MikeWP Posted July 10 Share Posted July 10 I'm new to Alamy, although I've been uploading to stock agencies successfully for about eight years. I'm a little taken back by the rejection process. I understand that only a small number of photos are actually reviewed but I'm puzzled by the policy of total rejection of all photos in a batch if one is found to have a problem. My initial three submissions passed QC without a problem but I've been unable to get anything past the process since then. QC has identified an issue with 'softness' - I assume in background since I often shoot with a shallow depth of field - and I understand that with human reviewers, there is a level of subjectivity. But to reject an entire submission because of one identified issue is what's throwing me. I took the counsel of the FAQ and I examine every photo at 100%. Of course that takes time but I wonder how contributors get thousands of photos accepted by Alamy if any batch is subject to complete rejection for an issue with one photo. So far, I've submitted around 50 photos, all of which have been rejected except for the first three. I've resorted to submitting one photo at a time - each of which take 24 hours to review (and I don't have a problem with the timeline. that's not usual with all stock agencies) but at this rate, it will take three years just to get 1000 photos uploaded and that's if they aren't rejected in the QC process. Any ideas or is this just the process? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve F Posted July 11 Share Posted July 11 (edited) Hi Mike, Sorry to hear you're having difficulties. Just to summarise: It is quite common in industries to reject a whole batch if a random sample fails. Solution - do QA on all your photos and make sure they are of a sufficient standard. Alamy expects fairly professional quality images, although they'll accept almost any subject. Did you see this document: https://www.alamy.com/contributors/alamy-how-to-pass-qc.pdf If you repeat fail, you will have your images scrutinised more thoroughly. If you haven't fixed the problem that is causing you to fail, then things will not improve for you. Out of focus background is absolutely not a failure reason. Your main subject should be sharp, at least part of it. If you have e.g. animal or human photos, at least one of the eyes has to be tack sharp for example. I submit between 20-80 images at a time. I have ~5,500 images up, only had 1 QC failure since I started in 2015. Many of us work with the system successfully. I hope this helps. Soft - you might have camera shake, or you might have missed your focus point. You can always post a failed image at 100% (you have to host it somewhere, e.g. imgbb.com) and ask for our opinion. Generally we agree with Alamy QC for the failure. Good luck, Steve Edited July 11 by Steve F 2 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Yarvin Posted July 11 Share Posted July 11 Steve, once again, you've given an informative answer when the rest of us want to scream "not again!" This is a talent in itself and has earned my greatest respect. Mike, in my experience, there's a real correlation between how demanding a stock agency is and how much they can earn for you. Stick with it! 1 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeWP Posted July 11 Author Share Posted July 11 Steve, thanks for the info. I guess I just have to learn the system. My frustration is that I have 45 images that look very good to me at 100% (even on a second pass) but because they were in a batch with one that wasn't accepted, they have all been rejected. So it seems a bit like a dice game. In my short time on Alamy, I've tried to look at every photo but obviously I missed something. I've only had two that were actually flagged as soft, but the frustration is that those two photos tainted the submission of 45 good (at least in my view) photos. The past two days, my single photo submission has passed QC but my view, at least until I get things figured out, is that if I only submit one, if that one gets rejected, I don't lose 20, 30, 40 good photos that are in the same batch. Brian, I don't have an issue at all with an agency being demanding. It's just the all-or-nothing direction that threw me. Thanks for the responses 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve F Posted July 11 Share Posted July 11 35 minutes ago, MikeWP said: I've only had two that were actually flagged as soft, Hi Mike, thanks for replying. Did you agree with Alamy's assessment of those 2 images? Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NYCat Posted July 11 Share Posted July 11 You don't "lose" those images. You need to go over them carefully but if they are not soft and have no other problems you can submit them again and have them all pass. I submit about 10-12 images at a time. It has been a very long time since a failure but I had a lot of them at the beginning. I am just very careful about each image being free of flaws. Paulette Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeWP Posted July 11 Author Share Posted July 11 Steve. In one, yes I could see what they perhaps were looking at. In the second, I have looked at it several times at 100% and beyond until I get nearly to the pixel level and still don't see what the issue might be, except that it does intentionally move toward a blurred background. But again, I don't have a problem with having a photo rejected here or there. My concern is having multiple good (at least in my view) images rejected because of an issue with one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MDM Posted July 11 Share Posted July 11 (edited) 10 minutes ago, MikeWP said: Steve. In one, yes I could see what they perhaps were looking at. In the second, I have looked at it several times at 100% and beyond until I get nearly to the pixel level and still don't see what the issue might be, except that it does intentionally move toward a blurred background. But again, I don't have a problem with having a photo rejected here or there. My concern is having multiple good (at least in my view) images rejected because of an issue with one. Post some full size JPEGs to Dropbox or similar and you will get some genuinely helpful feedback which could save you some time in the long run. There have been cases where images that have an in-focus subject and out-of-focus background have failed incorrectly but that tends to be rare. Alamy QC usually gets it right. Edited July 11 by MDM 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NYCat Posted July 11 Share Posted July 11 16 minutes ago, MikeWP said: Steve. In one, yes I could see what they perhaps were looking at. In the second, I have looked at it several times at 100% and beyond until I get nearly to the pixel level and still don't see what the issue might be, except that it does intentionally move toward a blurred background. But again, I don't have a problem with having a photo rejected here or there. My concern is having multiple good (at least in my view) images rejected because of an issue with one. There is no reason to consider the other images "rejected". As soon as they see one image with flaws they don't look at any more. Those images will likely pass if you put them through again. Paulette 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Yarvin Posted July 11 Share Posted July 11 1 hour ago, MikeWP said: Brian, I don't have an issue at all with an agency being demanding. It's just the all-or-nothing direction that threw me. All or nothing is sometimes how life goes. I don't like it either, but I've been freelancing as a writer and photographer since the eighties and have learned to live with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
M.Chapman Posted July 11 Share Posted July 11 (edited) 1 hour ago, MikeWP said: I have looked at it several times at 100% and beyond until I get nearly to the pixel level Nearly to the pixel level? Just to be clear - Alamy QC inspection at 100% means inspection at the pixel level. In Photoshop on a non-retina display that equates to looking at the image at 100% zoom level where each pixel in your image is displayed using one pixel on your monitor. Then pan and scroll around the image to check it for defects all over. If you are using an Apple retina display then you will need to set the zoom to 200%. Initially this may seem unduly onerous, but as experience grows, it becomes quite quick and second nature. Mark Edited July 11 by M.Chapman 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeWP Posted July 11 Author Share Posted July 11 10 minutes ago, M.Chapman said: Nearly to the pixel level? Just to be clear - Alamy QC inspection at 100% means inspection at the pixel level. In Photoshop on a non-retina display that equates to looking at the image at 100% zoom level where each pixel in your image is displayed using one pixel on your monitor. Then pan and scroll around the image to check it for defects all over. If you are using an Apple retina display then you will need to set the zoom to 200%. Initially this may seem unduly onerous, but as experience grows, it becomes quite quick and second nature. Mark Thanks for the specifics, Mark. Although with this particular photo, when I said pixel level, I was looking at the photo at 800% in Photoshop on an Apple Studio Display on a 46mp photo taken with a Nikon Z8 and things like numbers were still clearly readable. But I'm not quibbling about any single photo. My issue was more with the concept of total rejection of a batch because one photo isn't deemed acceptable. However, NYCat's response indicates a little different perspective on Alamy's concept of rejection than I'm used to. With sites like Getty, where I've been for about seven years, a rejected photo means that they never want to see it again. That you can resubmit photos of a batch that were not themselves flagged wasn't clear to me from the Alamy FAQs. Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry Harrison Posted July 11 Share Posted July 11 Well, we've all done it at least once I guess, bear in mind that all images awaiting QC will be rejected, so those in different batches as well. This page is maybe clearer: https://www.alamy.com/contributor/faqs/quality-control/ "Q. Why do you reject my whole submission if you find a problem with one of my images? A. We receive over 100,000 images a day so it’s simply not possible for us to check every image. We check a small sample of your images and if all images in that sample are ok then we’ll pass the whole submission. If we find one failure then all images awaiting QC will fail. We take the view that every image you submit should meet our QC standards so when we look at a random sample we expect it to represent the quality of all images submitted. Our top tip is to check all images at 100% (actual pixels) before you submit." 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
M.Chapman Posted July 11 Share Posted July 11 (edited) Submitting at 46MP places significant demands on lens and technique. Downsizing can help pass QC if needed and doesn't seem to significantly affect sales IMO. The rejection of a whole batch if a defect is found is quite widespread in industry. The supplier is asked to recheck the batch and only resubmit if no further defects found. Mark Edited July 11 by M.Chapman 48MP corrected to 46MP 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rebecca Ore Posted July 11 Share Posted July 11 The main reasons photo fail is noise and soft subject. If the subject is something with motion blur, then send it in as a single with a caption that says "yeah, motion blurred wings." Otherwise, sharp subject at least the eye. For noise, check shadows very carefully and use one of the AI-based denoisers on it if you see noise. Sometimes distant birds may look like specks on the sensor. If it's not obviously a bird, clone it out. QC look at the obvious suspects first. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeWP Posted July 11 Author Share Posted July 11 33 minutes ago, M.Chapman said: Submitting at 48MP places significant demands on lens and technique. Downsizing can help pass QC if needed and doesn't seem to significantly affect sales IMO. The rejection of a whole batch if a defect is found is quite widespread in industry. The supplier is asked to recheck the batch and only resubmit if no further defects found. Mark Mark I'm not submitting 48mp (46 actually) images. I just mentioned that because that was the full sized image that I was inspecting at 800% in Photoshop looking for soft areas. The only thing I found soft about it was the background, which was deliberately blurred slightly (I shot at f/6.3 for separation). But I'm not concerned about the rejection of that particular photo. It was the overall idea of everything in a batch being permanently rejected because of one perceived defect. But I think that issue has been clarified for me in that I can resubmit those photos which were part of a rejected batch but not the one rejected photo. In all of my stock photo interactions, I've never resubmitted a rejected photo before. I just don't have the attachment that I 'must' have this or that photo displayed for stock. Thanks to everyone who responded. I think I have a better handle on what's expected now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NYCat Posted July 11 Share Posted July 11 I’m glad you understood my clarification. I didn’t like the idea of giving up on what might be wonderful images. Good luck going forward. Paulette 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Standfast Posted July 11 Share Posted July 11 +1 to all the above. I learnt Alamy's QC requirements by reading the guide and trying to work to it. In the early days I learnt the limits of the QC envelope by failing QC a few times. Good luck Mike! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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