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Kodachrome scans and acceptance


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Hello, 

 

I am new to Alamy and only joined the forum today, seeking advice on submitting. My question is about scanned Kodachromes, which I am sure have interest. I use a Nikon Coolscan V ED and Photoshop/Lightroom for post-scan processing. 

 

I recently submitted a few but every one was rejected immediately, stating the "camera" was unknown. 

 

I woyld be interested, and would value, the thoughts of the collective here on how to successfully submit. Thank you.

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2 minutes ago, Martin Williams said:

Hi Spacecadet, they are aviation subjects, from mainly the 1980s, appropriate for specialist publications (in my opinion). Would that count?

 

Martin

IMO, yes.

I even have a few of those myself, but I've only uploaded in-flight images if they're no longer flying for whatever reason. I checked the serials for crashes and writeoffs. One has even sold.

On the ground with context would qualify, I think.

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5 minutes ago, Martin Williams said:

Thanks a lot. so, I go the archival route :)

 I just uploaded the requisite few samples to Photobucket  and put the link in my application.

If you have any non-specialist stuff as well you'd be surprised what sells- street scenes, that sort of thing. Anything that's now much changed or demolished.

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I think it would also be worthwhile to write to contributors@alamy.com about the "camera" comment. Could be a mistake? They do accept scans so there may have been a quality issue but that should have been the reason stated.

 

Paulette

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QC failure reasons are sometimes incorrect.

I believe Kodachrome can be problematic to scan because of the surface texture of the emulsion. It always looked a little odd.

Mine were copied on an Illumitran so no problems there, but my setup wouldn't pass QC anyway.

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7 minutes ago, spacecadet said:

QC failure reasons are sometimes incorrect.

I believe Kodachrome can be problematic to scan because of the surface texture of the emulsion. It always looked a little odd.

 

The problem is with automatic dust and scratch removal. wiki.

If you can do it all by hand, no problem.

 

wim

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7 hours ago, spacecadet said:

QC failure reasons are sometimes incorrect.

I believe Kodachrome can be problematic to scan because of the surface texture of the emulsion. It always looked a little odd.

Mine were copied on an Illumitran so no problems there, but my setup wouldn't pass QC anyway.

 

That can be correct but the Coolscan handles them fine :)

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7 hours ago, wiskerke said:

 

The problem is with automatic dust and scratch removal. wiki.

If you can do it all by hand, no problem.

 

wim

 

Yep, thats the job I have to undertake every time, sadly. ICE dust removal doesn't work on Kodachrome.

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7 hours ago, Harry Harrison said:

Did you include the EXIF data? If so then the Nikon Coolscan 'camera' type might have tripped their system up. Archive certainly seems the best route but I believe scans can get through normal QC. Wondered myself which route to take.

 

Thanks all for your inputs. i wrote to Alamy at contributors@... Etc earlier today. I'm looking forward whT they say.

 

 

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Chaps, the archive application asks for either a website or portfolio. My website is not operating now and right now I don't have a portfolio, merely a few edited scans. I do have many, many un-edited TIFFscans, however, and many edited scans that I would rework from new scans before submitting. So, what are they looking for?

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A very large portion of my Turkish images and all of my Iran and Iraq images were taken in the 60s and are from scanned Kodachrome slides.  Some are my best sellers.

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3 hours ago, DickJ said:

A very large portion of my Turkish images and all of my Iran and Iraq images were taken in the 60s and are from scanned Kodachrome slides.  Some are my best sellers.

 

Was that via the archival route, @DickJ?

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1 hour ago, Chuck Nacke said:

IPTC= all the captions, keywords that you enter in Photoshop, Bridge or Lightroom.  Pretty much any

image editing software has IPTC fields.

Thanks Chuck. I just hadn't heard the term. 

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Martin,

 

As everyone on the forum knows, I have scanned a lot of 35mm chromes for Alamy, and as soon as I have time, will start scanning

35mm chromes again.  I would say that more than half of the images I have on Alamy are scans

from 35mm chromes, most of which are from Kodachrome 200 or K-14.  I have exclusively worked

with CanoScan FS 2710 (early days) and currently the CanoScan FS 4000's.  Never had a QC Fail.

 

My workflow is pretty simple.  Remove the chrome from any mount, clean chrome with PEC-12

scan and then spend hours manually spotting and retouching a 16bit TIFF file before dropping

of 8bit and a JPEG to upload to Alamy.  My record for working on a scan for Alamy is 2 weeks....

and that image has been licensed many times.

 

Another VERY Important thing:  I pay close attention to world news and if I have an image that

illustrates a current major story, I spend the time to research the current news as well ad the news

that prompted me the shoot the image in the first place.  Then as carefully as I can I write the

IPTC information (captions and keywords).

 

Chuck

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