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My first QC fail for ages has left me puzzled. The fail reason is noise, but the shot was taken with an approved DSLR, ISO 200, bright sunshine... everything optimum. And for the life of me, I can't see what they're objecting to. I replied to Submissions for clarification more than two weeks ago, but they haven't replied. Is the QC team refusing to get into this sort of discussion? I have suspended uploads until I hear from them because I'm concerned that they've raised the QC bar.

Good day to all reading my message here. I'm a new contributor to Alamy, and my most recent submission was once again failed by the Alamy QC team for a second running time. Reasons given were; (1) Noise, and (2) Out-of-focus. My photos are all taken by drone shots by setting to 48mp, featuring pictures mostly of: 1) changing landscapes 2) environmental impacts of deforestation 3) global warming; since these are what Alamy are seeking based on their current requirements. Before my submissions, I ensure these pictures are filtered for noise reduction and with no other touch-ups since the quality itself is excellent enough to hopefully pass QC. I do, however, acknowledge that the pics include the whole landscape covering a wide area since they are taken above ground level at bird's eye view. Is that why Alamy says my submissions are "out-of-focus"? So, my questions are: 1) does filtering for noise reduction contributes for further noisy-grainy results as mentioned by QC? 2) how do I reduce the out-of-focus issue, being these pictures are and will be taken by my drones each time? 3) how do I get pass the QC, as at the time of this writing, I'm still caught at the "waiting / holding period" for 3 basic picture submissions to be passed before my work can be up-on-sale-stage? Awaiting for all your kind advice and comments after this. My thanks in advance.

Rejection reason Soft or lacking definition - Noise I have never spent so much time examining sky and shadows in my pictures and the edges of the frame. But this does not seem to be enough. I would like to rant, but more than rant, I would like to understand why some softness at the edge of the frame is enough to (well I think it's the scaffolding top right which has been softened in perspective correction that is the problem) why the edge of the frame is so important to QC.. "Softness lacking definition" would that be my problem, top right or is it the whole image? Also "Noise" is that the brown in the shadow in the bottom mid right of the image? Or is it that the sky is not right? I'm trying to understand and I am also trying not to second guess myself. If they can't sell a picture like this; well there's possibly a little something they won't like in a LOT of my pictures? (only 25+ years as a professional what would I know?) I'm worried. I'm really worried. The time, the turnaround for a rejection on a unique view (the scaffold). It all seems a very hit and miss. I would be interested in feedback. I KNEW that that piece of scaffolding was soft; did not and does not bother me - it's not the focus or the locus of the image. Is this how it's gong to be, a set rejected over this? Am I missing something? Thank you for your input, I am trying to understand when I must drop an image from my selections. 100% Scaff detail (wont let me load the link) https://photos.app.goo.gl/FxWCnVGqx3jqMLBc7 100% Dark bottom of frame https://photos.app.goo.gl/VZjNWAS4KsiswCvY9

I've been searching alamy for grainy gritty B&W food images and basically there don't seem to be any. Actually it does look like dirty gritty (authentic) photography might be outlawed; and I thought 'authenticity' was in for 2020. Maybe I'm conflating authenticity with the wrong things! What I am wondering is should I risk a [REJECTED] knockback as a still very new member with thousands of fully edited photographs ready to go. Or should I try and push the envelope a bit. I'm aware the image border is a no-no but these were already edited in that manner (which I like..) Perhaps no-one wants pictures like this or maybe pictures like this are simply not available.. I would hate to get an upload [REJECTED] over images like this. I have a lot of shots but I'd like to mix it up too. Has anyone experience of successfully submitting this kind of imagery. My first knockback was a neon street scene with the Eiffel tower (noise, indistinct subject!!!! and something else) so i'm a bit paranoid now about my own taste. I know stocks different, though i can't understand why. Cheers, Kent.

Hi, I am back again with another rejection ! ☹️ Not uploaded for a while. A double whammy this time - noise and out of focus. What do you think ? Taken with rx100, ISO 125, f6.3, 1/250 sec.

Just had a rejection on grounds of noise from a 100 ISO image, taken on a Canon EOS 5M, lightly processed. Looks fine to me at 100% - anyone else noticed a shift ( inexplicable or otherwise) in noise rejection policy?

Interesting discussion in favourite photos about using night mode on Sony MX100 but only able to save out to JPEG. Matt If you want to use RAW, set any camera, not only Sony, to highest ISO, high speed continuous shooting, in RAW, but not in night mode. Shoot 5 or more RAW shots holding camera as steady as possible. Take RAW series shots into image processing software and do the usual image adjustments. Same adjustment to each image. This is the reason to shoot RAW as the Sony in camera method does not give you this custom adjustment option. Go to latest edition of PhotoshopCC and create an image stack from the adjusted RAW using the script (File > Scripts > Load Files into Stack). Set up the script to select the images and then aline them. You will end up with a photoshop file with one smart layer that contains a stack of all of your alined images. Set the smart layer image stack to "Mean" The noise will disappear. Render the smart layer. Save the photoshop file as a TIFF. You now have all of the noisy Raw shots and a noise free TIFF. Make an Alamy JPEG from your TIFF Your Sony camera is doing all of the photoshop work automatically, and then outputting a JPEG. This way you have the option to adjust the RAW images first and then output a noise free TIFF, and also retain all of the noisy RAW files if you want to. Here is an explanation on the Adobe site, but IT IS OUT OF DATE !!! https://helpx.adobe.com/ca/photoshop/using/image-stacks.html

Hi, I recently had this photo of the Cavern Clun rejected for being Soft or lacking definition, Noise. What do you think ?

I am interested to know your individual approach to post processing. I always shoot raw and try to do as little post processing as possible for fear of introducing noise etc into my images. As I review them from time to time I sometimes feel they lack "PUNCH" but am still afraid to do too much in case they are rejected by quality control. I should say that I do currently have a 3 star rating. Any help and suggestions, even criticism would be welcome. I have also mentioned before that I am colour blind which doesn't help much. Thanks in advance

Im confused about noise, I took some pictures at the weekend using my new ND1000 filters and the failed the QC test because of noise, I have looked at the at 100% and cant see the noise that has failed them, I cant share the pics because they failed, would it be because I used the ND filters, is there any way of finding out what noise? I was trying to get a picture of the misty water on the weir The settings were ISO 100 F22 20secs (Middle of a sunny day) ND1000 Forgive the questions I am still new to this?

I shoot mostly for stock with a Nikon. I bought a Lumix DMC-ZS60 (18 mps with Leica zoom) 'travel camera' to use when I am on vacation and also for casual use as I run errands about town when I don't want to lug the Nikon. I uploaded a few photos from a recent foreign vacation and had few or no issues with Alamy. I recently uploaded a batch of nine local shots (eight shot with the Nikon and one with the Lumix) and the entire lot was rejected due to the the quality of one shot from the Lumix. I am aware of Alamy's policy of rejecting one/rejecting all (which seems unfair). The Lumix is said to not be a good low-light camera and I agree with that. When this batch was rejected Alamy did cite noise as one reason for rejection but they also cited the rejection as being taken with a "digital camera not suitable for Alamy". As a result they revoked my upload privileges for 10 days. Has anyone experienced this same rejection reason with a Lumix and does Alamy in fact have a published list of cameras they automatically accept content from?

Each photo has more or less noise. It is not always easy to define the subjective boundary between acceptable and too tight noise. How do you do that? Are there any tools (except looking closely) to quantify noise? With LR or some other software maybe?

Hello, I am new in Photography but have gotten heavily into it. I take photo's daily as much as possible and spend a great deal of time learning how to post process the photo's in Photoshop better and learning the in's and out's of the program. I'm left with a few questions after going through countless other photo's from good photographers. First, I notice their photo's are crystal clear and usually devoid of noise. I've tried using reduce noise to reduce the noise in my photo's, as well as using a small surface blur, and even tried using a second layer with the image on top of the first layer as overlay or screen to increase contrast. I've tried using high pass also. While those things seem to work to a minor degree (Nomatter what I put the settings to) the images don't turn out like what I see with the professionals. While they look nice, if zoomed in to max resolution you see issues. If I use reduce noise or blur to fix the noise, it becomes too blurry. I'm using a Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge to shoot photo's, using pro mode so that I have as much control as possible and even doing zoom manually to get the sharpest picture possible. I have the ISO setting at 50 or 100, sometimes 200 if it's dark. I realize shooting with a high ISO will cause noise so I keep it as low as possible and try to shoot in well lit area's. I adjust the shutter speed to allow only as much light as necessary to avoid blurry pictures, and in the settings I tell the camera to save the raw dng files so that I have more to work with post processing. I realize I need a better camera, but I don't have enough money at the moment to upgrade. I was hoping to make money with what I have so that I could buy a professional DSLR camera. So, the questions I have for you guys are: 1.) What is the best entry level camera? I don't have a lot of money to spend, but I need something better than this Smartphone I imagine. I've read the best entry level is the Nikon D3300 or D3400. 2.) How much better is an entry level DSLR over a Galaxy S6 Edge? Will the photo quality improve greatly? 3.) What kind of post processing in Photoshop do you normally do to make images look their best? Are there any good tips on making images crisp/clear and noise/artifact free? Thank you in advance for your help!

I've just had another photo rejected for noise. Photo taken on a Sony Nex 5N at ISO 400. Last photo to be rejected for noise was taken on the RX100, 5N has bigger sensor. What do you think ? https://postimg.cc/image/yam9zvrl7/