Failed submissions - non-discrimination

[Darkstar]

The Alamy Instruction Manual states on page 4 that submissions will be judged and only those which fail will be rejected leaving other items in the submission to be approved. This is shown in the diagram on the right hand side of page 4. It also states in the manual that QC will colour code the submission items to show which have failed and which have been accepted.

 

I just had 76 images (74 of which were perfect) across a group of submissions failed for the sake of two soft images in one submission alone. Any idea why the instruction manual says this will not happen and why QC are not following their own guidelines? Does the instruction manual need amending or republishing now that image levels into QC are around 100,000 per day?

[spacecadet]

You've misinterpreted the manual- it merely describes AIM. It doesn't refer to QC policy at all, which is that if one image fails QC, all batches awaiting QC are also failed.

Partial failure only applies to upload errors- if one image of a batch is undersized, for example, it doesn't cause a fail.

[Bill Kuta]

Also, your results do not mean that the other 74 images are perfect. When QC encounters unacceptable images in a batch, they stop checking at some point. You should check the other images in the batch for the errors specified by QC.

[Colin Woods]

Same as when I worked in analytical chemistry. QC checked 10% of the data for lab practice and data quality compliance. If they found errors then your study came straight back to you to be redone. We had one study that was 460 days long and another lab (phew, not us) did some of the work on the histology at the end. They were not used to working in a highly regulated environment and made a few errors. Start again, all 460 days of it. QC hurts, but bad products passing hurts more. If your 2 that failed were failed on dust spots, then check all the others at 100% for dust. If its the old favourite Soft or lacking definition, then check all the rest for that. Its a pain until you get used to it, but once you have got your alamy technique buttoned down you can go full steam ahead with no worries. For soft or lacking definition, with practice you can spot a shot that is off in a millisecond. And no matter how great the shot is, if its even a bit off it will get a fail. I have wailed and gnashed my teeth more than a few times over images that were going to turn me into an overnight sensation, but if they are soft, bad luck. 

[Betty LaRue]

1 hour ago, Colin Woods said:

Same as when I worked in analytical chemistry. QC checked 10% of the data for lab practice and data quality compliance. If they found errors then your study came straight back to you to be redone. We had one study that was 460 days long and another lab (phew, not us) did some of the work on the histology at the end. They were not used to working in a highly regulated environment and made a few errors. Start again, all 460 days of it. QC hurts, but bad products passing hurts more. If your 2 that failed were failed on dust spots, then check all the others at 100% for dust. If its the old favourite Soft or lacking definition, then check all the rest for that. Its a pain until you get used to it, but once you have got your alamy technique buttoned down you can go full steam ahead with no worries. For soft or lacking definition, with practice you can spot a shot that is off in a millisecond. And no matter how great the shot is, if its even a bit off it will get a fail. I have wailed and gnashed my teeth more than a few times over images that were going to turn me into an overnight sensation, but if they are soft, bad luck. 

You hit the nail on the head, Colin. I’ve said in the past that falling in love with a particular image is bad. That perfect, stunning light, expression, weather condition.....it doesn’t matter if it is soft. Most of the other things (dust) can be fixed.  I made that mistake of looking at an image through rose-colored glasses more than I like to admit in my early years. 

I’m brutal with my culling now in spite of a bit of whining and mewling when I must toss one of the special ones.

Betty

[Colin Woods]

Me too Betty, I have sent more than a few that were a bit off, and got blown a raspberry by QC every time. Since I learnt that I was shooting for a professional market and edited appropriately I have not had a failure. My last failure was 2009. 

[vpics]

Reminds me of working on a publication at uni when I was a student. It was a compilation of essays written by students. Thought it was an easy peasy thing to do, check the grammar and look for typos until one of the profs told me to get out all reference books the students had used and I had to check every single bloody quote. Turns out more than 50% were wrong and the students hadn't event realised that they had made mistakes. It was typos, additional or missing words or wrong page numbers. 

 

And you thought Alamy QC was difficult. ;-)

 

[Chuck Nacke]

To the OP,

 

For as long as I can remember, keeping in mind that I have a decade more experience with Alamy, if one image in a submission failed they all failed.

 

Chuck

[Jill Morgan]

2 hours ago, vpics said:

Reminds me of working on a publication at uni when I was a student. It was a compilation of essays written by students. Thought it was an easy peasy thing to do, check the grammar and look for typos until one of the profs told me to get out all reference books the students had used and I had to check every single bloody quote. Turns out more than 50% were wrong and the students hadn't event realised that they had made mistakes. It was typos, additional or missing words or wrong page numbers. 

 

And you thought Alamy QC was difficult. ;-)

 

 

Reminds me of back in the 80's when my cousin was a reporter for a daily in Toronto.  There had been an accident where a train had collided with a car with 6 teenagers. 3 died.  My cousin, on a racing deadline, reported the wrong kids dead.  His editor missed the mistake.  It went to press but was caught after 400,000 papers were printed.  All papers had to be trashed, the front page reshot, and then papers reprinted.  That mistake cost the paper a lot of money.  My cousin and the editor were both suspended.

 

Jill

[Betty LaRue]

3 hours ago, Colin Woods said:

Me too Betty, I have sent more than a few that were a bit off, and got blown a raspberry by QC every time. Since I learnt that I was shooting for a professional market and edited appropriately I have not had a failure. My last failure was 2009. 

Wish I could say that. I have had a lot of passes for months, but I had vision issues that kept me from interpreting sharp/soft for a long time. I threw famous foodie parties in the Sin Bin.  My fellow inmates miss my pies! Allan in particular partook a time or two.

I’m good to go, now. These days I see like an eagle. QC reflects that.

Betty

[Colin Woods]

And to the OP, a technique I use is to leave at least 24 hours, usually 48 between the first pass through a set of images in Photoshop (dust spotting, and adjustments) and the final 100% check. I have a short term memory on what I did in Photoshop. I find that If I don't leave a long enough time I am just rechecking what I did in PS rather than rechecking the image as a whole. Once the final batch is checked and transferred to my "to upload" folder. Just before I upload, I do my own QC and re-check 10% of the images from throughout the batch. If I catch any errors, the whole batch is re-checked again. 

[gvallee]

To the OP: these are the instructions you're after. It clearly states that if one image fails, all fail.

 

http://www.alamy.com/contributor/how-to-sell-images/alamy-quality-control/?section=5

 

Gen

 

[Brian Yarvin]

I will be blunt here - I think the Alamy QC system is great. It tells you what you need to know and quickly enough without judging your aesthetics or questioning your knowledge of the market. Nothing has kept my technique growing over the years the way QC has.  I have gotten the message. 

[Colin Woods]

Absolutely Brian. In all my time I have only ever had one fail that, after bemoaning my fate, I didn't agree with. We were caught in a rainstorm in Nepal and the valley was all misty, so I took a shot. They raspberried it on Soft/Lacking Definition. Well, it was a wet and misty valley after an inch of rain fell in fifteen minutes. I was pretty Soft/Lacking Definition myself and I thought the photo was fine. They didn't agree,so I just let it go. All the rest they have been totally right and now the idea of 'close enough' has been eliminated from my photo vocab. No lessons in life worth learning come easily. Physically, emotionally and financially its the mistakes we learn from. 

[MDM]

3 hours ago, Colin Woods said:

Absolutely Brian. In all my time I have only ever had one fail that, after bemoaning my fate, I didn't agree with. We were caught in a rainstorm in Nepal and the valley was all misty, so I took a shot. They raspberried it on Soft/Lacking Definition. Well, it was a wet and misty valley after an inch of rain fell in fifteen minutes. I was pretty Soft/Lacking Definition myself and I thought the photo was fine. They didn't agree,so I just let it go. All the rest they have been totally right and now the idea of 'close enough' has been eliminated from my photo vocab. No lessons in life worth learning come easily. Physically, emotionally and financially its the mistakes we learn from. 

 

I had a similar experience a long time back with a misty image of a wet west of Ireland ocean. It put me completely off submitting misty images for a long time and I only do now if  there is something clear and sharp in the image as in the one below where the foreground plants are clear and in focus.

 

[Jill Morgan]

I have lots of misty images that have passed. Here are a couple.

 

 

 

Jill

[Darkstar]

Hi All - what a very nice bunch you are. I am very grateful for your advice and I understand the 'system' far better now thanks to all your posts.

 

I will make sure that I do not fall foul of QC (try not too anyway!). I have had 270 shots accepted and three rejected since I started on 15 Oct 2017. 

 

I am cleaning off all spots at 100% and I must admit that 'newbie paranoia' is making me remove vestigial images of birds and stars in far distance in case they get mistaken for rainspots or dust! Some clouds also altered - Photoshop has made us into gods.

 

Once again - thanks for being so kind and understanding towards my learning curve.

 

kind regards

 

David

[Inchiquin]

1 hour ago, Darkstar said:

I must admit that 'newbie paranoia' is making me remove vestigial images of birds and stars in far distance in case they get mistaken for rainspots or dust

 

 

 

I've always done that as a matter of course. If it's recognisably a bird it stays as a bird. Otherwise it goes.

 

Alan

[Rick Lewis]

On 11/6/2017 at 12:46, Betty LaRue said:

You hit the nail on the head, Colin. I’ve said in the past that falling in love with a particular image is bad. That perfect, stunning light, expression, weather condition.....it doesn’t matter if it is soft. Most of the other things (dust) can be fixed.  I made that mistake of looking at an image through rose-colored glasses more than I like to admit in my early years. 

I’m brutal with my culling now in spite of a bit of whining and mewling when I must toss one of the special ones.

Betty

 

Couldn't agree more, Betty.  One of my biggest faults, in photography.  This is one of the most difficult things to overcome, for me at least, and is probably the one issue that catches me out the most.  I hate giving up on images, especially the good ones, but as a professional, it has to be done.

 

Rick

[Phil Robinson]

On 11/7/2017 at 13:39, Brian Yarvin said:

I will be blunt here - I think the Alamy QC system is great. It tells you what you need to know and quickly enough without judging your aesthetics or questioning your knowledge of the market. Nothing has kept my technique growing over the years the way QC has.  I have gotten the message. 

Absolutely.

Alamy could check 100% of images and only reject those that fail - but we wouldn't get 50% any more.

I haven't had a failure for a long time, because I can remember how annoying it was getting a batch rejected for one mistake - so I make sure it doesn't happen again.

 

Try not to loose that 'newbie paranoia' - though with time you could find another name for it.

[Colblimp]

I've just had my first ever QC failure and I'm absolutely fuming.  Apparently the failure was due to CA, I've looked at 100% over and over and there is no CA.  Methinks someone at Alamy Towers is taking the piss!!! 

[hdh]

1 minute ago, Colblimp said:

I've just had my first ever QC failure and I'm absolutely fuming.  Apparently the failure was due to CA, I've looked at 100% over and over and there is no CA.  Methinks someone at Alamy Towers is taking the piss!!! 

 

don't fume. take a deep breath .... maybe a good nights sleep and then mail contributor services. 

I do remember another thread where alamy themselfes said we should raise QC issues with them. 

They most probably re-evaluate and then either reconsider or point you to the exact location of CA - if exists.  

 

[Colblimp]

2 minutes ago, hdh said:

 

don't fume. take a deep breath .... maybe a good nights sleep and then mail contributor services. 

I do remember another thread where alamy themselfes said we should raise QC issues with them. 

They most probably re-evaluate and then either reconsider or point you to the exact location of CA - if exists.  

 

 

OK - I shall do that and email Alamy tomorrow, when I'll be fuming again! 

[MDM]

1 hour ago, Colblimp said:

I've just had my first ever QC failure and I'm absolutely fuming.  Apparently the failure was due to CA, I've looked at 100% over and over and there is no CA.  Methinks someone at Alamy Towers is taking the piss!!! 

 

Why not post a link to a full size JPEG (dropbox for example) as it would be interesting to see if there is any real CA in your image. Given that you have carefully examined the image, it may be an erroneous failure. There were a few instances about 2 weeks back where people were failed QC failed QC erroneously. Speculation was that there was a new QC person or persons (or maybe it's a robot getting it wrong occasionally).

[spacecadet]

2 hours ago, Colblimp said:

 

OK - I shall do that and email Alamy tomorrow, when I'll be fuming again! 

I went through a bad patch a few years ago. But QC were invariably right. And a couple were for CA- some of it hard to spot.