In QC limbo

[Bryan]

Been stuck in QC since Friday. Nothing dodgy about the photos that I am aware of.  But fearing potential fail.

 

Anyone else in the queue ?

[Joe]

Bryan, My first post Christmas/New year QC took longer than normal - 3/4 days rather than the usual 24hrs (passed).

 

 

 

 

[Webby]

Uploaded a small batch yesterday, passed QC and keyworded. On sale this morning. I have had a few batches take a couple of days since the new year though. Hang in there. 

[Tatiana]

I was punished with a long check, and now the photos have been hanging on the check since January 21.

[Broad Norfolk]

Still in QC since last Friday too!

Jim.

[Ed Rooney]

 

Bryan, I think most of us have had a glitch or two and various adjustment problems with QC and Alamy since they introduced the new system. So far most have cleared themselves up. Poco a poco.

[Harry Harrison]

Mine were called in to see the headmaster for 4 or 5 days, first time since 5 star status. Pity really as unusually for me they were quite topical at the time I uploaded.

[NYCat]

Me too. I hadn't uploaded since August and I sent 5 images on Sunday. I have a five star ranking.

 

Paulette

[Bryan]

Thanks for all of the responses folks, mine also cleared this afternoon ! 🙂

[NYCat]

Oh, drat. Mine failed. Soft and lacking definition. Must take a good hard look at all of them.

 

Paulette

[StanRohrer]

I've had some batches in the past weeks that were approved within seconds of completing the upload. My QC rating is 5 stars. Then I got two batches which did not immediately pass and went to QC hold. After the weekend and another day they were rejected for Soft Or Lacking Definition. I highly suspect Alamy now has a software review of each file that happens during upload. Any suspect software inspection results are sent to further QC review - possibly to be confirmed by a human.

 

I've recently lost my computer monitor that has been used for over 15 years with Alamy. Now with a new 4K monitor (and related pixel density change) I think I have to recalibrate my eyes for Soft Or Lacking Def.

[Harry Harrison]

2 minutes ago, StanRohrer said:

I highly suspect Alamy now has a software review of each file that happens during upload.

That could well be, hadn't occurred to me. If so then they'll have to fine tune it or take on some more QC humans. Some of mine had some movement but the important elements were sharp, something that presumably would be hard to judge by a software solution.

[Rebecca Ore]

4 hours ago, StanRohrer said:

I've recently lost my computer monitor that has been used for over 15 years with Alamy. Now with a new 4K monitor (and related pixel density change) I think I have to recalibrate my eyes for Soft Or Lacking Def.

 

Viewing at 200% works for checking images on my 5K Retina monitor (iMac).

[M.Chapman]

6 minutes ago, Rebecca Ore said:

Viewing at 200% works for checking images on my 5K Retina monitor (iMac).

+1

 

Mark

[M.Chapman]

5 hours ago, StanRohrer said:

I highly suspect Alamy now has a software review of each file that happens during upload. Any suspect software inspection results are sent to further QC review - possibly to be confirmed by a human.

 

 

Suspect it's just random sampling by QC. Automated (software) QC would be extremely difficult, if not impossible IMO.

 

Mark

Edited February 1, 2022 by M.Chapman

[MDM]

43 minutes ago, M.Chapman said:

 

Suspect it's just random sampling by QC. Automated (software) QC would be extremely difficult, if not impossible IMO.

 

Mark

 

You may be setting yourself up as a hostage to fortune there Mark. I don't know anything about this but the technology to select an in-focus area has been present in Photoshop for some years now so I suspect it must be possible to automate this sort of thing. If it is not an automated process then either Alamy has moved the goalposts to a stricter setup or there is a newbie in QC who is failing images that would normally pass - e.g. images with out of focus areas but a main subject in focus

Edited February 1, 2022 by MDM

[MDM]

5 hours ago, StanRohrer said:

I've recently lost my computer monitor that has been used for over 15 years with Alamy. Now with a new 4K monitor (and related pixel density change) I think I have to recalibrate my eyes for Soft Or Lacking Def.

 

As some have said viewing at 200% works OK but I don't think it is the same as viewing at 100%. These 27" 4K or 5K monitors are not ideal for stills photography. In my opinion, the sweet spot at 27" is 2560x1440. 

[Rebecca Ore]

2 hours ago, MDM said:

 

As some have said viewing at 200% works OK but I don't think it is the same as viewing at 100%. These 27" 4K or 5K monitors are not ideal for stills photography. In my opinion, the sweet spot at 27" is 2560x1440. 

That's the default for my iMac, but text is a bit too small.   I've been running at 2048 x 1152.

[wiskerke]

3 hours ago, MDM said:

 

You may be setting yourself up as a hostage to fortune there Mark. I don't know anything about this but the technology to select an in-focus area has been present in Photoshop for some years now so I suspect it must be possible to automate this sort of thing. If it is not an automated process then either Alamy has moved the goalposts to a stricter setup or there is a newbie in QC who is failing images that would normally pass - e.g. images with out of focus areas but a main subject in focus

 

Maybe QC got 4K monitors now.

Or new glasses. 😎

 

wim

[M.Chapman]

6 hours ago, Rebecca Ore said:

That's the default for my iMac, but text is a bit too small.   I've been running at 2048 x 1152.

Watch out that PS doesn't fully respect the Mac resolution setting.

For example. If I set 2,560 x 1,440 in Mac OS Display Systems settings, a 1,000 pixel wide image displayed in PS is only 11.5cm wide on a 59.5cm wide 27" iMac display.

If PS was respecting the Display setting the image should be about 23cm wide. 

In general PS will display images at 50% of the size you would expect from the Mac OS Display Resolution settings. It's not ideal.

This behaviour can be overridden by setting PS to open in low resolution mode, but then it all looks a bit fuzzy, so I don't use this.

https://community.adobe.com/t5/photoshop-ecosystem-discussions/open-in-low-resolution-photoshop-cc-2017/td-p/8805969

I just have to remember to check images at 200% in PS. 

 

Mark

[M.Chapman]

10 hours ago, MDM said:

As some have said viewing at 200% works OK but I don't think it is the same as viewing at 100%. These 27" 4K or 5K monitors are not ideal for stills photography. In my opinion, the sweet spot at 27" is 2560x1440. 

+1

 

I agree 2,560x1,440 at 27" is the ideal. That being said, I love my 27" iMac display (5,120 x 2,880) but I do have to remember to inspect at 200% in PS (even though I've set Mac OS Display settings to emulate 2,560 x 1,440). Is it the same as using a real 2,560 x 1,440 display? No, but it's near enough for me and, in other respects (e.g. text rendering), it's much nicer to use/read.

 

Mark

Edited February 2, 2022 by M.Chapman

[M.Chapman]

9 hours ago, MDM said:

 

You may be setting yourself up as a hostage to fortune there Mark. I don't know anything about this but the technology to select an in-focus area has been present in Photoshop for some years now so I suspect it must be possible to automate this sort of thing. If it is not an automated process then either Alamy has moved the goalposts to a stricter setup or there is a newbie in QC who is failing images that would normally pass - e.g. images with out of focus areas but a main subject in focus

Indeed it's easy to detect areas of an image where edge contrast exceeds a certain level (I've written software algorithms to do exactly this when I was involved in automated visual inspection system design), and I imagine focus peaking overlays make use of this. But there are lots of images that, although perfectly in focus, don't contain high contrast edges. e.g. clouds in the sky, water ripples, intentional motion blur etc. I suppose that could be combined with some AI in an attempt to identify the image content and apply appropriate thresholds, but the false alarm rate might be quite high. That being said PS sky selection and replacement technology is very impressive. So maybe I've contradicted myself and you're right that automated QC is a realistic possibility.

 

Do we have any evidence that QC standards have changed? Or is it some contributors have made an occasional mistake, as has always happened?

 

Mark

 

 

[Martin L]

10 hours ago, MDM said:

 

You may be setting yourself up as a hostage to fortune there Mark. I don't know anything about this but the technology to select an in-focus area has been present in Photoshop for some years now so I suspect it must be possible to automate this sort of thing. If it is not an automated process then either Alamy has moved the goalposts to a stricter setup or there is a newbie in QC who is failing images that would normally pass - e.g. images with out of focus areas but a main subject in focus

Finding in-focus areas is pretty straightforward, working out if it is the 'right' thing in focus is very, very complicated.

Throw in fog. atmospherics, artistic intent...........been there, don't want to go back.

[Harry Harrison]

44 minutes ago, M.Chapman said:

Do we have any evidence that QC standards have changed? Or is it some contributors have made an occasional mistake, as has always happened?

I suppose the thread has diverged from the original subject, namely that batches were, anecdotally, taking longer in QC than normal and that could I suppose still be down to staff shortages. I must say I have no mental image of the QC department, a few people at the office in Abingdon, a warehouse full of desks in the Philippines.... Either way it must be an increasing burden given the rate at which images are uploaded so a software solution might be attractive. I might have just encountered my first spot check, as all 5 star contributors experience. On the other hand it could be that all uploads are scanned by software, including 5 stars, and that can trigger a spot check. 

[Tatiana]

I'm still waiting to check my series uploaded on Jan 20th. Alamy decided to punish me.
During the holidays, I uploaded a lot of batches, and after the holidays, due to problems with one photo, all the photos were rejected. And now I have a low rating. Very sad.