MicrostockGroup

Hi all

I am new to microstock and submitted some images to Dreamstime, expecting some rejections.  Of the twelve I submitted, they refused 6 and of those, I can agree with 4 - partly testing their submission criteria (model release for people with backs to camera?).

One of the images they refused for the following reasons:

- Lack of composition. Please visit the Stock Photo Utilities section of our site or the message boards for more information on how to produce stock-oriented images.
 - Poor lighting setup, poor contrast or incorrect exposure.

I didn't think it was a composition issue, so I corrected the lighting, boosting the contrast and generally giving it a makeover. I resubmitted it failed just on poor lighting 

Your comments are most welcome, is it worth tweaking and resubmitting?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/andym8y/4830824287/#

Just go to be careful with noise if you lighten it to much.

Brighten the whole image, then you historybrush back the sky.    Very likely there will be noise, I don´t know how the original looks like. 

Reshoot is the best option. If it´s possible ofcourse.    I wish I had that chance on a few shots myself, three years later and wiser

And it´s pretty hard to sell at all if it´s not accepted, Tom

It looked like a very picturesque location so I did a search for Bamburgh on DT.
Surprise, surprise, the competitors have already done exactly what I wrote in my previous post.
I recommend to the OP to have a look at those pics and answer to himself if he can come up with a shot that could compete with the images already available.

Lighten the image on the left side. It's pretty dark there. Also, lighten the whole image a bit, and increase saturation just a little bit.
Be careful not to make too much noise if you don't have some noise reduction software.

Hint: use a very steady tripod and do exposure bracketing. Put shots in several layers and erase selectively. It's called HDR-light. Some contrasts in landscapes are just too large to bridge by the best cam possible.

You can also take several exposures within an hour but the clouds will differ. If the castle is lit at night, you can do a night shot and replace the castle in twilight by the night shot. Should be gloomy and unreal (like all HDR) but very appealing.

Recently I submit images like this, and they get accepted without problems. Someone will say they are overfiltered, but unless you are messing with tiny details on the image you should be just fine.

You don't have to saturate colors so much. This was just an example. But I often do it and they don't get rejected.

Soft light layers. Make a new layer on top and change it from "normal" to "soft light". Then add a gradient from bottom to half up, colors white>nothing (transparent). Another layer for the clouds: on top black to nothing near the horizon. Then play with the transparency.

You should be aware that this kind of images is not in demand in commercial stock though. The competition in HDR is very stiff and there are some great artists around you'll have to compete with.

Check the port of Bart Heirweg : http://www.bartheirweg.com/portfolio

play a little with soft light and overlay mode and see what suits better.

yes, we need to keep these secrets to ourselves.  unfortunately this is a public board.

i'll try it on my models too, in addition to landscapes. 

I know 
For the OP, I'm not sure if you got it all. A working example says so much more. Also for everybody else interested, I put the PSD with all layers in my public dropbox. Feel free to download (you don't need a Dropbox account for it):
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8852448/4830824287_e37821703c_b.psd
Beware that after flattening the layers, there will be a lot of added noise and blobs in the upper left dark clouds. Don't use noise reduction on it but a simple Gaussian blur of 2.0 or more. Do that in a separate layer and selectively erase in the original top layer with a 50pct soft brush until the noise is gone. The blur doesn't matter there since the original clouds were blurred already.

In the PSD, toggle the visibility of the several layers one by one to see how they work. In particular, have a look at the green coloring.

If it is in any way useful to you and you don't have a Dropbox account yet, please consider using my referral link signing up for a free account: https://www.dropbox.com/referrals/NTg4NTI0NDg5
I normally don't post referral links unless I can give something in return.