Quality control madness?

[I remember film cannisters]

Hi -

I am new to Alamy. I submitted 3 photos (as you are required to) and these failed to process (not that I was notified). I tracked it down to one image which was missing meta data, and re-uploaded.

 

2nd submission failed as the same image which caused failure to process, was rejected as 'too much noise'. So I removed the noise, being careful not to overdo it (with nearly 30 years Photoshop experience, I was even suspecting it wouldn't be enough), and re-submitted.

 

The third submission failed as 'Soft or lacking definition'. Now, I'm not a professional photographer, and I'm sure there are similar, better shot images out there,  but this is a massive swing in the other direction, with just a little bit of noise removal.

 

So this appears to be a slow death by QC algorithm. Or do they actually use human beings? If I resubmit with even less noise removal, I suspect it will probably be rejected again on grounds of "too much noise". Trying to find the mid-point of success in such a fine level of pixel definition could take years.

 

I'll try to upload two examples at 100% to show what I mean. It's not a huge amount of noise removal, and I made sure details areas were untouched completely, applying it just to the out of focus backgrounds.

 

I'm going to reduce the 'noise removal' by 50% and see where the AI (or person!) goes next. My theory is that there is no buffer space between 'too noisy' and 'too soft' in certain types of image which include a lot of intentional out of focus areas, and any automated QC will just swing wildly between the two.

 

Note: I can't upload an example - the upload button specifies "existing content" or url, but I can't create 'existing content' anywhere, there's no link/section/guides/answers.

Surely in a forum you should just be able to upload an image?

 

E.

[Inchiquin]

For your initial submission, choose three photos that are sharp and well lit. The subject doesn't matter. Don't play around with images that are on the margin until you've gained some experience of QC and what Alamy will accept.

 

And it IS done by human beings.

 

Alan

[Starsphinx]

Not sure how much help I can be here but - for images not accepted by Alamy if you want to show them you need to upload to a third party photo hosting site - I use Photobucket (not a recommendation nor saying its bad, I have had the account for years to host odd pictures I need to provide URLs for) so you can use the URL.

Regards the QC - as far as I understand it all of it is done by humans not an algorithm and because their time is precious they do not continue going through an image (or images) once there is a single failure - so if an image is noisy they are not then going to consider sharpness as well.  It is very possible maybe even likely that the image you are seeing so many rejections on is simply not good enough and you need to find a different one.

I know Alamy wants minimal alterations of images - a good rule would be if you have to do something like noise reduction/sharpening etc etc the image is not good enough.  As many others have said on here before Alamy offers a good service by expecting photographers to do their own QC and to be strict with themselves.  You may just have to learn to be stricter with yourself

[John Morrison]

Forget about 'noise'... or 'noise removal'. Pick three images that are pin-sharp (in the area of the pic where they should be sharp) and which have no noise issues...

[spacecadet]

...like this (four were required then).

BTW the F&M sign sold recently.

[Sultanpepa]

It could be that your image was bordering on the soft side without noise removal and removing it tipped it over the edge. Ditch it and submit something else. Don't waste your time messing around with it.

[Robert M Estall]

I too remember film canisters, some even have film in them! Every time I defrost the fridge I pull them out in their little picnic cool bag, put them under a pillow and return once the fridge is cleaned up and restarted. Old fridge! Of course, I am wasting my time, but I can't bear to ditch them. The old Kodachromes I did ditch ' cause there's no way to process them theses days. Probably the old bulk film loader and the reusable cassettes could go to a charity shop, always hated the thing! It was the only way to get dupe film into a cassette until a mate in Japan sent me some factory loaded Fuji dupe film. And it was properly balanced unlike the Kodak alternative.

 

That's all very well, but I digress.  Ditch the noisy image(s) and start off with something sharp and "normal" Why make life so difficult for yourself?

[Colblimp]

10 hours ago, Sultanpepa said:

It could be that your image was bordering on the soft side without noise removal and removing it tipped it over the edge. Ditch it and submit something else. Don't waste your time messing around with it.

 

This. ^^^^^ There's no time for sentiment in stock photography!  Dump the offending image and upload something you know will pass QC.

[I remember film cannisters]

Thank you all for your replies, and a very sensible idea to drop the image and choose another, which I shall (it failed again, btw).

 

To make my first submission initiation more interesting however, one of the two images previously marked "these will pass if resubmitted", has now been downgraded to a fail. So I'll ditch that one too and see what happens....

 

I have obviously offended the Gods and must make atonement. Two down now, and remianing one OK for now (I should get my skates on!).
 

Thank you Starsphinx for the 3rd party upload clarification.

[John Morrison]

Don't resubmit any of the pix from your original three. Go and shoot three more pix - sharply focused, in good light - and submit them. There's no need to start with a favourite pic; just make sure to get through QC so you're 'up and running'...

[M.Chapman]

On 7/26/2018 at 10:30, John Morrison said:

Don't resubmit any of the pix from your original three. Go and shoot three more pix - sharply focused, in good light - and submit them. 

 

Also...

 

Make sure you are using a suitable camera and a good quality lens. Suitable camera means a DSLR (or equivalent with at least a 1" sensor). If the camera sensor is too small you'll struggle with noise. If the lens isn't up to the job you'll struggle with sharpness and CA. If you let the forum know what camera and lens you're using they'll soon give you some advice. Avoid to much processing, ideally start from a RAW image and save as a jpg at quality level 10 or above.

 

Remember Alamy QC involves inspection at 100% size which involves enlarging the image so that every pixel is visible (pixel peeping!).  If your lens is a tad soft and you have a high megapixel camera, then it will show up any weaknesses in the lens. Under these conditions, try downsizing to about 6 megapixels. (Alamy's minimum size requirement is 17MB (17 megabytes) uncompressed. In 8 bit mode each pixel is stored as 3 bytes, so a 17MB image will contain about 5.67 Megapixels. If your image aspect ratio is 2:3 then downsizing to 2000 x 3000 is often suggested.

 

Also double check for Chromatic Aberration (CA) and remove it (Lightroom is very good at doing this) and check there are no dust spots, especially in skies (or even flying insects or very birds that might look like them) and clone them out.

 

Mark