MicrostockGroup

I'm running into a common iStock rejection with isolations having stray areas, etc.


I've gone back and looked at the Photoshop PSD files, and the JPG files, and I am seeing the same problem time and again. The PSD file at 16 bits has a perfect isolation. Clicking on the magic wand tool with 1 Tolerance draws a perfect path around the object.


However once I convert to 8 bit and save as a JPG (Normal encoding, 12 max quality), there are stray areas in the isolation.


This is particularly frustrating because this is obviously being caused by the 8-bit JPG conversion which iStock requires. Anyone have a way around this? Because right now I don't see a reason to do anymore isolations if the imperfections of the JPG format are going to continue messing up my images.

It's not the 8 bit conversion that does this, it's an artefact of JPEG lossy compression. Every isolation shows this in JPEGs, and it's not what they're complaining about.

Finding out what they really mean is another matter...

Thanks.  That answers my question, that my technique sucked but Photoshop did its job.  Which is far less frustrating as I can fix my technique. 

This is a well known phenomenon. Read here and scroll down halfway.