The good news is my Alamy test submissions went through from upload to QC in less then three days. Hurrah! 

The bad news is they all failed.   

What puzzles me though is that although all four failed, the first one on their table is the only one that has a rejection reason given, that being "Soft or lacking definition", which I am putting down to the upsizing (there are no definite hard edges in the image which doesn't help).

Now I am curious as to whether the other three actually failed ( I understand that on test submissions if one fails, they all fail), or if they didn't bother checking them, as the first one in the table had already failed?

Would they check them all and give a reason for failure for all, or can I assume they did check them all, one failed and the other three passed, but "failed" if you see what I mean because of the "they must all pass QC for your submission to be accepted." guideline .

My main reason for asking this is, I don't know whether I should resubmit the three that were not given a failure reason, plus a new image, or upload four new images alltogether.

Any advice, thoughts and opinions please.

thanks

They check all 4 images, and all have to pass, they will give reasons for each one that failed.  If it indicates all 4 failed then I think its safe to assume they may all have been soft.  Don't be tempted to sharpen any future submissions as they will fail them for this also.

Are you using a 6MP or above DSLR and something like Photoshop to do the resampling?

Good luck.

Thank you for you reply. These submissions were taken on a 10mp Canon Powershot A640 - PhotoShop 7 to resample. I know some might say I am pushing my luck by NOT using a DSLR for Alamy, but let's just say I was inspired to try Alamy (even though I am not using DSLR) by other microstockers (i'll mention no names), who contribute to Alamy using non-DSLR digital cameras.

I ONLY shoot at ISO 80 due to the limitations (noisy above ISO 80) of my Powershot.

At my newbiness level of using digital I am still not sure of what is acceptable noise, so I am very fussy about this and seem to spend an age getting rid of noise, which I try to do selectively rather than the whole image. Of couse the trade off of a relatively noise free image is the softening that goes with it, which of course can't be sharpened for Alamy.

I have read elsewhere that Alamy are not as hot on noise as other stock agencies. I am wondering if it is worth, for my next test batch, to not bother removing noise in order to preserve the sharpness. What is everyones experience with Alamy's attitide to noise in images?

Thank you for you reply. These submissions were taken on a 10mp Canon Powershot A640 - PhotoShop 7 to resample.

...I have read elsewhere that Alamy are not as hot on noise as other stock agencies. I am wondering if it is worth, for my next test batch, to not bother removing noise in order to preserve the sharpness...

You have enough mega pixels but I would imagine the sensor will be quite small and produce more noise than a DSLR. So if you're removing the noise with a noise ninja or something similar its possible you're making the image soft, its a catch 22 situation.

I had the same problem with my old Fuji S5600 the raw files were very noisey and soft after noise reduction.  IS didn't like them much and I didn't attempt getting into Alamy, surprisingly they were accepted at Shutterstock.

Unfortunately the only solution may be to buy a DSLR, I can recommend the Nikon D40 and now the D60 is on the market you may get it at a better price.

All the best.

Peter

This is the zero tolerance philosophy at Alamy: if one picture fails, all the batch is rejected.

UPDATE: Sorry, I didn't read the post carefully... you know that already ;-)

It is not only THE BATCH, it is ALL BATCHES PENDING..
see here: http://www.microstockgroup.com/alamy-com/alamy-rejection-rate-has-more-than-doubled/msg438496/?topicseen#new