Alamy submissions failed

[Gordon Chew]

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.

[Gordon Chew]

Hi guys, I greatly appreciate all the feedbacks & suggestions posted here thus far. 

 

As what Gvallee mentioned earlier (above), seems that Alamy's requirements doesn't accept pics taken from Mavic Air 2, so it's a long shot if I keep submitting to them while getting rejected with each attempts.

[Gordon Chew]

56 minutes ago, wiskerke said:

 

And maybe post an original straight from the camera as well. Preferably RAW. You do shoot RAW don't you?

 

wim

 

 

 

Hi Wiskerke,

 

The above pics are the originals, non RAW format.

[spacecadet]

3 minutes ago, Gordon Chew said:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The above pics are the originals, non RAW format.

No, they're still 1280x720. Don't resize them when you upload.

Edited September 10, 2020 by spacecadet

[Gordon Chew]

On 09/09/2020 at 19:19, spacecadet said:

Those are not at 100%, they're 1280 x720. We need to see them at 100%.

Hi spacedet,

 

I just checked. The pics I posted here earlier were 4000 x 2250 in size..... not 1280 x 720. So how do I proceed to get them at a 100%?

[spacecadet]

1 minute ago, Gordon Chew said:

The pics I posted here earlier were 4000 x 2250 in size.

They weren't- I right clicked on them and checked the image info. Postimages is resizing them on upload. Select "do not resize" option.

Edited September 10, 2020 by spacecadet

[Gordon Chew]

2 minutes ago, spacecadet said:

No, they're still 1280x720. Don't resize them when you upload.

Hi spacedet, I didn't resize them. I'm at a lost as how to send them at a 100%

[Gordon Chew]

Just now, Gordon Chew said:

Hi spacedet, I didn't resize them. I'm at a lost as how to send them at a 100%

Ok I'll try

[spacecadet]

2 minutes ago, Gordon Chew said:

Hi spacedet, I didn't resize them. I'm at a lost as how to send them at a 100%

See this one? I selected "do not resize" when I uploaded it. You can click through and see the original at full size.

 

Edited September 10, 2020 by spacecadet

[Gordon Chew]

10 minutes ago, spacecadet said:

See this one? I selected "do not resize" when I uploaded it. You can click through and see the original at full size.

 

Hi spacedet,

 

Here it is below, with "do not resize" option when uploading........

 

 

 

[spacecadet]

11 minutes ago, Gordon Chew said:

Hi spacedet,

 

Here it is below, with "do not resize" option when uploading........

 

 

 

 

It's still 1280x720.

[wiskerke]

Gordon,

 

Just post the first link under SHARE. It's called Link.

 

wim

Edited September 10, 2020 by wiskerke
typo

[Gordon Chew]

6 minutes ago, Gordon Chew said:

Hi spacedet,

 

Here it is below, with "do not resize" option when uploading........

 

 

 

Hi spacedet, here's the other two, how's this?

 

 

 

 

 

How's this?

 

 

[Gordon Chew]

1 minute ago, Gordon Chew said:

Hi spacedet, here's the other two, how's this?

 

 

 

 

 

How's this?

 

 

Ok, there seems to be an occuring issue here. Even after choosing the option that says uploading in 1600 x 1200 (21 inch monitor), I'm still posting the images at 1280 x 720 here. It's kind of exasperating lols. 

 

[spacecadet]

4 minutes ago, Gordon Chew said:

Ok, there seems to be an occuring issue here. Even after choosing the option that says uploading in 1600 x 1200 (21 inch monitor), I'm still posting the images at 1280 x 720 here. It's kind of exasperating lols. 

 

What size do your originals show as when you view them on your computer?

[Gordon Chew]

2 minutes ago, spacecadet said:

What size do your originals show as when you view them on your computer?

4000 x 2250

[Gordon Chew]

1 minute ago, Gordon Chew said:

Ok, there seems to be an occuring issue here. Even after choosing the option that says uploading in 1600 x 1200 (21 inch monitor), I'm still posting the images at 1280 x 720 here. It's kind of exasperating lols. 

 

Hi spacedet & Wiskerke,

 

Thanks for being patient and sparing your time with me, but I'm going to leave it for now. It seems like giving up halfway, but I do realize that as long as Alamy's requirements doesn't include drone shots, I'm just going to keep getting axed here for now with any submissions I make. This is not the end, cause I can still contribute without drone shots in the near future.

 

My humble thanks to both you guys and everyone else involved in this throughout.

 

Gordon signing off for now.

[Cal]

19 hours ago, Gordon Chew said:

Hi spacedet & Wiskerke,

 

Thanks for being patient and sparing your time with me, but I'm going to leave it for now. It seems like giving up halfway, but I do realize that as long as Alamy's requirements doesn't include drone shots, I'm just going to keep getting axed here for now with any submissions I make. This is not the end, cause I can still contribute without drone shots in the near future.

 

My humble thanks to both you guys and everyone else involved in this throughout.

 

Gordon signing off for now.

 

You might have luck at other places. They are nice photos, kind of makes me wonder why I got the Mavic Mini and not the Air/Air2 I was looking at. Your image of it looking into the sunset for instance, impressive dynamic range that is not doable on a Mini at all really and very difficult even with stacking and manually doing HDR. These are not bad images, you'd just need to find your niche.

 

It might be worth emailing Alamy and asking them outright if they'll accept images from a Mavic Air 2, or having a look under the contrib guidelines to see if there is a white/black list of cameras (I don't think there is, though). Finally, the suggestion of resizing them to 3000x2000 still stands which is a 6MP image and will be a lot less punishing when viewed at 100% than a 48MP one!

 

As a final piece of advice the only thing I can say is watch your processing. When you first posted the pics they appeared to have some kind of editing, probably HDR and saturation boost compared to the originals you posted which looked more natural. While HDR is a useful tool to overcome DR limitations the effect of HDR in the first image is too much and immediately obvious, which won't be helping your case with Alamy.

 

 

Edited September 11, 2020 by Cal

[Gordon Chew]

2 hours ago, Cal said:

 

You might have luck at other places. They are nice photos, kind of makes me wonder why I got the Mavic Mini and not the Air/Air2 I was looking at. Your image of it looking into the sunset for instance, impressive dynamic range that is not doable on a Mini at all really and very difficult even with stacking and manually doing HDR. These are not bad images, you'd just need to find your niche.

 

It might be worth emailing Alamy and asking them outright if they'll accept images from a Mavic Air 2, or having a look under the contrib guidelines to see if there is a white/black list of cameras (I don't think there is, though). Finally, the suggestion of resizing them to 3000x2000 still stands which is a 6MP image and will be a lot less punishing when viewed at 100% than a 48MP one!

 

As a final piece of advice the only thing I can say is watch your processing. When you first posted the pics they appeared to have some kind of editing, probably HDR and saturation boost compared to the originals you posted which looked more natural. While HDR is a useful tool to overcome DR limitations the effect of HDR in the first image is too much and immediately obvious, which won't be helping your case with Alamy.

 

 

Hi Cal,

 

The Mavic Air 2 was my preference & not the Mini coz the battery last longer and it'll be more steadier /stable during a flight because of the size and weight. However, MA 2 boasts of having 48MP quality pictures, but it's usually not the case. It's still worth the purchase, though..... for me, at least

 

Alamy did gave guidelines as how / what to shoot which they'll definitely accept, but after comparing between Adobe Stock contributions, I've realised that Alamy has stricter guidelines when they rejected my submissions by stating that all my photos were "grainy and not focused" enough.

 

I do appreciate and thank you for taking your time to give valuable pointers here to me, Cal. I'll keep in mind the next time I submit by watching my process.

 

Hopefully, our sharing here will benefit alot more contributors by creating awareness when handling our future picture submissions to Alamy.

 

My humble thanks here!

 

 

 

 

[wiskerke]

There used to be a real list, but now this is the advice:

https://www.alamy.com/blog/alamys-rough-guide-to-digital-cameras

And this is specific to drones:

https://www.alamy.com/blog/drone-photography-passing-alamy-qc

 

wim

Edited September 11, 2020 by wiskerke
drones link

[meanderingemu]

57 minutes ago, Gordon Chew said:

 

 

Alamy did gave guidelines as how / what to shoot which they'll definitely accept, but after comparing between Adobe Stock contributions, I've realised that Alamy has stricter guidelines when they rejected my submissions by stating that all my photos were "grainy and not focused" enough.

 

I do appreciate and thank you for taking your time to give valuable pointers here to me, Cal. I'll keep in mind the next time I submit by watching my process.

 

Hopefully, our sharing here will benefit alot more contributors by creating awareness when handling our future picture submissions to Alamy.

 

My humble thanks here!

 

 

 

 

 

 

just to clarify,  Alamy does not reject all photos as being not technically fine.  If QC process finds one that fails all images in queue will be rejected,  even those that are fine.

 

  (same happens the other way,  I've seen elsewhere many claims that an image was accepted at Alamy when rejected elsewhere 🤔)

[MizBrown]

I looked at the drone guidelines that Wim posted.   What you need for consistently acceptable drone shots is a drone that can carry at least a Micro 4/3rds camera or the one drone with a built in camera that Alamy mentioned. 

 

[Gordon Chew]

On 11/09/2020 at 21:15, wiskerke said:

There used to be a real list, but now this is the advice:

https://www.alamy.com/blog/alamys-rough-guide-to-digital-cameras

And this is specific to drones:

https://www.alamy.com/blog/drone-photography-passing-alamy-qc

 

wim

Hi Wiskerke,

 

This is useful especially for all of us who's submitting drone shots. Seems like the minimum preference here are for the DJI Inspire models with wide angle shots. As for camera shakes, DJI Mavic Air & MA 2 passes the mark. Can't say the same for the Mavic Mini, though.

 

Appreciate your sharing the links here. Many thanks!

[Gordon Chew]

On 11/09/2020 at 21:52, meanderingemu said:

 

 

just to clarify,  Alamy does not reject all photos as being not technically fine.  If QC process finds one that fails all images in queue will be rejected,  even those that are fine.

 

  (same happens the other way,  I've seen elsewhere many claims that an image was accepted at Alamy when rejected elsewhere 🤔)

Hi meanderingemu,

 

It all boils down to "passing one, passing all" & "failing one, failing all", yeah. I've most luck with Adobe Stock submissions thus far, for everyone's info. By luck besides Adobe, I also contribute to Pond5, Alamy & Shuttershock. Hope this helps

 

 

 

 

[Gordon Chew]

On 11/09/2020 at 22:32, MizBrown said:

I looked at the drone guidelines that Wim posted.   What you need for consistently acceptable drone shots is a drone that can carry at least a Micro 4/3rds camera or the one drone with a built in camera that Alamy mentioned. 

 

Hi MizBrown,

 

Yes, your prompting for a Micro 4/3rds was mentioned in the link that Wiskerke posted above. I'm unaware whether drones like the DJI Inspire 1 or their smaller models are capable of being modified to suit this. My DJI MA 2 won't be able to so, that's for sure. Will need to do more research in advance on this before I can share this info here.

[Allan Bell]

3 minutes ago, Gordon Chew said:

Hi MizBrown,

 

Yes, your prompting for a Micro 4/3rds was mentioned in the link that Wiskerke posted above. I'm unaware whether drones like the DJI Inspire 1 or their smaller models are capable of being modified to suit this. My DJI MA 2 won't be able to so, that's for sure. Will need to do more research in advance on this before I can share this info here.

 

If there is a drone which has a 1" sensor it should produce usable images suitable for Alamy.

 

Allan