Increased rejections - is there a new assessment process?

[spacecadet]

I would like to see them re-done just in LrC or whatever- I have an import preset for 1600 and 3200 that just puts in a bit of luminance NR. I'm fine with 10-year old APS (A58).

Unless the processing was done to try to save an unsharp image I would expect at least the 3200 one to be acceptable- I can't go to 6400 with mine.

 

[IKuzmin]

3 hours ago, MDM said:

Again a matter of taste as to what was acceptable.

I guess you are right 🙂

https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/image-comparison/fullscreen?attr18=daylight&attr13_0=sony_a1&attr13_1=nikon_z8&attr13_2=sony_a9&attr13_3=canon_eosr5&attr15_0=raw&attr15_1=raw&attr15_2=raw&attr15_3=raw&attr16_0=6400&attr16_1=6400&attr16_2=6400&attr16_3=6400&attr126_0=1&attr126_1=1&attr126_2=1&attr126_3=1&normalization=print&widget=845&x=-0.659892122703158&y=0.5479834267544942

 

[Jill Morgan]

I am doing mostly birds these days, and use Topaz all the time.  Usually just Topaz Sharpen as it also does noise  and doesn't seem to overcook like DeNoise does.  But most noise in my images is minimal.  Your images are way over processed. If it takes that much sharpening to get it sharp, it is unsaveable. It is painful to bin some images, but sometimes that is the only way you can go, at least with  Alamy's tech standards.

 

Jill

[Chuck Nacke]

14 hours ago, M.Chapman said:

Thanks for confirming. As you know I'm not a FF user, so When IKuzmin said noise shouldn't be a problem, I went and looked at DPReview's test images for the Sony at ISO6400 and although there was clearly noise, I felt it wasn't excessive. So not a "major issue" and something that normal NR processing would happily deal with, without the need to resort to Topaz Denoise AI which can be a bit of a "sledgehammer" and can easily create other problems (e.g. artificial looking synthesised "detail").

 

Most of my Topaz Denoise AI use is on digitised slides - to reduce film grain.

 

Mark

I agree with Mark, the OP's (two that are linked in the thread) look "Overprocessed" to me and very unpleasant to even look at, in my opinion.

 

Chuck

[Jill Morgan]

On 30/07/2023 at 12:41, M.Chapman said:

You're right, noise shouldn't be a major issue (FF+24MP stacked BICMOS sensor). So I wonder why OP used Topaz Denoise? Perhaps it was predominantly for the sharpening function? I note the lens being used for the warbler was a FE 200-600mm zoom with 2x convertor. The Kingfisher was the same lens with a 1.4x convertor. I'm not familiar with these lenses and convertors, but maybe they caused some softness that the OP has tried to recover with DXO and Topaz? If so, downsizing might have been a better way to go to pass Alamy QC.

 

Mark

 

Mark, I have started using a 1.4 extender with my Canon 100-400 5.6.  This means to keep autofocus (and with birds, you gotta) I am stuck at f/8 or I have to go manual.  This means sometimes you have to increase the ISO to compensate.  I would love a 300 2.8 prime with a 2x extender, but my bank account just can't handle that. Still have to process the images I have taken with the extender.  Mine looked good and sharp when I was going through them the other day.

 

Jill

[IKuzmin]

Deleted

Edited July 31, 2023 by IKuzmin

[IKuzmin]

deleted

Edited August 1, 2023 by IKuzmin

[Jill Morgan]

35 minutes ago, IKuzmin said:

Jill, I wonder why. It focuses open hence you get that 8 during the focusing process anyway. I routinely use 100-400/4.5-5.6ii with 1.4 extender attached to 7Dii or 5Diii. Quality with the original 100-400/4.5-5.6 was too poor but with the version ii it is better, particularly if close to F10-11 (yes, I almost never use it at F=8 and still have autofocus, including tracking continuous focus). I used this combination routinely and have many images captured with it. Of course, it is quite slow so I could not photograph fast moving animals or flying birds.

Even more puzzling for me is your statement that "you have to increase ISO to compensate". What is a relation to the extender?

 

I normally shoot with the lens at 400mm Aperture priority at 5.6, ISO 400 with the camera picking the shutter speed.  When using the extender, I lose 1.5 stops, so have to use f8 to maintain autofocus.  If I want to shoot at 5.6, then I have to switch to manual, as auto focus doesn't work with the lens open more than f8.  I can go to f11 etc.  With the extender on, the camera automatically goes to f8 and will not let me open it more unless I switch to manual.  And can't shoot moving birds on manual.  Well I can, but I wouldn't put any money on how good the images would be.

 

Therefore to maintain the higher shutter speed with f8, I need to up my ISO to around 1600.  The part I don't like with the f/8 is too much is in focus.  I lose  my soft background.

 

Jill

[IKuzmin]

12 minutes ago, Jill Morgan said:

I normally shoot with the lens at 400mm Aperture priority at 5.6, ISO 400 with the camera picking the shutter speed.  When using the extender, I lose 1.5 stops, so have to use f8 to maintain autofocus.  If I want to shoot at 5.6, then I have to switch to manual, as auto focus doesn't work with the lens open more than f8.  I can go to f11 etc.  With the extender on, the camera automatically goes to f8 and will not let me open it more unless I switch to manual.  And can't shoot moving birds on manual.  Well I can, but I wouldn't put any money on how good the images would be.

Sorry, this is not correct. The 1.4x extender takes 1 stop, hence when you attach it to the F=5.6 lens it becomes 8, as you said. It physically cannot "open more". That's how the extender works. What would you gain switching to manual? It would not magically go back to 5.6. 

Edited August 1, 2023 by IKuzmin

[Jill Morgan]

3 hours ago, IKuzmin said:

Sorry, this is not correct. The 1.4x extender takes 1 stop, hence when you attach it to the F=5.6 lens it becomes 8, as you said. It physically cannot "open more". That's how the extender works. What would you gain switching to manual? It would not magically go back to 5.6. 

 

Freaking guy at the camera store told me I could use 5.6 if I went to manual focus.  I've never tried as no point in using manual shooting birds, but you are right, even when I switch the lens to manual, it doesn't go below f8.  First time I ever tried it.

Edited August 1, 2023 by Jill Morgan

[M.Chapman]

9 hours ago, Jill Morgan said:

Mark, I have started using a 1.4 extender with my Canon 100-400 5.6.  This means to keep autofocus (and with birds, you gotta) I am stuck at f/8 or I have to go manual.  This means sometimes you have to increase the ISO to compensate.  I would love a 300 2.8 prime with a 2x extender, but my bank account just can't handle that. Still have to process the images I have taken with the extender.  Mine looked good and sharp when I was going through them the other day.

No problem with f/8, my concern was the OP had perhaps closed down the aperture more than necessary. 

Out of interest, which version of Topaz Sharpen AI are you using? I'm using Topaz DeNoise 2.4.2, which is now quite an old version. I'm not sure if it's worth upgrading or not.

 

Mark

[quetzal]

Hi everyone and thanks very much for your comments. Very informative. On reflection I have to agree with much of what you have said. The Kingfihser was photographed in very tricky lighting and I felt I needed to process it in order to see it at its best. Looks like I did indeed 'over cook' it. The warbler, by comparison, was shot in excellent light. Although I was using a 200-600 with a 2x converter, it was on a heavy Gitzo tripod which I use for most of my work with this lens. The only thing I'm not sure about in the comments above is what is meant by 'downsizing' the image? Could someone please explain? Thanks

Kevin

[IKuzmin]

5 hours ago, M.Chapman said:

Out of interest, which version of Topaz Sharpen AI are you using? I'm using Topaz DeNoise 2.4.2, which is now quite an old version. I'm not sure if it's worth upgrading or not.

Denoise 2.3.6, Sharpen 2.2.4. Tried several later version but each was inferior for my files. Given that both have been virtually abandoned, do not see any utility to upgrade. AM just waiting if/when Photo AI would become good enough...

[IKuzmin]

1 hour ago, quetzal said:

The only thing I'm not sure about in the comments above is what is meant by 'downsizing' the image? Could someone please explain?

Alamy accepts images starting from ~6 Mp, e.g. with 3000 pixels on long size. DXO Photolab is not the most user-friendly to my taste. If you "Export to Disk" as JPAG or TIFF (Action on top of the right column) and check "Enable resizing" (below in the same column) , you'll be able to select the size of your output.

[MDM]

1 hour ago, quetzal said:

The only thing I'm not sure about in the comments above is what is meant by 'downsizing' the image? Could someone please explain?

 In the simplest terms, downsizing means reducing the number of pixels in an image. The effect is to give an appearance of a greater degree of sharpness. Importantly, it does not result in any extra detail in the image. Exactly how you downsize depends on the software you are using. 

[Jill Morgan]

7 hours ago, M.Chapman said:

No problem with f/8, my concern was the OP had perhaps closed down the aperture more than necessary. 

Out of interest, which version of Topaz Sharpen AI are you using? I'm using Topaz DeNoise 2.4.2, which is now quite an old version. I'm not sure if it's worth upgrading or not.

 

Mark

 

I'm using topaz Sharpen AI version 4.1.  Denoise 3.7.2.  I always keep Sharpen AI up to date as I use it a fair bit.  I haven't used my latest updated version of DeNoise. They are part of a set of downloads I believe, so if you pay for a year of updates, you get updates for both pieces of software.

Jill

[chasephoto]

I can see that in the first image the beak isn't sharp

 

And in the kingfisher shot the fish isn't sharp, and the whole image looks as if it has been over-sharpened or over-processed somehow

 

xx

[Cal]

On 31/07/2023 at 07:06, M.Chapman said:

 

 

Most of my Topaz Denoise AI use is on digitised slides - to reduce film grain.

 

Mark

 

How does that work out for you?

 

I work mostly in film nowadays and I have a policy that I do not apply any luminance noise reduction and certainly no AI noise reduction to film photos. IMO doing so risks destroying the grain structure and so the integrity of the image. If I have some for Alamy that I feel are borderline (35mm usually will be) then I just downsize. I would rather risk a failure than muddy an image taken on film by attempting to make it more digital, but that's just me. If you are curious, or even want to crit, my last 8 or so photos were taken on film, and I have a bit of a backlog of shots taken on 120 (that I feel don't need any resize) to upload.

 

A few weeks ago Alamy even had a tweet out encouraging people to upload film scans, so I feel they may be at least partly sympathetic to some film grain as long as it's not horrendous. One thing I do often set is the chroma noise reduction, mainly to get rid of any scanning noise that creeps in.

[Steve F]

On 01/08/2023 at 10:22, quetzal said:

Hi everyone and thanks very much for your comments. Very informative. On reflection I have to agree with much of what you have said. The Kingfihser was photographed in very tricky lighting and I felt I needed to process it in order to see it at its best. Looks like I did indeed 'over cook' it. The warbler, by comparison, was shot in excellent light.

 

I'm absolutely not an expert, so take what I say with a pinch of salt. Both birds look over-processed to me. The warbler - the feathers look too sharply delineated to be natural. Looks like too much sharpening applied.

 

The kingfisher - elements are too sharply delineated again. Also looks like some posterization has occured.

Edited August 21, 2023 by Steve F

[IKuzmin]

22 hours ago, Cal said:

On 31/07/2023 at 01:06, M.Chapman said:

 

 

Most of my Topaz Denoise AI use is on digitised slides - to reduce film grain.

 

Mark

 

How does that work out for you?

Am not Mark but have some similar experience. Neither Topaz Denoise AI nor Sharpen AI worked well for my slides. As was discussed on Topaz forums, these programs/models were not trained for film. People say they get good results on film slides with the new Topaz Photo AI but I do not use it due to various reasons. For slides I used Imagenomic Noiseware and the results were the most acceptable for my taste.

[quetzal]

Hi I have written in the forum before about increasing failures of QC in my submissions. I have today contacted Alamy for an e-mail to send my comments to people in QC for response. Unfortunately the e-mail addresses I was given (contributions@alamy.com and contributorrelations@alamy.com) were returned as 'delivery failure'. So please can I seek your help with my concerns. Here is what I tried to send to Alamy QC:- 

 

Hello

I have been a loyal contributor and supporter of Alamy for over 13 years with over 15,000 images on your platform. I sit on the judging panel of the Royal Photographic Society in Nature, and am a Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society.

Over the recent months I have had a significant number of failures of QC, much more than I have previously experienced, even though my photography has not changed. I am primarily a wildlife photographer, where the viewer’s attention needs to be concentrated on the subject matter (bird, mammal, plant etc) with much less emphasis on the background, which can otherwise become intrusive. The ‘softening’ of backgrounds is also more likely when using long telephoto lenses to capture distant subjects.

I would like to hear from you whether things have changed in terms of how images are assessed. For example, is AI now being used to examine submissions? If so, it may be that the software is not taking into account the issues I mention above.

As an example, I attach an image of a Bald Eagle, which was recently rejected. This, to me, is a good example of the concerns I have. In my opinion the bird is sharp and well exposed but the background is out of focus. This is the effect of using a long telephoto lens to capture the image of the eagle.

I would value your feedback on my thoughts, so that I can move forward with my future contributions, knowing what your expectations are.

Thank you

Dr Kevin Elsby

Please see the attached jpeg.  

Edited September 14, 2023 by quetzal
Attach image

[VbFolly]

2 hours ago, quetzal said:

Hi I have written in the forum before about increasing failures of QC in my submissions. I have today contacted Alamy for an e-mail to send my comments to people in QC for response. Unfortunately the e-mail addresses I was given (contributions@alamy.com and contributorrelations@alamy.com) were returned as 'delivery failure'. So please can I seek your help with my concerns. Here is what I tried to send to Alamy QC:- 

 

Hello

I have been a loyal contributor and supporter of Alamy for over 13 years with over 15,000 images on your platform. I sit on the judging panel of the Royal Photographic Society in Nature, and am a Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society.

Over the recent months I have had a significant number of failures of QC, much more than I have previously experienced, even though my photography has not changed. I am primarily a wildlife photographer, where the viewer’s attention needs to be concentrated on the subject matter (bird, mammal, plant etc) with much less emphasis on the background, which can otherwise become intrusive. The ‘softening’ of backgrounds is also more likely when using long telephoto lenses to capture distant subjects.

I would like to hear from you whether things have changed in terms of how images are assessed. For example, is AI now being used to examine submissions? If so, it may be that the software is not taking into account the issues I mention above.

As an example, I attach an image of a Bald Eagle, which was recently rejected. This, to me, is a good example of the concerns I have. In my opinion the bird is sharp and well exposed but the background is out of focus. This is the effect of using a long telephoto lens to capture the image of the eagle.

I would value your feedback on my thoughts, so that I can move forward with my future contributions, knowing what your expectations are.

Thank you

Dr Kevin Elsby

Please see the attached jpeg.  

I think the correct email address is: contributors@alamy.com

 

[Phil Robinson]

The last time I had a couple of rejections for soft and lacking definition a while back it turned out I needed glasses. Might be worth checking.

[MDM]

2 hours ago, quetzal said:

Hi I have written in the forum before about increasing failures of QC in my submissions. I have today contacted Alamy for an e-mail to send my comments to people in QC for response. Unfortunately the e-mail addresses I was given (contributions@alamy.com and contributorrelations@alamy.com) were returned as 'delivery failure'. So please can I seek your help with my concerns. Here is what I tried to send to Alamy QC:- 

 

Hello

I have been a loyal contributor and supporter of Alamy for over 13 years with over 15,000 images on your platform. I sit on the judging panel of the Royal Photographic Society in Nature, and am a Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society.

Over the recent months I have had a significant number of failures of QC, much more than I have previously experienced, even though my photography has not changed. I am primarily a wildlife photographer, where the viewer’s attention needs to be concentrated on the subject matter (bird, mammal, plant etc) with much less emphasis on the background, which can otherwise become intrusive. The ‘softening’ of backgrounds is also more likely when using long telephoto lenses to capture distant subjects.

I would like to hear from you whether things have changed in terms of how images are assessed. For example, is AI now being used to examine submissions? If so, it may be that the software is not taking into account the issues I mention above.

As an example, I attach an image of a Bald Eagle, which was recently rejected. This, to me, is a good example of the concerns I have. In my opinion the bird is sharp and well exposed but the background is out of focus. This is the effect of using a long telephoto lens to capture the image of the eagle.

I would value your feedback on my thoughts, so that I can move forward with my future contributions, knowing what your expectations are.

Thank you

Dr Kevin Elsby

Please see the attached jpeg.  

 

 

Can you post the JPEG at full size to Dropbox so others here can have a look as well. It is pointless posting anything other than a full size version. It would also be interesting to see the original raw image (presuming you are shooting raw) as that would allow distinction between your camera technique and subsequent processing. This is something I have wondered about (out of focus backgrounds causing QC failures) although it was clear from your post a little while back on the same subject that your images were not up to scratch as they had been very over-processed and the QC failures were correct. I recall you agreeing with the general consensus that that was the case. I realise you are a Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society which is a high distinction indeed and deserves a lot of respect but something was definitely way off with your previous examples.

Edited September 14, 2023 by MDM

[quetzal]

Hi thanks

I tried to get the file online using other software but it failed. So, here's the eagle image link using drop box. I know where I went wrong with the Kingfisher images - turned out I processed it twice. My own fault. However, the eagle has only been processed as I would normally do for a submission. 

Here's the link = Bald Eagle, Seward, Alaska, USA, 18 August 2023,00001, -ARW_DxO_DeepPRIMEXD-Enhanced-SR-Edit.jpg (dropbox.com)