Interpolation Artifacts

[John Mitchell]

I just had an un-interpolated image fail QC because of "interpolation artifacts," which seems a bit strange.

 

Has anyone had this happen? Any idea what the cause might be? Could it be sensor-related? Post processing-related? Or...?

[spacecadet]

I had that a while back. Reviewing it now (it also failed for dust (correct) and SoLD (incorrect)- it passed on resub with the dust removed)- it's a pavilion with some canvas rigging which looks like a jaggy.

Is there something which looks like an artifact? Show us.

[John Mitchell]

I had that a while back. Reviewing it now (it also failed for dust (correct) and SoLD (incorrect)- it passed on resub with the dust removed)- it's a pavilion with some canvas rigging which looks like a jaggy.

Is there something which looks like an artifact? Show us.

This image also got dinged for SoLD, but the centre of focus looks perfectly sharp to me. Guess I need new glasses/specs. It's a rather boring shot of some solar panels on top of a building. The solar panels and frames have rough textures, which might have given the appearance of "jaggies." I'll post a 100% crop later. In the meantime, I'm going to e-mail MS to see if I can get some guidance on this.

[spacecadet]

Sometimes I think failure reasons are a job-lot, not necessary all applying. i've also noticed that if a batch is failed the reasons don't necessarily relate to the image they are listed with so I'd have another look at the rest of the batch.

[John Mitchell]

Sometimes I think failure reasons are a job-lot, not necessary all applying. i've also noticed that if a batch is failed the reasons don't necessarily relate to the image they are listed with so I'd have another look at the rest of the batch.

Now I'm really confused. This was a mixed batch with images taken on different days and in different lighting conditions, so I think I'll wait to see what MS comes back with.

[Krisken]

The only image of mine that failed for that reason was because I'd cropped it too much and hadn't spotted them after resizing upwards.

[Ed Rooney]

Sometimes I think failure reasons are a job-lot, not necessary all applying. i've also noticed that if a batch is failed the reasons don't necessarily relate to the image they are listed with so I'd have another look at the rest of the batch.

 

I agree. QC selects the reason or reasons for failing an image by clicking on items from a prewritten list. They have neither the time nor the inclination to get into a dialog with contributors. It's far more productive if we police ourselves in this matter. 

[John Mitchell]

Actually, QC got back to me right away about this. They even sent me some 100% crops of parts of the image that they consider to be soft and lacking definition. I much appreciated their taking the time to provide this helpful feedback. However, this image would have easily passed QC a couple of years ago IMO. There is obviously much more emphasis on sharpness these days. Personally, I'm not sure that this is a good trend because it might encourage contributors to start applying sharpening to images rather than leaving that up to clients. Just my two pixels' worth...

[spacecadet]

I think my QC standards have got higher but oddly I don't think Alamy's have. Stuff creeps through that wouldn't have a few years ago, not that I'm taking advantage, of course, officer, but I'm convinced a good QC record gets you a bit of leeway.

[John Mitchell]

I think my QC standards have got higher but oddly I don't think Alamy's have. Stuff creeps through that wouldn't have a few years ago, not that I'm taking advantage, of course, officer, but I'm convinced a good QC record gets you a bit of leeway.

Shooting JPEG probably doesn't hurt either, as some sharpening is inevitably applied in-camera to JPEGs. My experience with QC is exactly the opposite to yours. They seem much more stringent to me. Some things do probably slip by of course, which is understandable given the heavy volume of submissions.