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01/04/2006 04:37:06 AM · #626 |
Originally posted by LA_Sportsman:
On Alamy or an equivelants site? I haven't submitted my ten so I'm still uncertain of how they apply their standard of 6MP+ and no sharpening. |
Their standard is not an absolute. They don't really enforce it in any way, it's just a strong recommendation they make because it's best to have at least a 6MP DSLR(Like the D70 you and I both have) for the file size they require. As John White stated, he is selling images from a 4MP camera. I've also had at least one image accepted at Alamy from a 4MP point and shoot camera. What they really check is the quality of the file. If you interpolate it and clean it up properly, many of the smaller file sizes can still be sold on Alamy. Also, there are other ways to interpolate besides Genuine Fractals. GF is one of the pricier upsizing programs. You'll have to go back a ways, but we've discussed it in depth in this thread. |
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01/04/2006 04:54:58 AM · #627 |
I'll have to dig back through the thread then. I've read it all but not recently. I've submitted 21 photos to Shutterstock and had 20 accepted. The rejection was expected b/c it was a duck with low depth of field and the head wasn't clear focus.
The 4MP images came from the D70 with crops so what is left is of equal quality, the image is just smaller. I've actually had such success with downloads at shutterstock in one week that the success has convinced me to leave. I'm not sure if I'll pull the 20 now but I won't submit new ones.
On the bad cd/dvd issue, will alamy accept a mailing that included two copies of each disk so that if a disk is bad the backup is already there preventing a month delay? |
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01/04/2006 05:23:54 AM · #628 |
Good to see your reasoning about going with a traditional photo library.
Ive attached records of two sales on www.alamy.com from the last two weeks.
Both are very basic shots but they must have been what a photo buyer was looking for.
'Taxi sign'
AG8A2E
John White Photos
22 December 2005
Traditional Licence Country: World Excluding USA
Usage: Editorial
Media: Book- Academic/Educational
Industry: Non Profit/ Education
Sub-Industry: Pre-school (0 - 5 years)
Print run: up to 250,000
Placement: Inside
Image Size: 1/8 page
Start: 22 December 2005
End: 22 December 2008
$ 148.15
'Full moon'
ANAA86
John White Photos
03 January 2006 Royalty-free 4 MB
1519 x 1012 pixels
163 KB compressed $ 168.35
I am showing these figures to help convince others not to sell themself short as photographers.
We should get paid what our photography is worth.
I am sure the designers, marketing people and companies using our images to sell a magazine, book or product dont work for a couple of dollars a day.
Sorry if I sound like I am on a mission but lets get our share!
Cheers from Australia
John
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01/04/2006 05:25:16 AM · #629 |
Originally posted by John White:
Good to see your reasoning about going with a traditional photo library.
Ive attached records of two sales on www.alamy.com from the last two weeks.
Both are very basic shots but they must have been what a photo buyer was looking for.
'Taxi sign'
AG8A2E
John White Photos
22 December 2005
Traditional Licence Country: World Excluding USA
Usage: Editorial
Media: Book- Academic/Educational
Industry: Non Profit/ Education
Sub-Industry: Pre-school (0 - 5 years)
Print run: up to 250,000
Placement: Inside
Image Size: 1/8 page
Start: 22 December 2005
End: 22 December 2008
$ 148.15
'Full moon'
ANAA86
John White Photos
03 January 2006 Royalty-free 4 MB
1519 x 1012 pixels
163 KB compressed $ 168.35
I am showing these figures to help convince others not to sell themself short as photographers.
We should get paid what our photography is worth.
I am sure the designers, marketing people and companies using our images to sell a magazine, book or product dont work for a couple of dollars a day.
Sorry if I sound like I am on a mission but lets get our share!
Cheers from Australia
John |
Which camera did you use?
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01/04/2006 05:28:29 AM · #630 |
2002 I used a Canon G2 (4 meg)
2003 - 2004 Canon D60 (6 meg)
2005 Canon 20D (8 meg)
Dec 2005 Canon 5D (13 meg)
Most of my alamy shots are from the D60 but some of the sales are from the Canon G2
Message edited by author 2006-01-04 05:29:56. |
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01/04/2006 01:30:11 PM · #631 |
My initial submission to Alamy was from a Kodak DX6490 4MP point and shoot, which was lucky because it meant I could upsize the images that my partner took, enabling me to add her's as well as mine to our portfolio. Those images were not cropped, therefore giving me a better chance of going through QC.
This link- //tinyurl.com/8bs7c is to my sales so far with Alamy (since May 2005), 4 of those images have been taken with the 4MP, anyone would like to guess which ones??
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01/10/2006 03:33:07 PM · #632 |
It may have taken me 3 days but I've read every single post in this thread!
My QC CD went off in the post yesterday so guess I just sit back and wait for the verdict. Plenty of repetition in the post, most of which I had already gleaned from actualy reading their site but its good to get confirmation.
I was so obsessed getting the CD correct that I was checking 56MB pics at 200%! sensor dust is pretty horrendous at that size. I also reburned my CD when I realised I kept the '_' in the filename (guess that wasn't required readig back).
Thanks for the lost time, I'm sure it will stand me in better stead for the future. |
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01/11/2006 01:27:52 PM · #633 |
My CD has arrived and awaiting QC :)
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01/11/2006 01:51:11 PM · #634 |
OK, so how's this ? I posted here a couple of pages back to say that I'd had a DVD flagged as 'unable to process' and on querying this, received a very nice reply from Alamy explaining this was because although they could read the disc, they couldn't copy images from it to their system. I couldn't face burning a new DVD over Christmas, so I left it.
Today I happened to check on Alamy and the same DVD is now showing as processed, ready for keywording.
Shame I had burnt a new copy only yesterday, but at least I'd not sent it; who knows how confusing things would have been with 2 duplicate disks on the system.
But it does leave me wondering just how they operate. I would have expected an unreadable disc to be thrown away; it almost seems like it was left lying around for someone else to have a try on a different machine...whatever. Not sure what I think of their QA procedures now..... |
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01/11/2006 03:15:15 PM · #635 |
How strange! I suspect that they did indeed give it one more go on another PC or asked one of their IT staff to see if they could overcome the problem, perhaps in response to your having emailed!
Good to hear they did manage to read it in the end!
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01/11/2006 03:20:32 PM · #636 |
| I burned and kept a second copy of the disk initially anyway, in case it got lost, or as a convenient record/backup if it went through OK. |
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01/18/2006 03:15:38 AM · #637 |
Question for the people who are selling on Alamy. What licensing are you using? Why? And which are you selling?
I have a pile of pics ready for keywording and I want to be sure that I choose the correct license.
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01/18/2006 08:43:21 AM · #638 |
Originally posted by tonyv:
Question for the people who are selling on Alamy. What licensing are you using? Why? And which are you selling?
I have a pile of pics ready for keywording and I want to be sure that I choose the correct license. |
Are you already a member of Alamy and have these sitting in their queue? If not, go ahead and sent them in now. You'll have plenty of time to decide on license later. It could take a month or more for a disc to go through their whole processing cycle.
If you are a member, look at their newsletter for May/June 2005. The did a nice article on choosing a license. The way I choose, basically if it's an image that shows people or specific property and I don't have the release, then I set it for "L" (right's managed). I see way too many images out there with people, teens, kids that are not model released but are listed as RF. This could spell trouble down the road.
But if it's just a generic image with nothing special about it, I'll list it as RF. But if you have something that's unique, rare, spent a lot of time on, or has potential to be used in advertising, then you may be better off with L. But never post similars or dupes with one as L and the other as RF to "test the waters", Alamy says that's a no-no.
Start by doing a search on your types of images to see what others have already done, not just on Alamy but on some of the bigger sites like Corbis and Getty. That may give you an idea.
Good luck with sales,
John
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01/18/2006 09:01:51 AM · #639 |
I think all that Jon said was good.
I have however started listing everything I put on Alamy as RM. I had a new opinion a few months ago, that RF images are going to move more and more to the micro's, wheres the RM will stay at agencies with Alamy. I dunno if that is a wise way to think, but that is what i have done in the last little while.
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01/18/2006 09:20:27 AM · #640 |
Originally posted by dogz:
[quote=tonyv]
If you are a member, look at their newsletter for May/June 2005. The did a nice article on choosing a license. The way I choose, basically if it's an image that shows people or specific property and I don't have the release, then I set it for "L" (right's managed). I see way too many images out there with people, teens, kids that are not model released but are listed as RF. This could spell trouble down the road.
But if it's just a generic image with nothing special about it, I'll list it as RF. But if you have something that's unique, rare, spent a lot of time on, or has potential to be used in advertising, then you may be better off with L. But never post similars or dupes with one as L and the other as RF to "test the waters", Alamy says that's a no-no.
Start by doing a search on your types of images to see what others have already done, not just on Alamy but on some of the bigger sites like Corbis and Getty. That may give you an idea.
Good luck with sales,
John |
I have to agree with John. When I posted my first images at Alamy - I was leery of RF (falsely equating it with microstocks). However, I've done more research. I wish now that I had listed my first images as RF. I was doing some other research recently - and looked at images of a big name photographer that I have met at Getty. I was surprised to see that he has a mix of RM and RF there. When I went to Photoplus Expo in NYC, one of the workshops I went to covered this issue. And I changed my view on how to license my images.
To see my "notes" on what I learned during that session (or other sessions)
My October Blog
While I've been slow to get more images to Alamy - I suspect that for now most of my images will be RF - trying to save the more special, unique ones for RM. |
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01/18/2006 09:58:10 AM · #641 |
I submitted a dvd with 11 images on Janurary 2, they showed them received on the 6th and by the 12th I had my rejection email. I included Sony717, 350DX and 20D shots. They said my Cybershot files were rejected and one of my 20D's seemed soft and said that I should review the upsizing info. I used cs and compressed using the accepted method. I probably shouldn't have put all 3 different cameras for the test dvd but I really thought they all upsized great.
I was discouraged and disappointed but as this is something I have wanted to do for a long time, I am going to resubmit.
I've read all the posts on resizing and feel I'm doing it right.
The bicubic sharpen vs. smoother has me confused, though. It seems that successful submissions are achieved both ways. Also, I'm not going to compress this time. Any other pointers?.
Message edited by author 2006-01-18 11:06:04. |
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01/18/2006 10:22:02 AM · #642 |
All I can susgest is FredMiranda's "resize pro" plugins for resizing. That's what I've used for every one and none have been rejected.
But, I gotta mention something here which has been bugging me for a while... OK, I'll admit it, I also submit to a microstock site. It was where I started, and I figure I'll keep trying both for a while. (And for now micro is far outperforming macro, since I actually make sales on micro, and have sold nothing on macro---but that's a different story...) The question that has been bugging me is this:
I have NEVER had a submission rejected by Alamy. I have had MANY rejected by my micro site. In fact, I have submitted a few to Alamy going "I KNOW this would never pass at my micro site, let's see how it does at Alamy." Not that they were BAD or anything, but I knew the picky people at the micro site wouldn't let them by. And they all passed. So, I am beginning to think that the quality control at Alamy is not so high. Which would tend to drive buyers away wouldn't it? Or is it that the micro places are just TOO picky? Now, this is just a few data points from one source, so I don't claim and sort of "proof" or anything, but it has been bugging me. Any thoughts anyone?
And as a corollary to that, on my micro site someone posted in a forum 3 100% crops from images his company had bought from Getty (I believe it was, not positive) and 3 100% crops from similar themed images they had gotten from the micro site. The micro files were much higher quality. Again, only 1 (or 3) data points, but it also made me wonder...
Are the mirco sites more picky about quality? What gives? Have I just seen cases of "the exception that proves the rule"? Opinions anyone?
Doug
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01/18/2006 11:03:52 AM · #643 |
Originally posted by dswebb:
All I can susgest is FredMiranda's "resize pro" plugins for resizing. That's what I've used for every one and none have been rejected.
But, I gotta mention something here which has been bugging me for a while... OK, I'll admit it, I also submit to a microstock site. It was where I started, and I figure I'll keep trying both for a while. (And for now micro is far outperforming macro, since I actually make sales on micro, and have sold nothing on macro---but that's a different story...) The question that has been bugging me is this:
I have NEVER had a submission rejected by Alamy. I have had MANY rejected by my micro site. In fact, I have submitted a few to Alamy going "I KNOW this would never pass at my micro site, let's see how it does at Alamy." Not that they were BAD or anything, but I knew the picky people at the micro site wouldn't let them by. And they all passed. So, I am beginning to think that the quality control at Alamy is not so high. Which would tend to drive buyers away wouldn't it? Or is it that the micro places are just TOO picky? Now, this is just a few data points from one source, so I don't claim and sort of "proof" or anything, but it has been bugging me. Any thoughts anyone?
And as a corollary to that, on my micro site someone posted in a forum 3 100% crops from images his company had bought from Getty (I believe it was, not positive) and 3 100% crops from similar themed images they had gotten from the micro site. The micro files were much higher quality. Again, only 1 (or 3) data points, but it also made me wonder...
Are the mirco sites more picky about quality? What gives? Have I just seen cases of "the exception that proves the rule"? Opinions anyone?
Doug |
You are right, ya'll need not worry so much about Alamy, many of the $1 sites are far more picky, they require $500 quality and then sell them for a buck. If you can pass IStock or Shutterstock you can pass Alamy
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01/18/2006 11:11:59 AM · #644 |
Sorry about the disappearing post. I was embarrassed about being rejected and figured I'd remove it before anybody responded.
Now I am discouraged again and wish I hadn't posted.
Since it's so easy to be approved, I guess I won't bother to resubmit. |
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01/18/2006 11:27:20 AM · #645 |
Marjo, You really should resize and submit again. Alamy may not be picky about every image that you send down the pike, but I do believe they review the test CD rather closely.
You say that "I used cs and compressed using the accepted method."
I'm curious as to exactly what steps you took when upsizing, and also whether your original files were JPEG or TIFF or RAW. I am starting to wonder if original JPEGs out of camera just dont hold up to the upsizing sometimes. |
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01/18/2006 12:29:40 PM · #646 |
Yes Marjo, I too would suggest you try again. It can't hurt (well, except for the postage to England :-) ) and it might just turn out great. I wish everyone in this thread would sell more images there. Give it another shot.
Doug
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01/18/2006 12:30:50 PM · #647 |
My images were originally jpeg. I set up an action to resize in increments at 110 percent. Some at 105 percent. The bicubic had me confused, as I said before, because some of you use smoother and some use sharper. I think I did some both ways. When it upsized over 48mb's I saved as tif using the LZW compression. Some I cropped first and some not. I didn't do them consistently the same. My dvd burner does not allow me to adjust to 1x so 8x was the speed. They were able to access the files without any problems.
I will resubmit but I'm only going to use my 20d and do everything the same. I haven't been shooting in raw. I didn't think it was necessary. ?
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01/18/2006 12:34:19 PM · #648 |
None of mine were shot in RAW, all jpg. Most from a 300D, some from a 20D. Give the "resize pro" files a look on www.fredmiranda.com, they were only like $20 or so if I remember right, and I've used them on other stuff besides upsizing for Alamy. Good "bang for the buck" that way. :-)
Doug |
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01/18/2006 12:56:08 PM · #649 |
I think Alamy is picky about image quality. My first submission was rejected. I was grateful that they were detailed about what needed to be better about most of the images. My second submission had all but three accepted.
Because of other things going on in my life, I have not resubmitted. It is my intent to get another DVD to Alamy in the next couple of weeks. |
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01/18/2006 12:58:21 PM · #650 |
Originally posted by Marjo:
I set up an action to resize in increments at 110 percent. Some at 105 percent. |
JPEG issues aside, I personally feel this is the biggest problem. I don't know who started the "stair-stepping" upsizing rumor, but IMO it doesn't work at all. Maybe 10 years ago when upsizing was a fairly new thing this led to better results, but not these days.
If you have CS you should try upsizing using bicubic smoother in one single step to get your original to the the proper size. This is what I do and have had no issues at all with quality control. And I submitted a lot of Sigma SD9 images that were 3.4mp files to start with. |
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