John Mitchell

I think that over-manipulation or blemishes would have been better reasons to give for failure. If you had cleaned up the two "holes" and perhaps downsized, my bet is that the image would have passed QC. That said, as others have suggested, RAW is best.

The monkey image doesn't look particularly noisy to me, but I'm no expert on this stuff. Downsizing might indeed have done the trick. I have 100's of images on Alamy taken with a Sony NEX-3. Noise was never really a problem with this camera. However, I did have a couple of noise failures when I started using the NEX-3. I believe they were mainly the fault of the free (and inadequate) Sony RAW processing software that I was using at the time. I also initially had a few "soft and lacking definition" failures with the NEX-3 and soon discovered that the AF has a tendency to back-focus. You have to be really careful. I recently upgraded from a NEX-6 (very good camera) to the Sony a6000, and the 24MP sensor is a huge improvement. Images show virtually zero noise. AF is super accurate as well.

Right. I think that Alamy's regular licensing fees are already flexible enough for small businesses on tight budgets. PU should be strictly PU.

big toe

Atotonilco does make an interesting side trip, but it's a really sleepy town (which is a good thing, of course). On my last visit, I was reminded of the old saying, "A dog chases a cat in Mexico and they are both walking."

Has been a slow one for me too with plummeting CTR and zooms after a big spike in April. However, things have picked up lately, and I'll probably reach my average number of sales, with eight now showing.

Nessie's cousin Ogopogo lives here in BC. But I digress...

Well, it is a nice round number. I suppose f/22 does allow for very long shutter speeds when wanted (if you don't mind diffraction).

Good question. Don't know the answer because I've never used f/22.

Allan, if it's any consolation, IME images that license for PU are not usually ones that you would think of offering as prints on say a POD site. They tend to be of fairly mundane subjects. My latest PU sale was an image of a gas (a.k.a. petrol) station sign, not exactly hang-over-the-fireplace stuff.

I'd say that Alamy is the most non-elitist and fairest big agency out there. They've just decided that they don't want images from small-sensor cameras, which is their prerogative. Older technology is not a problem on Alamy as long as the camera has a larger sensor (e.g. APS-C) and is at least 6MP. Scans of old slides and negatives are fine as well if you're using a good quality scanner (not a flatbed). There are some smaller agencies/portals that accept images taken with small-sensor cameras. You could always give them a try.

You need to sell a lot of anything these days... BTW, not all are $19.99. One this month was $15, an "image pack" deal perhaps. Better than naught as my British mother used to say.

Actually that's ten bucks USD, not CAN. Seven PU's so far this year.

I've never had any PU sales that low. Most of mine are for $19.99, which is about $10 net, higher than some direct sales these days. I'm not crazy about PU either, but the amounts do add up.

What is the "automated verification process"? I've never heard of it.