please help find SoLD area(s) of this image

[MDM]

11 hours ago, Jeffrey Isaac Greenberg said:

For the record, there is no doubt, your advice has been invaluable;

at some point I will act on it eg, I shopped Lenovo today;

all your comments read & appreciated;

 

 

 

That's good to know Jeff. My post yesterday with the links to our earlier discussions was not aimed at you anyway as I knew you were aware of the history of this discussion and how it started with you asking about upgrades to your graphics card way back. 

 

No it was aimed at the audience and the noisy heckler with the populist-flavoured soundbites and the silly schoolboy mine is bigger than yours mentality that is completely irrelevant to our technological discussion. I don't advise people to get new equipment as a matter of course when they ask questions. I only advise that when it is actually necessary which in this case it certainly is if you want to use Denoise. And it is worth it. 

 

Denoise is not just about saving time in processing. It also enables one to shoot effectively in low light conditions that would have previously been inconceivable. And the simple fact of the matter is that it needs a pretty powerful computer to work. It is simply not possible to get these results manually no matter how experienced one is in post processing. That is why everyone who has used it or seen the results is expressing such amazement at how good it is. 

 

Best of luck in finding the perfect machine. 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 22 by MDM

[Betty LaRue]

2 hours ago, spacecadet said:

A spectacular difference. Pun possibly intended. I got new specs some years ago shortly after going RAW after a bad QC spell. Both helped.

I would probably be able to go to 6400 if I could use Denoise. '

Hi Jeff, it’s advisable to have your eyes checked every two years. “Some years ago” sounds like too long to me.
 I worked for an ophthalmologist for 10 years.

I don’t know your age, but do know as I got older it seemed my eyesight changed faster. Cataracts? I had more failures than I liked until I had cataract surgery.

The weird thing is you all are talking about hairs. After my surgery, when I looked at my hair in the mirror, it looked very crisp, not as soft as I was used to seeing. I thought it must be dry & conditioned the heck out of it with no change except limp (crisp) hair from over-conditioning.

Then I noticed the grass blades in my lawn looked crisp. Hey! I was seeing things the way they should be! Not through the blur of cataracts! 

You need not only a refraction to see if your glasses prescription has changed, but dilation for a look-see into the health of your inner eyes.

Best of luck to you.
Disclaimer…I’m not a doctor, I’m not advising treatment or medicines, just a good eye checkup.

 

[geogphotos]

Great point Betty. If you can't physically see, or you are not able to recognise SOLD - refer to the OP's post - then you aren't in a great position to fix it.

Edited March 22 by geogphotos

[wiskerke]

2 hours ago, Betty LaRue said:

Hi Jeff, it’s advisable to have your eyes checked every two years. “Some years ago” sounds like too long to me.
 I worked for an ophthalmologist for 10 years.

I don’t know your age, but do know as I got older it seemed my eyesight changed faster. Cataracts? I had more failures than I liked until I had cataract surgery.

The weird thing is you all are talking about hairs. After my surgery, when I looked at my hair in the mirror, it looked very crisp, not as soft as I was used to seeing. I thought it must be dry & conditioned the heck out of it with no change except limp (crisp) hair from over-conditioning.

Then I noticed the grass blades in my lawn looked crisp. Hey! I was seeing things the way they should be! Not through the blur of cataracts! 

You need not only a refraction to see if your glasses prescription has changed, but dilation for a look-see into the health of your inner eyes.

Best of luck to you.
Disclaimer…I’m not a doctor, I’m not advising treatment or medicines, just a good eye checkup.

 

Hate dilation. But yes it makes quite a change. My one eye had 90% and was left alone but my other was at 30% vision and got a new lens. Now I have different color in my left (the new lens) and my right eye. So even when at 90% vision, the color is off by 3-5CC Yellow. At the 4 weeks (final) exam two weeks ago I got a full 100% vision. That's a 20/20 in US speak.

Next week new glasses. Not covered by insurance of course. The cataract surgery was. Which probably was why I did not get treatment for the misty stuff inside my eyeballs.

Now does it make a difference in editing? Not that much, I must confess. Maybe with the new glasses.

 

btw these 2 (1; 2) were shot many years ago when I walked home from my ophthalmologist in DC and had forgotten my sunglasses. So I was crying my eyes out all the time while chatting with this guy and taking pictures. He took pity on me. Yes I payed him.

 

wim

[spacecadet]

The "some years ago" was me, not Jeff. I've had new glasses since then and two or three tests, and since there were traces of cataracts last time I'll be on the two-year cycle for sure now. The test is free but I'll be recording my own Farnsworth-Munsell hue score as well.

[John Mitchell]

On 21/03/2024 at 05:58, geogphotos said:

As Jeff commented - but it seems to have been lost in the hubbub - his 'other place' will accept files such as this for Editorial ( and much 'worse' than this) . Photographers upload editorial images direct from the camera and that is how they are offered to willing buyers, faults and all.

 

It does seem that Alamy has created this post-processing mindset that every image has to be tweaked to near perfection. I also contribute to this other place and have never ever been picked up for CA, SOLD, or the other QC sins that we have been taught to live by here. All that the editing concentrates on is whether the subject matter is saleable.

 

 

 

Sometimes I think that Alamy's QC should be renamed "Alamy OCD". However, out of necessity, we've all learned to play the rather befuddling game of pretending that many of our images which are perfectly suitable for publication (and would be accepted just about everywhere else) have tragic technical flaws. But so be it. The gods have spoken. 🙄

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 22 by John Mitchell

[geogphotos]

15 minutes ago, John Mitchell said:

 

Sometimes I think that Alamy's QC should be renamed "Alamy OCD". However, out of necessity, we've all learned to play the rather befuddling game of pretending that many of our images which are perfectly suitable for publication (and would be accepted just about everywhere else) have tragic technical flaws. But so be it. The gods have spoken. 🙄

 

 

 

 

 

 

  Well, yes, and it seems to promote a sort of technophilia which can seem obsessive. I even spend ridiculously unnecessary efforts removing miniscule blemishes from Archive images which are allowed to have blemishes - I just can't stop myself!

 

To play devil's advocate, and not saying that Jeff shouldn't improve that image if he is able, I feel that there would be ready buyers very happy to use it as it is. And that QC can be a barrier to that happy result. Also, that we are led on a never ending pursuit of better, and ever more expensive, equipment and software to be sure of jumping that QC barrier.

[John Mitchell]

1 hour ago, geogphotos said:

  Well, yes, and it seems to promote a sort of technophilia which can seem obsessive. I even spend ridiculously unnecessary efforts removing miniscule blemishes from Archive images which are allowed to have blemishes - I just can't stop myself!

 

To play devil's advocate, and not saying that Jeff shouldn't improve that image if he is able, I feel that there would be ready buyers very happy to use it as it is. And that QC can be a barrier to that happy result. Also, that we are led on a never ending pursuit of better, and ever more expensive, equipment and software to be sure of jumping that QC barrier.

 

For sure. I've actually learned a lot from Alamy's OC ways. Still, from most clients' POV, much of the technical nit-picking is overkill IME. But c'est la vie...

[MDM]

2 hours ago, wiskerke said:

Hate dilation. But yes it makes quite a change. My one eye had 90% and was left alone but my other was at 30% vision and got a new lens. Now I have different color in my left (the new lens) and my right eye. So even when at 90% vision, the color is off by 3-5CC Yellow. At the 4 weeks (final) exam two weeks ago I got a full 100% vision. That's a 20/20 in US speak.

Next week new glasses. Not covered by insurance of course. The cataract surgery was. Which probably was why I did not get treatment for the misty stuff inside my eyeballs.

Now does it make a difference in editing? Not that much, I must confess. Maybe with the new glasses.

 

wim

 

I had cataract surgery (lens replacement) in both eyes (a few months apart) in 2016 and it has made a massive difference to my vision. I don't know what % vision I had beforehand but I was starting to find it much harder to focus manually and to see detail on screen. I could still drive fine even at night at the time but my vision was deteriorating significantly. 

 

The first morning after the first eye was done, I couldn't believe what I was seeing when I took off the eye shield. Incredible clarity and sharpness with greatly increased colour saturation. It was like having a dirty, tobacco-stained filter removed that I had gotten used to seeing through for years before. It was a form of rebirth. I wish I could do the same for some of the other bodily parts that are not as good as they used to be.

 

I recall the period before getting the other eye done when the colour was different in each eye - the new one being distinctly more blue (neutral really). Obviously this is very important for judging white balance.

 

I had them done for distance vision only so I still need computer or reading glasses but the difference when editing before and after the surgery was huge. I did have to go back and have laser treatment on one eye for "misty stuff" which reappeared some months after the surgery. I forget the exact timescale. The surgeon said it was caused by regrowth of some cataract material that had not been fully removed in the initial surgery. It involved some blasting with the laser in my eye but it workled. Both eyes have been perfect ever since. 

Edited March 22 by MDM

[John Mitchell]

40 minutes ago, MDM said:

 

I had cataract surgery (lens replacement) in both eyes (a few months apart) in 2016 and it has made a massive difference to my vision. I don't know what % vision I had beforehand but I was starting to find it much harder to focus manually and to see detail on screen. I could still drive fine even at night at the time but my vision was deteriorating significantly. 

 

The first morning after the first eye was done, I couldn't believe what I was seeing when I took off the eye shield. Incredible clarity and sharpness with greatly increased colour saturation. It was like having a dirty, tobacco-stained filter removed that I had gotten used to seeing through for years before. It was a form of rebirth. I wish I could do the same for some of the other bodily parts that are not as good as they used to be.

 

I recall the period before getting the other eye done when the colour was different in each eye - the new one being distinctly more blue (neutral really). Obviously this is very important for judging white balance.

 

I had them done for distance vision only so I still need computer or reading glasses but the difference when editing before and after the surgery was huge. I did have to go back and have laser treatment on one eye for "misty stuff" which reappeared some months after the surgery. I forget the exact timescale. The surgeon said it was caused by regrowth of some cataract material that had not been fully removed in the initial surgery. It involved some blasting with the laser in my eye but it workled. Both eyes have been perfect ever since. 

 

My cataract surgery, which I had done a couple of years ago, has not been a total success. My surgeon told me that he would set both eyes for distance. However, he ended up putting a different powered lens in my left eye without telling me. It is supposed to help me see better closeup, but the eye doesn't seem to focus properly at any distance. It also has very low contrast compared to the lens in my right eye. There is also a lot of glare. I often have to close my left eye while driving at night as I'm blinded by the headlights of oncoming cars, which is not a safe habit to get into. I've discussed all this with the surgeon, but he just pooh-poohs it. My guess is that he doesn't want to admit that he might have made a mistake. Interesting to hear what you said about having to have laser surgery afterwards...

 

P.S. I can read my computer screen OK but need to wear magnifying "specs" to see it really clearly.

[IKuzmin]

On 21/03/2024 at 11:13, Jeffrey Isaac Greenberg said:

For example, this announced today:
https://www.theverge.com/2024/3/21/24107513/microsoft-ai-pc-surface-pro-10-laptop-6-specs-release-date-price

can it handle PS AI Denoise?  is it now one of the best PCs offered?

Unlikely.

 

You wanted no more than 14", correct?

 

If so, the only item I found at the site which I use for laptops and with all the caveats related to heating that you can see in user reviews (I can only remind that I do not consider laptops as good instruments for photo editing):

 

Alienware x14 Gaming Laptop

$1,999.99

- $500.00

$1,499.99

Tech Specs

Base Alienware x14 R2

Processor 13th Gen Intel® Core™ i7-13620H (24 MB cache, 10 cores, 16 threads, up to 4.90 GHz Turbo)

Operating System Windows 11 Home, English, French, Spanish

Color Choice Lunar Silver

Memory 32 GB: LPDDR5, 4800 MT/s (onboard)

Storage 1 TB, M.2, PCIe NVMe, SSD

Keyboard English US AlienFX RGB backlit (1 zone) Alienware X Series keyboard

Wireless Driver Intel® AX211 Wireless Driver

Display 14'' QHD+ (2560 x 1600)165Hz, 3ms, 300nitsDCIP3 100%typ + Hello/LBL/GSYNC/DDS/ ComfortView Plus

Wireless Intel® Wi-Fi 6E AX211, 2x2, 802.11ax, MU-MIMO, Bluetooth® wireless card

FGA Module 2401_525/US/BTS

Graphics NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 4060, 8 GB GDDR6

Primary Battery 6 Cell, 80 Wh, Lithium Ion, Alienware Battery Defender

AC Adapter 130W AC small form factor adapter, USB Type-C

 

For Lenovo and other brands, good luck. You are not looking for Nvidia GPU lesser than RTX 4060 and I do not know what AMD Radeon equivalent would be for that. Of course, for ~4-5 years only as they will continue inventing new cards, and new versions of Adobe and other software adapted to that hardware...

 

Edited March 22 by IKuzmin
updated the specs

[MDM]

19 minutes ago, John Mitchell said:

 

My cataract surgery, which I had done a couple of years ago, has not been a total success. My surgeon told me that he would set both eyes for distance. However, he ended up putting a different powered lens in my left eye without telling me. It is supposed to help me see better closeup, but the eye doesn't seem to focus properly at any distance. It also has very low contrast compared to the lens in my right eye. There is also a lot of glare. I often have to close my left eye while driving at night as I'm blinded by the headlights of oncoming cars, which is not a safe habit to get into. I've discussed all this with the surgeon, but he just pooh-poohs it. My guess is that he doesn't want to admit that he might have made a mistake. Interesting to hear what you said about having to have laser surgery afterwards...

 

P.S. I can read my computer screen OK but need to wear magnifying "specs" to see it really clearly.

 

That's tough. It's not like you can easily exchange it like bringing back a camera lens you don't like amd swapping it for another one. As far as I remember, I was offered the choice of having something like that but the surgeon advised that the greatest likelihood of success was to have both eyes the same and I went with that as the simplest option. So far so good. 

Edited March 22 by MDM

[M.Chapman]

3 hours ago, geogphotos said:

Also, that we are led on a never ending pursuit of better, and ever more expensive, equipment and software to be sure of jumping that QC barrier.

To be fair Alamy's QC barrier has actually been reduced over the years. If I recall correctly Alamy's inspection at 100% used to be applied to images that had to be at least 16MP=48MB. A QC standard which required pro standard equipment to achieve. Now images only have to be over 17MB (about 6MP) which is only 60% as demanding on sharpness and freedom from aberrations. (Ratio of SQRT(17):SQRT(48) = 0.6:1) and this standard can be readily achieved with consumer grade equipment (providing images are downsized of course).

 

Mark

Edited March 22 by M.Chapman

[John Mitchell]

1 hour ago, MDM said:

 

That's tough. It's not like you can easily exchange it like bringing back a camera lens you don't like amd swapping it for another one. As far as I remember, I was offered the choice of having something like that but the surgeon advised that the greatest likelihood of success was to have both eyes the same and I went with that as the simplest option. So far so good. 

 

Exactly. I was offered the choice too and went for distance. Obviously there was a communication problem. Caveat emptor!

 

Glad to hear your surgery worked out well. Having "clean" lenses certainly does make a big difference.

[Betty LaRue]

6 hours ago, MDM said:

 

I had cataract surgery (lens replacement) in both eyes (a few months apart) in 2016 and it has made a massive difference to my vision. I don't know what % vision I had beforehand but I was starting to find it much harder to focus manually and to see detail on screen. I could still drive fine even at night at the time but my vision was deteriorating significantly. 

 

The first morning after the first eye was done, I couldn't believe what I was seeing when I took off the eye shield. Incredible clarity and sharpness with greatly increased colour saturation. It was like having a dirty, tobacco-stained filter removed that I had gotten used to seeing through for years before. It was a form of rebirth. I wish I could do the same for some of the other bodily parts that are not as good as they used to be.

 

I recall the period before getting the other eye done when the colour was different in each eye - the new one being distinctly more blue (neutral really). Obviously this is very important for judging white balance.

 

I had them done for distance vision only so I still need computer or reading glasses but the difference when editing before and after the surgery was huge. I did have to go back and have laser treatment on one eye for "misty stuff" which reappeared some months after the surgery. I forget the exact timescale. The surgeon said it was caused by regrowth of some cataract material that had not been fully removed in the initial surgery. It involved some blasting with the laser in my eye but it workled. Both eyes have been perfect ever since. 

Where I worked they are called secondary cataracts. When you have surgery, the doctor removes the cloudy stuff inside the lens of your eye and the front “skin” of the lens. The back wall of the lens is left for stability. Then the implant lens is inserted. At the time, that back wall that wasn’t removed is still clear, like a clean window. It is that back part of the lens that can become cloudy later, sometimes within 5-6 months. Then a laser is used to burn a hole that you can see through while still leaving the back part of the your own natural lens ( nothing to do with the implanted lens) in place. It just now has a hole in it. A totally quick & painless procedure. 
I’ve been lucky but my sister had to have only one eye lasered.

And yes, the color restoration is amazing. I took a watercolor class many years before I developed cataracts. There was an older gentleman who had cataracts and the color of his paintings were way off.

I was fortunate that my doctor allowed me to gown up & observe cataract/implant surgery.

Edited March 23 by Betty LaRue

[Ognyan Yosifov]

expecting this thread to be closed soon...

Edited March 23 by Ognyan Yosifov

[geogphotos]

10 hours ago, M.Chapman said:

To be fair Alamy's QC barrier has actually been reduced over the years. If I recall correctly Alamy's inspection at 100% used to be applied to images that had to be at least 16MP=48MB. A QC standard which required pro standard equipment to achieve. Now images only have to be over 17MB (about 6MP) which is only 60% as demanding on sharpness and freedom from aberrations. (Ratio of SQRT(17):SQRT(48) = 0.6:1) and this standard can be readily achieved with consumer grade equipment (providing images are downsized of course).

 

Mark

 

 

Jeff's image would be accepted as Reportage and as News but not as Stock. ie) Such images are regarded as saleable by Alamy 

 

Just as fast film was grainy, high ISO images are likely to have noise. That leaves us/him in a familiar quandry. Sumbit and risk QC failure and the associated punishment or don't sumbit as Stock.

 

Okay, the noise can be overcome with the correct software and the right computer set up -  more and more demanding software requiring more expensive computers.. But that is  precisely because there is a very real QC barrier.

 

And with Alamy there is no option to communicate with a person to explain. It is either run the QC guantlet or don't bother.

 

Or ask the forum....

 

 

Edited March 23 by geogphotos

[Betty LaRue]

I’ve used Denoise a couple of times but I’m not real clear about how. On the Raw, yes. Before adjustments or after? What percent? If an image is underexposed a bit, do I correct that first before running Denoise? It seems that correcting it after would introduce more noise.

[NYCat]

4 hours ago, Ognyan Yosifov said:

expecting this thread to be closed soon...

 

Vision is definitely related to being able to take and process images.

 

Paulette

[MDM]

1 hour ago, Betty LaRue said:

I’ve used Denoise a couple of times but I’m not real clear about how. On the Raw, yes. Before adjustments or after? What percent? If an image is underexposed a bit, do I correct that first before running Denoise? It seems that correcting it after would introduce more noise.

 

Interesting stuff about the cataract surgery and the after effects Betty thanks. 

 

In relation to Denoise, you don't need to do anything to prepare, just hit Denoise and it will do its thing. We had a conversation about this a little while back, I did some real world testing and it doesn't matter if you have done basic editing. It might be different if you have used local edits but even then it doesn't seem to matter.

 

However, the easiest thing is to do it at the start after importing the clip into Lightroom or opening it into ACR. It is well worth doing on high ISO images as it doesn't just do noise reduction, it also does some clever sharpening of the subject without sharpening background. 

Edited March 23 by MDM

[MDM]

39 minutes ago, NYCat said:

 

Vision is definitely related to being able to take and process images.

 

Paulette

 

Yes for sure. Vision is absolutely relevant in general as long as we avoid potentially slippery topics like how cataract surgery is funded which can easily get political. I have purposely avoided any mention of this as it has come up before, probably in one of the threads that got shut down. 

[geogphotos]

So have we reached agreement - being able to see is an advantage in photography. 😵‍💫

 

 

😁

Edited March 23 by geogphotos

[Rebecca Ore]

On 21/03/2024 at 06:58, geogphotos said:

As Jeff commented - but it seems to have been lost in the hubbub - his 'other place' will accept files such as this for Editorial ( and much 'worse' than this) . Photographers upload editorial images direct from the camera and that is how they are offered to willing buyers, faults and all.

 

It does seem that Alamy has created this post-processing mindset that every image has to be tweaked to near perfection. I also contribute to this other place and have never ever been picked up for CA, SOLD, or the other QC sins that we have been taught to live by here. All that the editing concentrates on is whether the subject matter is saleable.

 

And when somebody asks for help it really is not a great deal of use to just reply that the person needs a new computer, new camera, better software. They are asking for help now with what they have right now. 

 

There is no obligation to answer questions that irritate you.

 

Sometimes I feel that some replies are largely performative. 

 

A number of years ago, some newbie posted that she was editing using a TV monitor, and one of the people here offered her a monitor (for free if I'm remembering correctly).    People who've submitting cell phone and point and shoot photos have also been rejected as there's only a very few fixed lens 1 inch sensors that can deliver what Alamy considers acceptable photos. One guy took advice from these forums and got Sony a6000 after a number of a6000 users said that worked for them and could be had for reasonable money used.  And he thanked us.

 

Sometimes, the answer is hardware.  Sometimes, better software.  Sometimes better vision.

 

I've had QC rejections.   I've looked for closely at the photo that got the rejection and haven't yet failed to see what Alamy's QC saw. 

 

Only thing any artist/craftman has any control over is improving what they're doing. The things we have control over in photography are gear more suited to purpose, better processing, and checking for physical issues like eyesight or tremors (and those may call for a hardware fix).  Sometimes, it IS hardware and some people have followed that advice.   Sometimes, it's processing -- and a tip of the hat to Ed Rooney for advising me on that for one of my photos.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 23 by Rebecca Ore
added "users"

[geogphotos]

2 hours ago, Rebecca Ore said:

 

A number of years ago, some newbie posted that she was editing using a TV monitor, and one of the people here offered her a monitor (for free if I'm remembering correctly).    People who've submitting cell phone and point and shoot photos have also been rejected as there's only a very few fixed lens 1 inch sensors that can deliver what Alamy considers acceptable photos. One guy took advice from these forums and got Sony a6000 after a number of a6000 users said that worked for them and could be had for reasonable money used.  And he thanked us.

 

Sometimes, the answer is hardware.  Sometimes, better software.  Sometimes better vision.

 

I've had QC rejections.   I've looked for closely at the photo that got the rejection and haven't yet failed to see what Alamy's QC saw. 

 

Only thing any artist/craftman has any control over is improving what they're doing. The things we have control over in photography are gear more suited to purpose, better processing, and checking for physical issues like eyesight or tremors (and those may call for a hardware fix).  Sometimes, it IS hardware and some people have followed that advice.   Sometimes, it's processing -- and a tip of the hat to Ed Rooney for advising me on that for one of my photos.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But if taking high ISO noisy images is a rarity rather than routine, and given the likely return from stock photos these days, it doesn't make much business sense to invest in software and hardware specifically for that very occasional need.

 

I agree with you that the photo Jeff shared is most likely to fail QC. I can also see that it is a saleable image.  

Edited March 23 by geogphotos

[Rebecca Ore]

5 hours ago, geogphotos said:

But if taking high ISO noisy images is a rarity rather than routine, and given the likely return from stock photos these days, it doesn't make much business sense to invest in software and hardware specifically for that very occasional need.

 

My computer that takes minutes to Denoise a photo.   It's at least 5 years old, possibly six.  Looked at prices for similar vintage used machines, and they're in the US $600 range.   My iMac was getting to the age where I couldn't upgrade the OS on it, and running Lightroom Classic tended to freeze the machine on things like cropping. 

 

My second landlord here was a gamer,  computer repair person, and ran a cyber cafe.   He never bought new computers.   Buying used or renting is also what the guy at Tin House Studio recommends.

 

I didn't buy this computer for Denoise.  I bought it because it had 4 GB Vram and a slot for a SSD, and slots for a memory upgrade., and I could take it with me in a backpack if I ever had to leave Nicaragua in a hurry.   That it doesn't crash with Denoise was a fun discovery.   It does take minutes.  It's not an ideal photo editing machine.