Hello. This is my first post on the forums. I'm pretty new to stock photography (could say photography in general), just uploaded a few pictures to DT and FT. I also tried to get to IS and SS, but my applications got rejected (on IS because of artifacting and not a clear focal point and ond SS because of keywords  - 5 photos because I included name of a lake in Slovenia, which isn't an english keyword ).

I was wondering if you could browse trough my portfolio on DT and tell me which (if any) photos should I include in next application (I know that they aren't anything special, still learning). Tell me if you need higher resolution.

I'll try with isolation and some model shots in the next week or two so I might even wait for those before I try again.

Tnx

I think the name was in the title and description also.  It's probably best to downsize images to the minimum requirements, so it's harder for them to find the problems?

Tnx for your reply.

it should look more like this:

I cant tell. With that dull grey background definitely not. What camera do you use? I can not see sharpness, or any possible purple fringing or noise... they do not tolerate chromatic aberations and noise. If you have compact camera, forget about IS or SS....

... You think shots like this one could get accepted if I'd put them into my application?

You need to use levels to make the backgrounds pure white. I can't see the images close enough and thus cannot make a technical judgment, so I'll make a few subjective comments:

The apple's shadow is green and will be rejected for "poor white balance and/or lighting". There is also too much whitespace around the apple - square framing better suits the subject (a "poor composition" rejection).

As it stands, the money shot won't be accepted. The out-of-focus foreground is too distracting and the coins are too "sideways". Both of these fall under the "poor composition" umbrella. The coins don't have to be perfectly vertical, but they definitely shouldn't be completely on their sides either. Try adding more out-of-focus coins and move them behind the subject of the shot, where they'll add extra interest and impact.

Yeah, I played with levels to make the background pure white on the apple.

Wasn't looking at the color of the apple shadow, tnx for the tip. Should probably desaturate it right?

These two shots were just a test of my softbox, will make a few more interesting shots in the next couple of days. Still have about a week before I can try again so I'll try to get really good shots till then (also include some of my pictures that are already on stock sites).

Tnx again.

PS: Could you go trough my photos on DT and tell me wha you think about those?

They're dull, the backgrounds aren't white, the shadows are deep and harsh and the subject.. well.. it looks like my dog rolled the apple round the floor.

Get perfect specimens (unless the point is that it's NOT perfect!) and get the lighting more evenly.  If you look at my pictures at the link below (I don't know about putting pictures on these forums - is that pimping?) you can see colours the pop off the page and really attract buyers from the thumbnail.  This is one that seems to do really well for me on shutterstock.

http://www.istockphoto.com/file_closeup/health_and_beauty/diet_nutrition/healthy_eating/3050005_healthy_eating.php?id=3050005

Best of all - no lightbox needed.  You could do this with �20 worth of eBay goodies. 

The first shots were not 255 white.  They were sort of murky grey.  And when you used your "isolated method" it introduced a whole host of other problems.

Sure ok.

The first shots in this thread do not have a white background.

The shots in your portfolio are pretty awful technically, and I'm not sure why they would have been accepted.

Must be related

Pleasant feedback Seren - really positive and encouraging

To be fair, the first post I (and others) made was pretty fair, but the person didn't appear to want to listen.  Sometimes you just have to point out the obvious!

Sorry, I responded to the bit where you wrote:

"Tell me what you think (not about the subject, more about the isolation,...)."

If it's any consolation, I love this shot.  I had the chance to go to Slovinia this year but had to pass it over due to lack of money!  I'm going to have to go back, to add exactly this sort of iconic shot to my portfolio!

Well the obvious thing is that you didn't read the topic, just looked at the pic (on the forums, not portfolio), then started saying how everything was wrong about it. It's very easy to do that, everyone can do that, even me. The hard thing is to offer some ideas and help the person improve.

The only one that actually browsed trough my portfolio was Madelaide and I'm very thankful for that.

Use larger light sources when you doing isolations. Being a flash or tungsten light bounced against a huge foil of foam, or a light tent or whatever else which gives you VERY diffuse light. There are hundreds systems, some of them very simple and cheap.

Don't be afraid of the critics and be overly critic yourself about your own shots, watch other people successfull images and try to replicate the light, read forums and blogs like Strobist to get ideas of how light works and more than all experiment.

This is my current learning path and following it I made huge leaps in quality in very little time.