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QC- out of the sinbin on licence- there is hope


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Glad to read you've been released at last :D

 

I've had a few failures over the past 4 years and in all but one case they were images that I'd had slight reservations about and in hindsight, I shouldn't have submitted them.  They were images I wanted in my collection so up they went.  

 

I had one failure for CA - at first glance it was a cracking shot, sharp, correctly exposed etc etc.  What I had missed was in the centre of the image there was an archway with a white timber frame building behind it in the distance - there was CA along the edges of the black beams.  I missed it but QC didn't!

 

My personal rule is now - slightest doubt - don't even think about uploading it.  And......  Don't just check the obvious places for CA.

 

John

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"My personal rule is now - slightest doubt - don't even think about uploading it.  And......  Don't just check the obvious places for CA." -- John

 

Don't just check the obvious places for anything. Check every inch of every image at 100%, top left to bottom right. Generally, checking the Remove CA  box in LR5 will solve CA problems . . . but I had an image recently where  a little CA remained in some backlit trees (the worst offender). The CA was close enough to the edge that I was able to crop it out. 

 

I notice we don't get posts on hurry-up batch PP anymore. If you don't want to live on baloney sandwiches on white bread for a month (standard cuisine here in NY jails), you must check each inch of each image at 100%. 

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There must be a great Photoshop action to get rid of CA somewhere on the forum. But I cannot find it.

Highly recommended though.

 

The other thing: it helps to let a finished image sit for a day or two and then re-examine it under different light, before uploading it.

All my obvious fails were from pressing the upload button immediately after processing.

It also helps to use a very simple image viewer that can scroll through an image at 100% at a slow pace, without using a mouse or pen, just the keyboard.

 

wim

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In Lightroom, zoom to the upper left corner and then -- on a Mac -- hold the fn key and use the down arrow to go over every inch at 100%. Someone with a PC will probably tell us what to do on a PC. Unfortunately, that will not automatically keep you from uploading a questionable image that you love!

 

Paulette

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Never a problem with LR, i use the CA setting at default and adjust the purple fringe slide to +2.

 

i am not concerned at all anymore with QC  results, if they pass great if not what the heck!  i work with others that accept and sell many of my images,  my Alamy sales are not very good in general therefore i refuse to raise my blood pressure because of QC failures.

 

Life is too short :)

 

Paul.

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Lightroom (from version 4) and ACR (from version 6.8) have the magic remove CA button which works incredibly well. No need for sliders or Photoshop plugins. But it won't work very well on pre-sharpened in-camera jpegs.

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Good luck on readjusting to life on the outside, Mark. I've been sin-bin-free for several months now, touch wood.

 

It's great seeing that sea of green on my "Track your submissions" page, but I know that one false move and It will be back to Davy Jones' Locker. 

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Congrats on your release Mark!

 

Many moons ago, in the previous incarnation of this forum, some kindly person posted a PS filter fix that emphasises dirt greatly and CA to a lesser extent, I've used it since, and touch wood, not suffered incarceration.

 

Nor sure that I fully understand how it works, but here it is: -

 

New adjustment layer type filter

Mode linear burn

Color orange

Preserve luminosity

Back to background layer for cloning purposes.

 

It's a boon for light skies that show dirt marks. You need to reduce the opacity of the filter if the sky is darker.

 

I occasionally detect CA at the very last stage of the process after messing about with various layers and removing dust spots. There's no real alternative but to grit the teeth and return to LR for the CA fix! 

 

Must write out several hundred times "Check for CA first!"

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I've never had a failure due to CA that I can remember, but it sounds as if QC is much less tolerant of it than in the early days, probably because there are now so many options for dealing with CA and similar problems. BTW, Sony's in-camera CA fix works like a charm (with their own lenses, anyway). Older Sony cameras like the a55 (which I believe Mark uses) don't have that feature, though.

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Older? 2011? Crumbs.

Never had a problem with the 'older' A350 I used until its gravitic encounter with  a lino floor in 2013.

 

I believe that the a58 has auto CA correction. It's fairly inexpensive. I almost bought one before switching to the NEX system.

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I'm not going to be buying new equipment after 15 months when I've had 4 pages of green before last May.

 

That's understandable. Did you ever check out PTLens mentioned in an earlier discussion? It's cheap and quite effective for CA removal (works fine on JPEGs). I believe you can download a trial version for free.

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The CA issue is a big problem for those of us who use long, fast lenses, even with LR/ACR's new CA ("Defringe") tools.  Some recent parrot shots of mine taken in Cuba with 800mm of lens come to mind...

 

From the author of the code:

The new Defringe controls are designed to fix axial (longitudinal) CA,
color aberrations due to ghosting or flare, and color aberrations
(thin fringes) due to charge leakage, which affects some CCD sensors.

Some context on axial/longitudinal CA:

  - It can happen anywhere in the image (not just image borders).

  - It affects nearly all "fast" (wide aperture) lenses, typically
    most visible at the wider apertures (e.g., f/1.4 thru f/2.8).

  - Fringes become less visible as you stop down the lens (e.g., more
    visible at f/2, less visible at f/8).

  - Fringes are usually most visible just in front of or just behind
    the plane of focus.

  - Fringes typically appear purple/magenta when they’re in front of
    the plane of focus, and appear green when they’re behind the plane
    of focus.

  - Even at the plane of focus, high-contrast edges (especially
    backlit) may show purple fringes due to flare.
 

I have detailed instructions on how to use the tools from the author of the tools if anyone is interested. They work well, but they definitely cannot always remove all longitudinal CA. This becomes an issue when there is simply no other way to get the shot. (And of course you don't know you're going to get it when you're shooting!) Sometimes I think the quest for technical perfection gets in the way of good photography. Is technical perfection always a prerequisite to the use of the shot, even when the technical "problem" is something the photographer has little control over, and the shooting conditions are uncontrolled? Does most of the public see it, or object? Who is the intended audience - QC guys?  Sigh...  <repeat>Shoot, edit, submit </repeat>

 

I'm in the process of re-connecting with Alamy.  I disconnected years ago when several submissions of previously published images were rejected for QC reasons that I thought were ridiculous. They were accepted by other agencies (and have sold well!). So as others have voiced here, I think a backup plan for submission is essential.  Hopefully with D800E's and good lenses, good technique, and Magic Dust I won't end up in SinBin... for long.

 

--Rich

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You may be being too pessimistic.  My last two batches have only cleared on the following Friday after a Sunday evening upload.  If you are not on the QC fast track - despite an unblemished record I'm obviously not - 5 working days looks to be the current inspection time.

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Mark, lately what has happened to you has happened to me. I get one batch through, the next gets hammered. Sometimes I get a few batches through, then nada.

Recently, I made the mistake of uploading a digitally altered image, marked as such. Of course, I guess QC doesn't read descriptions. I ran it through a nik filter giving it a slight sepia old world feel with added grain. QC called it noise, and the whole batch failed. Innovation and creativity doesn't pay off.

Except on FAA. Where I do OK.

Betty

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