MicrostockGroup

Hi,
I sent the following 3 pictures to IStockPhoto for my initial application:

http://a2.vox.com/6a0123de39075c860d0123f1cf16da860f-pi
http://a2.vox.com/6a0123de39075c860d0123de254f02860c-pi
http://a5.vox.com/6a0123de39075c860d01347ee6987d860b-pi

The first one was accepted.
The second and third were rejected with the following reason:

"This image appears to be over-filtered/over-processed which has affected the image quality. This may include Photoshop filters & effects (over-sharpening, excessive adjustments to levels, curves, contrast, hues, gaussian blurs, saturation, added textures, noise reduction...) or other manipulations. We feel the image would have more value to designers with minimal or no post processing effects so that the designers could add their own post-processing effects. Some images can benefit from minor touch-ups to grab the viewer?s attention and there is no definitive line to what editing makes or breaks a great image but the end result should be a single image that can still be molded into a design. Inspectors judge images based on quality, composition and usability."

I'd appreciate it a lot if anybody could help me understand these rejections.

That's strange. I can open all three of them without a problem.
What are you getting exactly?

Thanks a lot for the advise, Fotonaut.
I wish I could see it myself. I don't think they look unnatural and definitely not lacking detail (especially the one with the waterfall), but I guess I must have been looking at them for too long or something.

Can you tell me where exactly there are artifacts?

Oversharpened with edge halos and plenty of jpg artifacts (squares), but I assume those come from the quality reduction for putting them online. For a proper critique, you'll need to put them online in original size and quality, but many free image hosters don't allow those file sizes.

Ah ok... I'm on very low bandwidth indeed.

Each one step in postprosessing is likely to degrade quality and exaggerate flaws.

There are a lot of factors to take into consideration. What camera do you have, do you shoot RAW, etc.

A better quality original file usually handle postprossing better. Lucky those with Hasselblad and such.

The way I see it, same as above, in different words, the blacks aren't black and there's noise in the shadows. Looks like digitally lightened shadow areas?

(unaltered segment - screen capture of the original, original size)

Hey, that's the infamous black clipping there in the shadow! I don't have it any more with the 5DII but the D200 had it a lot. You can also induce it when using the autocontrast or autolevels in PS. It's pretty easy to solve with a magic wand selection (tolerance <= on the deepest blacks, contract 1-2 px, feather by 1-2, then Gaussian blur the selected areas by 0.8-1 px.

Definately better. Still looks a little processed with a soft and cartoonish look. Most artifacts are gone, though. But I am surely no expert on iStock criteria, so others here will know better if this will fly with them.

anyone?

Thanks  for your comment, leaf. It gave me the courage to just go ahead and try.

I uploaded the spa stones on the green leaf together with a studio portrait, made sure not to sharpen too much or make too many changes in the curves, and I passed! I'm now a proud contributor of iStockPhoto.