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Quality Control Fail


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Why do Alamy fail the whole set of images if only one was or two were bad and the rest technically sound.

 

Doesn't make sense to me. Say you submit 20 images, only 2 were bad, why not reject 2 and accept the other good ones ? 

 

 

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They want you to pay more attention to your images.  They don't want to have to check every image and take out the bad.  One of the reasons we get a bigger cut than at other agencies is that Alamy only checks a sample of your upload.  Once they find a baddie, its a fail as they don't want to have to do your job for you. All images should be checked well enough to pass.

 

It is your job to make sure the images are technically perfect.  If they fail all your images, they are hoping you will start paying better attention.  If they just let the good ones through and stopped the bad ones, contributors would get lazy and let Alamy do their checking for them if there were no consequences for failure.

 

Jill

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Why do Alamy fail the whole set of images if only one was or two were bad and the rest technically sound.

 

Doesn't make sense to me. Say you submit 20 images, only 2 were bad, why not reject 2 and accept the other good ones ? 

 

Alamy also PASSES a lot of 20 images or more if only 2 pas their QC !

 

​Cheers,

Kumar, India

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Alamy require images which reach a specific quality standard.  The onus is on the contributor to ensure that their personal QC is good enough to ensure that all submitted images reach or exceed those standards. Once submitted, a sample of images are checked by Alamy QC to ensure that the contributor's own QC is up to scratch.  One fails, they all fail.  The contributor's QC is not good enough.  This is standard procedure in most industries which rely on outside suppliers.  It ensures that the supplier checks each delivered batch before submission and has their own QC in place to maintain quality standards.  

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In all fairness to new contributors, remember back to when we were one. I knew there were technical requirements, but the sharpness aspect was difficult for me.

There would be an image that I would stare at trying to decide if it was sharp enough "according to Alamy standards."

Where was that red line?

If it was an unique image, I tended to put my blinders on and give it a go. Some passed, some failed. If those had all failed, it would have made it easier for me.

Because some passed, I would try again. Same results.

It took me long enough, over years, to realize if I had to stare at it longer than 20 seconds, then I just needed to bin it. It was simpler for a lot of contributors, who instinctively could evaluate their images. It was not instinctive to me. Plus I did have eyesight problems that made it harder.

A few bricks had to fall on my head to finally get it.

 

My best advice to anyone is: if your eyesight is good, your glasses current, and an image doesn't immediately appear sharp to you, then don't upload it. It matters not that the tree behind the subject is sharp, or the ear instead of the eye is sharp as a tack, the subject must be sharp. At least one eye (the nearest one, usually) in particular of all people and animals must be sharp.

You will have to discard some one-of-a-kind images. That's just a part of this business.

Betty

Typo

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To me , its like someone taking an exam and getting 90%, then gets a fail because of the 10% he got wrong. Also, if a greengrocer sees one bad apple in a hundred, hes going to throw that one bad apple away and not the whole lot !

 

I've also taken sharp images in bright conditions and still got a fail without Alamy giving me a reason.

 

I am now looking elsewhere to upload my images. Fed up with Alamy.

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To me , its like someone taking an exam and getting 90%, then gets a fail because of the 10% he got wrong. Also, if a greengrocer sees one bad apple in a hundred, hes going to throw that one bad apple away and not the whole lot !

 

I've also taken sharp images in bright conditions and still got a fail without Alamy giving me a reason.

 

I am now looking elsewhere to upload my images. Fed up with Alamy.

 

 

As it has been explained to you already by Jill and others, you as supplier are responsible for delivering 100% quality.

 

In your example, you are the greengrocer, not Alamy. Alamy is your customer, expecting no bad apples at all. And if they find the first bad apple, they return the whole box to you so that you can check if there's more bad ones.

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To me , its like someone taking an exam and getting 90%, then gets a fail because of the 10% he got wrong. Also, if a greengrocer sees one bad apple in a hundred, hes going to throw that one bad apple away and not the whole lot !

 

I've also taken sharp images in bright conditions and still got a fail without Alamy giving me a reason.

 

I am now looking elsewhere to upload my images. Fed up with Alamy.

 

Good idea, time to move on.

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To me , its like someone taking an exam and getting 90%, then gets a fail because of the 10% he got wrong. Also, if a greengrocer sees one bad apple in a hundred, hes going to throw that one bad apple away and not the whole lot !

 

I've also taken sharp images in bright conditions and still got a fail without Alamy giving me a reason.

 

I am now looking elsewhere to upload my images. Fed up with Alamy.

 

 

 

As it has been explained to you already by Jill and others, you as supplier are responsible for delivering 100% quality.

 

In your example, you are the greengrocer, not Alamy. Alamy is your customer, expecting no bad apples at all. And if they find the first bad apple, they return the whole box to you so that you can check if there's more bad ones.

+1. Well-said.
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OP, I went through a bad patch a while back and got through it with the help of, among other things, this forum, but I asked the right questions (eventually) and I didn't challenge the QC policy. You obviously can pass QC- you have quite a few images up- but you can only solve your problem by finding out why your images are failing. You can't fix it by complaining about the process.

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Also, if a greengrocer sees one bad apple in a hundred, hes going to throw that one bad apple away and not the whole lot !

 

 

No, not throw them away, but say, "I don't expect any bad apples. We are a professional outfit. Take them away and come back when all the apples you can give me are good."

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OP, I went through a bad patch a while back and got through it with the help of, among other things, this forum, but I asked the right questions (eventually) and I didn't challenge the QC policy. You obviously can pass QC- you have quite a few images up- but you can only solve your problem by finding out why your images are failing. You can't fix it by complaining about the process.

I agree - I have asked Alamy why they have recently rejected some well exposed,sharp images I took but they never even replied.

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OP, I went through a bad patch a while back and got through it with the help of, among other things, this forum, but I asked the right questions (eventually) and I didn't challenge the QC policy. You obviously can pass QC- you have quite a few images up- but you can only solve your problem by finding out why your images are failing. You can't fix it by complaining about the process.

I agree - I have asked Alamy why they have recently rejected some well exposed,sharp images I took but they never even replied.

 

 

Could you show us some of those at 100%?

(maybe with a watermark or holes cut out)

 

wim

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OP, I went through a bad patch a while back and got through it with the help of, among other things, this forum, but I asked the right questions (eventually) and I didn't challenge the QC policy. You obviously can pass QC- you have quite a few images up- but you can only solve your problem by finding out why your images are failing. You can't fix it by complaining about the process.

I agree - I have asked Alamy why they have recently rejected some well exposed,sharp images I took but they never even replied.

 

You've said you weren't given a failure reason which is very unusual. I'm sure if you pointed this out it would be put right.

An email going unanswered is also very unusual. But as Wim says, post crops. 

There could well have been sharp images in the failed sub but as you know, one out, all out.

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