 hour ago, Matt Limb said:

 

Not ridiculous at all, tell me another agency where you can shoot, upload and have your images for sale within 24 hours and if you are lucky, as I have a couple of times, sold the next day!

As John  say ' ... The onus is on you as the contributor to critically examine each and every image for defects before submission ...'  Not Alamy 

 

 

Shutterstock, there's one for you
If I submit a batch of many images and one doesn't meet their (subjective) criteria they do not reject the entire batch, just the one they don't approve of
As for rejection reason, sorry but most of the criteria is applied subjectively, it's very easy to tell this as I have tested that fact with numerous agencies by simply re-submitting a failed image with no changed whatsoever, also Alamy have rejected images that were accepted by all other stock agencies they were uploaded to
I don't mind the odd rejection, it's just annoying that they reject a whole batch just for one they don't like and as for comments stating they haven't got the time, perhaps they ought to take some of the huge sums they make to employ some staff so they can do their job ?
Alamy are the ONLY agency to process this way, there are many other agencies who don't and who also give higher sale rates, some don't seem to check the images enough but others are very strict so please don't give me any garbage about other agencies being more relaxed, I know who is and who isn't
Bottom line is that Alamy's method is designed to cause aggravation to the photographer and manipulate them into doing their task for them (which of course is not possible as the criteria is often subjective)
Not a problem to me, stock revenue is an ever decreasing value for photographers and ever increasing for agencies so dropping Alamy is of no consequence to me

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1 hour ago, GS-Images said:

Alamy need to have a system to encourage contributors to do a good job, as they get 100,000 images every day and can't check them all. If you don't have the time to check your own images properly, why should Alamy spend their time checking a whole batch? It's a fair assumption that if one fails, the others probably have also not been checked properly by the contributor.

 

There simply is no reason to fail if you're at the standard you need to be to expect others to pay money to use your images. I have failed twice, both times an oversight of my part that was completely my fault, and both those times were roughly 3 years ago. Some of my older images were poor compared to what I upload now, yet even they passed.

 

Geoff.

Total nonsense Geof
The images uploaded were indeed checked and not just by myself but by 4 other agencies where they were checked and accepted and in some cases sold too (OK, one of those agencies is fairly lax but the others aren't)
And if Alamy makes far more money than I do why on Earth would anyone think they should do less work for it
Also, you imply that they don't check all images, that's wrong and you should know that, rejections are inevitable as the criteria is subjective, put the anyone's images in front of 10 different photographers and you'll get 10 different responses so throwing out whole batches based on one subjective rejection is ridiculous

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Do Shutterstock check every single image? And if so, how long does it take them to do QC?

 

As others have said, Alamy employ a sampling QC approach where only a small number of images are actually inspected. This does mean that the odd 'bad' image can sneak through. But it's a trade-off that Alamy take to balance time/cost of QC with quality. But when Alamy do find an issue, failing the whole batch has the effect of focusing the contributor to be more discerning about the quality of the images that they submit. 

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12 minutes ago, TerryBrooks said:

Shutterstock, there's one for you
If I submit a batch of many images and one doesn't meet their (subjective) criteria they do not reject the entire batch, just the one they don't approve of
As for rejection reason, sorry but most of the criteria is applied subjectively, it's very easy to tell this as I have tested that fact with numerous agencies by simply re-submitting a failed image with no changed whatsoever, also Alamy have rejected images that were accepted by all other stock agencies they were uploaded to
I don't mind the odd rejection, it's just annoying that they reject a whole batch just for one they don't like and as for comments stating they haven't got the time, perhaps they ought to take some of the huge sums they make to employ some staff so they can do their job ?
Alamy are the ONLY agency to process this way, there are many other agencies who don't and who also give higher sale rates, some don't seem to check the images enough but others are very strict so please don't give me any garbage about other agencies being more relaxed, I know who is and who isn't
Bottom line is that Alamy's method is designed to cause aggravation to the photographer and manipulate them into doing their task for them (which of course is not possible as the criteria is often subjective)
Not a problem to me, stock revenue is an ever decreasing value for photographers and ever increasing for agencies so dropping Alamy is of no consequence to me

 

And what percentage of your sales do you get at SS?  I believe it is 20%, and that is 20% of squat.

 

It is simply unprofessional to send low quality images.  Quality is not subjective.  Since most of the photographer's here have very little issue of getting their images past QC, then obviously most can tell a good technical image from a bad one.  Alamy does not check for content.  You can send an image of almost anything you want as long as it is technical good.

 

Jill

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9 minutes ago, TerryBrooks said:

 

Also, you imply that they don't check all images, that's wrong and you should know that, rejections are inevitable as the criteria is subjective

 

 

I think it would be a good idea to establish some facts before you come in here shouting your mouth off. Alamy DON'T check all images, and their criteria are NOT subjective. The criteria are a clearly defined set of technical standards. All images that meet those standards will be accepted, without exception.

 

It's totally irrelevant how many other agencies have accepted the images.  They may well apply subjective criteria, but Alamy do not.

 

It's clear that this isn't the right agency for you.

 

Alan

 

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12 minutes ago, TerryBrooks said:

Total nonsense Geof
The images uploaded were indeed checked and not just by myself but by 4 other agencies where they were checked and accepted and in some cases sold too (OK, one of those agencies is fairly lax but the others aren't)
And if Alamy makes far more money than I do why on Earth would anyone think they should do less work for it
Also, you imply that they don't check all images, that's wrong and you should know that, rejections are inevitable as the criteria is subjective, put the anyone's images in front of 10 different photographers and you'll get 10 different responses so throwing out whole batches based on one subjective rejection is ridiculous

Beaten to it and more succinctly put by Alan.

Other agencies' qualitative assessments are irrelevant here where the only criterion is technical and it's not subjective despite what you say.

That all images aren't checked isn't "wrong", it's a fact which Alamy have confirmed.

Kindly mind your attitude if you post again, and don't accuse those who know far better than you of "nonsense".

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1 minute ago, Inchiquin said:

 

I think it would be a good idea to establish some facts before you come in here shouting your mouth off. Alamy DON'T check all images, and their criteria are NOT subjective. The criteria are a clearly defined set of technical standards. All images that meet those standards will be accepted, without exception.

 

It's totally irrelevant how many other agencies have accepted the images.  They may well apply subjective criteria, but Alamy do not.

 

It's clear that this isn't the right agency for you.

 

Alan

 

Nonsense, of course the criteria is subjective as they are not measurable criteria, perhaps someone else ought to do some fact checking before shouting their mouth off, you act like a fanboy for God's sake, it's clear that Alamy adopt this approach as a punitive measure, not very business like at all really

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1 minute ago, TerryBrooks said:

Nonsense, of course the criteria is subjective as they are not measurable criteria, perhaps someone else ought to do some fact checking before shouting their mouth off, you act like a fanboy for God's sake, it's clear that Alamy adopt this approach as a punitive measure, not very business like at all really

Reported.

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16 minutes ago, TerryBrooks said:

Total nonsense Geof
The images uploaded were indeed checked and not just by myself but by 4 other agencies where they were checked and accepted and in some cases sold too (OK, one of those agencies is fairly lax but the others aren't)
And if Alamy makes far more money than I do why on Earth would anyone think they should do less work for it
Also, you imply that they don't check all images, that's wrong and you should know that, rejections are inevitable as the criteria is subjective, put the anyone's images in front of 10 different photographers and you'll get 10 different responses so throwing out whole batches based on one subjective rejection is ridiculous

 

If you have confidence in your assertions, why not post the 100% sized image of the one that failed for review? Forum members will soon identify any issues (if there are any). Passing Alamy QC is not difficult but does require consistent attention to detail. It is true that Alamy's QC standards are perhaps unnecessarily hight for the majority of usages (small print and web). But by ensuring the quality is there means that there's a chance for much higher value sales from every image if the opportunity arises. 

 

Mark

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13 minutes ago, Matt Ashmore said:

Do Shutterstock check every single image? And if so, how long does it take them to do QC?

 

As others have said, Alamy employ a sampling QC approach where only a small number of images are actually inspected. This does mean that the odd 'bad' image can sneak through. But it's a trade-off that Alamy take to balance time/cost of QC with quality. But when Alamy do find an issue, failing the whole batch has the effect of focusing the contributor to be more discerning about the quality of the images that they submit. 

Yes, Shutterstock do check them individually but I take your point on board, however for me Alamy sucks quite frankly and their approach does not suit me one bit
"Focusing" is that a polite way of saying "punitive"

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1 minute ago, TerryBrooks said:

Nonsense, of course the criteria is subjective as they are not measurable criteria, perhaps someone else ought to do some fact checking before shouting their mouth off, you act like a fanboy for God's sake, it's clear that Alamy adopt this approach as a punitive measure, not very business like at all really

 

There is nothing subjective in QC, if there was then lots of us would have a lot of failures. I had one image fail that I knew would as it was an accidental upload. Just think how lazy photographers would get if Alamy did all the checking for them.  We'd upload everything and just let Alamy sort it out.  This would bring our percentage down as Alamy would have to hire more and more people to check the images and QC would take longer and longer.

 

I can't see what is punitive about expecting a professional to submit professional work.  As Mark said, show us your image at 100% and we can see where the problems were.

 

Jill

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4 minutes ago, TerryBrooks said:

 it's clear that Alamy adopt this approach as a punitive measure, not very business like at all really

 

It's certainly not designed to be punitive - wouldn't make sense for us to do that. It's actually designed to allow you to get lots of images online very quickly and pay you one of the highest commission percentages around. We don't check every image, it's just a spot check. If the spot check passes, all images pass. If the spot check fails then all images fail.

 

The current pass rate is around 94% and we add between 65,000 and 100,000 images per day. If you take note of the failure reasons you've received then you can use this to make sure you are less likely to fail with your next submission.

 

As others have mentioned, posting a 100% crop here can also be useful as you'll get help and advice from knowledgeable contributors.

 

For any other help you need, feel free to email contributors@alamy.com

 

Cheers

 

Alamy

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1 minute ago, M.Chapman said:

 

If you have confidence in your assertions, why not post the 100% sized image of the one that failed for review? Forum members will soon identify any issues (if there are any). Passing Alamy QC is not difficult but does require consistent attention to detail. It is true that Alamy's QC standards are perhaps unnecessarily hight for the majority of usages (small print and web). But by ensuring the quality is there means that there's a chance for much higher value sales from every image if the opportunity arises. 

 

Mark

Hmmm let's see, that's a great idea, post my material for inspection to a hostile audience many of whom are clearly fanboys who cannot tolerate any criticsim of the Gods who brain washed them into doing all the work for them, perhaps not
It's all academic really as I requested to close the account yesterday anyway, I'm confident in my ability as a photographer and do sell plenty of my images in print
Here's another thing that Alamy aren't good at... account closure, why on Earth should it take 45 days ?, maybe they like to hang on to images for as long as possible ?, who knows but 45 days to close an account is also ridiculous

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1 minute ago, Jill Morgan said:

 

There is nothing subjective in QC, if there was then lots of us would have a lot of failures. I had one image fail that I knew would as it was an accidental upload. Just think how lazy photographers would get if Alamy did all the checking for them.  We'd upload everything and just let Alamy sort it out.  This would bring our percentage down as Alamy would have to hire more and more people to check the images and QC would take longer and longer.

 

I can't see what is punitive about expecting a professional to submit professional work.  As Mark said, show us your image at 100% and we can see where the problems were.

 

Jill

That shows a remarkable lack of understanding Jill, the criteria aren't not applied to any form of measurement and are indeed therefore subjective
Also, other agencies will penalise someone who submits a high volume of material that is rejected, this will in some cases also affect the photographer grading and search results as well as potentially get him/her banned or blocked

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2 minutes ago, TerryBrooks said:

Hmmm let's see, that's a great idea, post my material for inspection to a hostile audience many of whom are clearly fanboys who cannot tolerate any criticsim of the Gods who brain washed them into doing all the work for them, perhaps not
It's all academic really as I requested to close the account yesterday anyway, I'm confident in my ability as a photographer and do sell plenty of my images in print
Here's another thing that Alamy aren't good at... account closure, why on Earth should it take 45 days ?, maybe they like to hang on to images for as long as possible ?, who knows but 45 days to close an account is also ridiculous

 

We aren't hostile. You asked for help, I was trying to provide it. With an attitude like that you won't be missed here...

 

Mark

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7 minutes ago, TerryBrooks said:

Here's another thing that Alamy aren't good at... account closure, why on Earth should it take 45 days ?, maybe they like to hang on to images for as long as possible ?, who knows but 45 days to close an account is also ridiculous

 

Maybe Alamy can make an exception in your case......

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13 minutes ago, TerryBrooks said:

Hmmm let's see, that's a great idea, post my material for inspection to a hostile audience many of whom are clearly fanboys who cannot tolerate any criticsim of the Gods who brain washed them into doing all the work for them, perhaps not
It's all academic really as I requested to close the account yesterday anyway, I'm confident in my ability as a photographer and do sell plenty of my images in print
Here's another thing that Alamy aren't good at... account closure, why on Earth should it take 45 days ?, maybe they like to hang on to images for as long as possible ?, who knows but 45 days to close an account is also ridiculous

The suggestion that we would lie about the technical quality of your images because of your attitude is offensive. Help is given freely here, and in good humour.

No-one's brain has been washed- Alamy is one of the best agencies there is and if we defend its processes, it's because we understand them and why they are as they are.

OP, maybe come back tomorrow when you feel better and take an objective look at your posts here, if you can, then, if you are really interested in getting any help at all here (and if you don't know why you've failed QC, you do need help), try mending a few fences.

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15 minutes ago, TerryBrooks said:

It's all academic really as I requested to close the account yesterday anyway, I'm confident in my ability as a photographer and do sell plenty of my images in print
Here's another thing that Alamy aren't good at... account closure, why on Earth should it take 45 days ?

 

This is to protect customers who might be in the process of purchasing one of your images.

They are, however, very fast and responsive to requests to close forum accounts. Given your apparent lack of interest in contributing images to Alamy or making a positive contribution on the forum, I can heartily recommend putting this to the test.

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