Improving the Presentation, Size and Resolution of 360-degree panoramas on sale.

[Kent Johnson]

I've recently started uploading my 360-degree panoramas to Alamy - I joined in Jan 2020 and have 1500 'standard' stock images on the site, and have been selling sporadically. Unfortunately, the 360s that I have been approved already are not presenting very well due to reduced size and excessive compression.  There is to my mind also an excess of watermarking. It is important to recognise that a moving 360 is not a single image but is a sequence of images tiled to make up the 360 - the complete picture can not - to my knowledge - be downloaded at all - so it has its own built-in security.

 

I do understand and appreciate the importance of protecting our intellectual property but I am concerned that the loss of image quality makes the pictures look-like they are of poor quality and not worth buying. Many of my images are also on another site which was supposed to be sending my pictures to Alamy but that hardly happened - Here is the file at the other hosting site and here is the same picture, same original file here on Alamy. I recommend viewing full screen; as I imagine prospective agency buyers would.

I look forward to hearing Alamy's thoughts regarding the presentation of 360-degree images.

 

 

[sooth]

They are not going to present a full size uncompressed 360. Imagine the bandwidth and cost that would eventually lead to excuses to reduce contributor commission rates down the road

[Allan Bell]

On 19/06/2023 at 08:25, sooth said:

They are not going to present a full size uncompressed 360. Imagine the bandwidth and cost that would eventually lead to excuses to reduce contributor commission rates down the road

 

Again.

 

Allan

 

[Kent Johnson]

On 19/06/2023 at 17:25, sooth said:

They are not going to present a full size uncompressed 360. Imagine the bandwidth and cost that would eventually lead to excuses to reduce contributor commission rates down the road

They don't need to present the full size - I'm uploading at from 14 000 to 16 000 on the long side, with compression at 9. That is a 19 to 30 meg file. They have to store this already, the bandwidth is only used when loaded - 360 can be served at multiple sizes - as the original flat equiangular image is processed into tiles for 'serving' when called - responsive web design will allow for the image to be scaled for the device and screen calling for the image.

 

In a nutshell - should not be a problem in the sense that you perceive it as being, Sooth.  Showing poorly presented product still uses bandwidth and in my opinion, inhibits the desire to purchase = lost opportunity and sales. I hope management takes these points into consideration. Do management ever reply to these suggestions?