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Author Topic: What is the correct way to upsize for Alamy?  (Read 44759 times)

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« Reply #25 on: January 05, 2009, 06:05 »
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I didn't have any issues with acceptance of my files that were upscaled with standard "Bicubic", even when I had 8 MPix camera.


« Reply #26 on: January 31, 2009, 20:40 »
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I just joined too, and want to know how to get the best results going from NEF to JPEG.

Like how to and when to upsize.  Like the original poster, I have just joined, and it isn't made that obvious by the instructions on the site.

Thanks for your help.
C

« Reply #27 on: February 01, 2009, 17:29 »
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Well, the most correct way would be to have a camera that already outputs that size.. But to upscale, I use genuine fractals.. It has a much better output algorythm than PS bicubic alone as well as other options.. I have tested them side by side and GF is a better final image..

« Reply #28 on: February 01, 2009, 19:50 »
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There seems to always be an argument about which way is best. There's probably  no clear cut answer. However I find basic upsizing in Lightroom adequate for the job.

« Reply #29 on: February 02, 2009, 00:02 »
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GenuineFractals is better although I have had images accepted with bicubic upsizing in Photoshop too.

« Reply #30 on: February 02, 2009, 15:39 »
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I still think from samples done a couple of years ago by a colleage that GF is overrated.  So far for Alamy I have been using PSP's own tools, and had no problems even with an original 7MPix that wasn't very sharp from the start.

Regards,
Adelaide

RaFaLe

  • Success level is directly proportional to effort
« Reply #31 on: March 31, 2009, 01:53 »
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I would also love to know how to upload.
Seems I can't upload regular JPEGs?

Can someone shed a bit of light on this perhaps?
Their site seems a little cryptic for me...

RaFaLe

  • Success level is directly proportional to effort
« Reply #32 on: March 31, 2009, 02:26 »
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GenuineFractals is better although I have had images accepted with bicubic upsizing in Photoshop too.

Yup - just upsized using PS. Set to 5100 pixels across, used Bicubic for Enlargement.
Upload almost done - let's see what comes of this :)

RaFaLe

  • Success level is directly proportional to effort
« Reply #33 on: May 05, 2009, 10:46 »
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Worked pretty well.
Now, in CS4, you can create a BAtch job to automate this process.

Here's how:

Create the Action:

1. Go to Actions in Photoshop. Create a new Action and set it ready for recording.
2. Open an image that you want to resize.
3. Resize the the image (width portion) to 5100 pixels. Constraint Proportions must be checked, and use Bicubic Smoother (for enlarging).
4. Click OK.
5. Save the image.
6. Close the image.
7. Stop recording.

Ok, that's the action done.
Now, we want to automate this for all images in a folder:

Automate:

1. Place images for upload to Alamy in a folder.
2. In photoshop, click File ->Automate->Batch
3. Action: Select the Action you've just created.
4. Source: Folder. Click "Choose..." and browse to the folder where your images reside.
5. Check "Override Action "Open" Commands"
6. Check "Suppress File Open Options Dialogs"
7. Select Destination: None
8. Click OK.

Voila. Watch as the magic resizes all your images in the folder...

Then simply upload and you're done :)

« Reply #34 on: May 05, 2009, 11:10 »
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The very best upsizer is now the 5DmkII: no need to upsize  ;D

Love it.

batman

« Reply #35 on: May 05, 2009, 12:05 »
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The very best upsizer is now the 5DmkII: no need to upsize  ;D

Love it.

yes agreed. there are some other options with only a few MP to upsize, for those who do not have the money for a 5DmkII.  as for those who need to upsize, it's been repeated many times that upsizing in 10% steps is supposed to be the best way. Books on photoshop technques have constantly mentioned it does not deplete the quality if you keep upsizing 110%, but I don't believe that. It does not always work.
It does , if your original say 4MP or 7MP is perfect . But if your original is less than perfect, you still need to sharpen as you go along.
But if time is money, then I'd say, buy the blooming 14MP or larger DSLR.

tan510jomast

« Reply #36 on: May 05, 2009, 12:39 »
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I used to upsize with my Olympus e 300 (7MP) Hell, it was hell, step by step in increments of 110% , like Mr. Bat here said.
I finally decided got tired of it, and got me the K20D . It's 14MP, so only 3MP to upsize. It 's so simple. and what more, many images I even crop to make more images for micro. Which all in all is one heck of a less work for me, being a weekend stock contributor.

I could have bought the Canon which is a lot more than the Pentax that was on sale, but I put the savings into other more important equipment and accessories.
The Pentax is excellent once you know the sweet spot, and the HD feature saves you the trouble of having to bracket. One shot and you got HD at a combination of ISO 200 and 400. ISO 200 for the highlights, ISO400 for the shadows. No post processing done, other than a bit of cc, levels, or gradient work .

« Reply #37 on: May 05, 2009, 12:56 »
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I never upsize in 10% increments. So far, I didn't have images rejected on Alamy. Are there any arguments why would upsizing in 10% increments be better?

tan510jomast

« Reply #38 on: May 05, 2009, 13:18 »
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I never upsize in 10% increments. So far, I didn't have images rejected on Alamy. Are there any arguments why would upsizing in 10% increments be better?

No, lol... but talk to any one of those Adobe writers and they will tell you 110% increment is adivsed.
I think even Istock has published that too.

RaFaLe

  • Success level is directly proportional to effort
« Reply #39 on: May 07, 2009, 06:50 »
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The very best upsizer is now the 5DmkII: no need to upsize  ;D

Love it.

One day, when I'm big, I'll have me a 5D  ;D

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #40 on: May 07, 2009, 16:25 »
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I never upsize in 10% increments. So far, I didn't have images rejected on Alamy. Are there any arguments why would upsizing in 10% increments be better?

No, lol... but talk to any one of those Adobe writers and they will tell you 110% increment is adivsed.
I think even Istock has published that too.
No, iStock don't allow upsizing

tan510jomast

« Reply #41 on: May 07, 2009, 16:41 »
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I never upsize in 10% increments. So far, I didn't have images rejected on Alamy. Are there any arguments why would upsizing in 10% increments be better?

No, lol... but talk to any one of those Adobe writers and they will tell you 110% increment is adivsed.
I think even Istock has published that too.
No, iStock don't allow upsizing

That's true, ShadySue.
It must have been in one of those Alamy articles, since Alamy is the only place that requires upsizing to 49MB.
I usually bookmark these things, but I used 3 different browsers and I keep cleaning up the bookmarks as they becoming too much. If I find that article again, I will put the link here.
« Last Edit: May 07, 2009, 16:43 by tan510jomast »

« Reply #42 on: August 09, 2009, 19:05 »
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I never upsize in 10% increments. So far, I didn't have images rejected on Alamy. Are there any arguments why would upsizing in 10% increments be better?

think like that: if you have 10x10 pixel grid and you are to make an 11x11 one and your interpolation algorithm is polling data from 2x2 grids, your lower leftmost pixel is going to contribute to data of four pixels, one himself, and 1/10th's of neighbouring pixels(for clarity reasons I am assuming when a pixel occupies %10 of area of a newly built pixel, it will have a %10 effect on it's color, which is rarely the case with modern algorithms). When you do this ten times or so, you're effectively making a pixel level gradient of %10 increments, going like %10,%20,%30... effect. it looks more natural than making pixels 4x bigger and then blurring the complete image to compensate. in this case you rely on your blur algorithm's polling widthxheight which is more often than not not enough to get on equal footing. but the guys at photoshop are probably much more smarter than us, and as soon as they figured it out, they must have updated their algorithms to exploit this. I remember this trick from scott kelby's photoshop 7 book, it may really be outdated.

oddly enough, I remember that at somewhere in the official alamy thing, they were saying not to interpolate with %10 increments.


« Reply #43 on: August 10, 2009, 00:49 »
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Nehbitski, your explanation makes sense. However, as you point out, the programmers have probably done it smarter than that. One would think that they are optimizing the algorithm  for the final resize requested. 


« Reply #45 on: August 10, 2009, 17:39 »
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.......Yeah, one of the reasons I upped to the 5D Mk II...... when I was upsizing, it was a big pain in the butt....
needless to say, I didn't read every post in detail, but in scan I didnt see it mentioned... so I'll say it for....
  All newbies....  even though many might say  "well that goes without saying" ... one thing you have to absolutely keep in mind.....to uprez from those smaller files to what Alamy wants... you have to make sure that the image is  absolutely.... technically perfect to start..
   A pic you may have gotten accepted on other micros... may have a tech imperfection that will not be so evident in the smaller files....however, uprezing is not forgiving and any problem will only be 'amplified"..... just mentioned so that you may not waste time..

      or, ..... you pros at this.... am I mistaken? If I am, please feel free to set me straight.  8)=tom

RacePhoto

« Reply #46 on: August 12, 2009, 05:58 »
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People make this more complicated than it is, and I understand the terms are a bit confusing at first. Once you get it, there's no problem.

1) Uncompressed TIF file size minimum 48 megabytes. That's Uncompressed file size. 5100 is a good general number and if you make them exactly 48, they will fail the size test. 48.2 is absolute minimum!

2) When you compress it, the file size is the same, but the File Size On Disk for the compressed JPG, will be less. You upload the compressed JPG. Yes, there is a 200MB limit. According to Alamy bigger files do not sell better, so make them 49 to 54 megabytes and you'll be fine. If larger makes you happy, then keep uploading huge files.

3) Upsizing isn't what it used to be. Use Photoshop, CS3, Elements 7 (which I use), or just about anything modern with Bicubic Smoothing. Do not over sharpen or they will fail. The old wisdom about incremental and genuine fractals is unnecessary. However if you like that, have a good time. It's not going to hurt. If you upsize the JPG through multiple events, you will degrade the photo. Think about it, every time you open and save a JPG it loses something. Easy answer, only edit RAW or TIF and last step is save as a JPG.

File Size for the photo is not the same as File Size on disc. If they had two different names, and we're not both in Megabytes, we wouldn't have this thread.  ;D  But just to add something, hopefully that won't confuse the issue. If you save a 48MB TIF and look, it's going to be roughly 48MB (or larger) on disk!

Just like when you ZIP a file, and uncompress it again, to it's original size, with all the data. You compress a TIF to a JPG and when someone opens the file, it's the full size again. JPG is an original, full size, photo file compressed, (with some minor data loss) nothing more.

Quote
Our required file size for submitting Jpegs seems to cause an incomprehensible amount of confusion with a high volume of photographers. Put simply, we are flabbergasted as to how many times we are asked, daily, of what format and size of images we require!

Lets set the record straight right now. First and foremost, yes, we want you to send Jpegs. No, we dont want you to send Tiffs.

The reason for this is that we provide our clients with Jpegs to download, not Tiffs. Its been industry standard to work like this for a long time now and even in the days when we required you to send us Tiffs, we converted them to Jpeg for the clients. Yes we know Jpeg is a lossy format, but to the naked eye, there is no visible difference between a high quality Jpeg and a Tiff file. The client can simply download the Jpeg, save it as a Tiff, and work away on it saving as many times as they like without loss in quality. Its really that simple!

Now thats out of the way lets move onto file size. Jpeg is a compressed file format. The compressed file size (size on disk) varies with picture content and should generally be ignored, as long as its no bigger than 25MB, which is our upper limit for Jpeg size. Whats important is the uncompressed (opened) file size. The opened file must be at least 48MB at 8 bit to get through our quality control. Typically a 48MB 8 bit Tiff file will be between 3MB and 15MB as a Jpeg if your image was shot digitally. Film scans will be larger. This is because Jpeg sees film grain as image detail and compresses it too. Remember, we do not want a Jpeg 48MB in size as that would be ridiculously large when uncompressed (opened)!

One thing you dont want to do is work on your images whilst they are in Jpeg form, repeatedly saving as you go along. Saving a Jpeg as a Jpeg is pretty much a no no, as you are recompressing an already compressed file.

Now there are various ways of doing this, but an ideal workflow example for creating the required file size would be:

* Convert your image into a 8 bit Tiff file (save as, Tiff)

* In an image editing program such as Photoshop, upsize the image to a minimum of 48MB. (If you make your longest side 5200 pixels and keep it in proportion to the shortest size, this should give you a file size of just over 50MB)

* Make any alterations as needed, inspect the image carefully at 100%

* At the very last step save your image as a Jpeg and send us that Jpeg. Remember, the Jpeg is the compressed size so this will typically be between 3MB-15MB

There are a handful of digital cameras on the market that produce native uncompressed file sizes above 48MB so you will not need to do the above for those. The same goes for film scans.

Remember to also inspect your images carefully in accordance with our submission guidelines, found here:


http://www.alamy.com/stock-photography-guide.asp


4) Alamy does not have an approved camera list and does not restrict images from any camera. If your photo passes, it passes. If it fails they may suggest that your camera is not suitable for Alamy, but they don't restrict by camera models. I can advise you that any P&S will probably fail, just because of the sensor size, noise and color distortion. I have had G6 photos pass this year. You don't need a 5D or equivalent Nikon. A 20D or other DSLR 8mp APS-C sensor camera, with a good lens, shot at a low ISO, properly exposed to start with, will pass just fine.

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #47 on: August 12, 2009, 06:10 »
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People make this more complicated than it is, and I understand the terms are a bit confusing at first. Once you get it, there's no problem.

4) Alamy does not have an approved camera list and does not restrict images from any camera. If your photo passes, it passes. If it fails they may suggest that your camera is not suitable for Alamy, but they don't restrict by camera models. I can advise you that any P&S will probably fail, just because of the sensor size, noise and color distortion. I have had G6 photos pass this year. You don't need a 5D or equivalent Nikon. A 20D or other DSLR 8mp APS-C sensor camera, with a good lens, shot at a low ISO, properly exposed to start with, will pass just fine.


However, from the Alamy blog, there is a Recommended camera list.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"In order to help you weve compiled a list of cameras that we have found to produce images of an acceptable quality when used in varied conditions. Please note that any cameras included in this list need to be used at their optimum settings and the images carefully processed using a professional image software package such as Adobe Photoshop.

This list will give you an idea of whether the camera that you are using is capable of producing the results required (when used correctly) to pass QC. Of course, even the best cameras on the market will only produce technically acceptable images in the hands of a knowledgeable operator.

At present we recommend the following cameras for submissions to Alamy:

Canon

    * Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III
    * Canon EOS 5D Mark II
    * Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II
    * Canon EOS 5D
    * Canon EOS-1D Mark III
    * Canon EOS-1D Mark II
    * Canon EOS-1Ds
    * Canon EOS 50D
    * Canon EOS 40D
    * Canon EOS 450D / Digital Rebel Xsi / EOS KISS X2
    * Canon EOS 30D
    * Canon EOS 1000D / Digital Rebel XS
    * Canon EOS 400D / Digital Rebel XTi
    * Canon EOS 20D
    * Canon EOS 350D / Digital Rebel XT

Contax

    * Contax N Digital

Epson

    * Epson R-D1

Fuji

    * Fuji S5 Pro

Leica

    * M8.2
    * M8

Nikon

    * Nikon D3X
    * Nikon D3
    * Nikon D700
    * Nikon D300
    * Nikon D2X/s
    * Nikon D90
    * Nikon D200
    * Nikon D60
    * Nikon D80
    * Nikon D40X

Olympus

    * Olympus E620
    * Olympus E-30
    * Olympus E-520
    * Olympus E-450
    * Olympus E-410
    * Olympus E-420
    * Olympus E-3
    * Olympus E-510
    * Olympus E-410
    * Olympus E-400

Panasonic

    * Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH1
    * Panasonic Lumix DMC-G1
    * Panasonic Lumix DMC-L10

Pentax

    * Pentax K20D
    * Pentax K200D
    * Pentax K10D / Grand Prix

Samsung

    * Samsung GX-20
    * Samsung GX-10
    * Samsung GX-1s

Sony

    * Sony DSLR A900
    * Sony DSLR-A700
    * Sony DSLR-A350
    * Sony DSLR-A300
    * Sony DSLR-A200
    * Sony DSLR-A100

Please note there may be other digital cameras that can produce files which would also be acceptable to Alamy."

RacePhoto

« Reply #48 on: August 12, 2009, 16:30 »
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"Please note there may be other digital cameras that can produce files which would also be acceptable to Alamy."   ;D

« Reply #49 on: August 12, 2009, 17:09 »
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"Please note there may be other digital cameras that can produce files which would also be acceptable to Alamy."   ;D
Shoosh!!!


 

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