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.

anyone?

I've decided not to try and correct this photo for my application. Instead I want to give them 2 completely new pictures.

I have here 2 pictures that I'm considering to fill one slot:

http://a0.vox.com/6a0123de39075c860d0137a58003f8860d-pi
http://a5.vox.com/6a0123de39075c860d0137a580118d860d-pi

(you have to wait for the page to load completely before the picture is in full quality)

I would like to use one of these, and then look for another one (different kind to show diversity).

What do you think? Which one would you choose? Any of these good enough?

Thank you all for your comments. They are very much appreciated.

I re-calibrated my monitor, and that sure did make a difference (I admit it had been a while). I can see the problem a lot more clearly now.

After decreasing the fill light, saturation and sharpening, increasing the black point and adding some noise reduction I used FD-amateur's technique for the noise/pixelation in the dark areas. That made quite a difference but there was still some of it left, so I also downsized the image a bit.

Here's the result: http://a2.vox.com/6a0123de39075c860d0123de25c93a860c-pi

The problems in the dark areas seem to have been eliminated now, as well as the magenta fringing.

What do you think? Does it look less processed now?

Quote from: PaulieWalnuts on April 29, 2010, 23:24

Quote from: pimpampoen on April 29, 2010, 23:06

Quote from: Fotonaut on April 29, 2010, 22:47What iStock says. Viewed at 100 % they seem overly filtered, loosing details and the "natural" look, and gaining artifacts. Otherwise nice photos.

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?

Look at any darker area of #2. They all have blobs and chunks of deformed pixels. It took me a second to see it so if you can't see it maybe you need to calibrate your monitor or get a better monitor.

And it does look over-processed. Like noise reduction or something else was applied during post processing. There's also some magenta fringing on the rocks.

Thanks for pointing that out. I can see the magenta fringing now.
About the blobs and chunks of deformed pixels in the darker areas I'm not sure though. I can see something there, but it looks more like noise to me.

I didn't use any luminance noise reduction on this picture, only a tiny little bit of color noise reduction. I did give it some fill light, increased vibrance and did some sharpening as well. Is it possible that it looks over-processed because of the saturation?

Quote from: FD-amateur on April 29, 2010, 23:44
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.

FD-Amateur, for some reason the pictures are loaded interlaced on this image hosting site, so you have to wait for a while before they are shown at full quality, and without the squares.

Quote from: Fotonaut on April 29, 2010, 22:47
What iStock says. Viewed at 100 % they seem overly filtered, loosing details and the "natural" look, and gaining artifacts. Otherwise nice photos.

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?

Quote from: sjlocke on April 29, 2010, 22:24
Can only load the first, for some reason.

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

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.

I'm planning to set up a photography studio business, together with a partner. Part of the business would be stock photography. I would still keep my current (personal) account on the microstock sites though.

I haven't been able to find much information about how to do that on either this forum or on the stocksites themselves, so I would be very glad to hear from anybody here who has experience with this and can give me more information, such as:

1) do all the agencies allow for companies to register, instead of people? if not, which do & which don't? Is there anything special that needs to be done for that on the specific microstock sites (SS, IS, FT, DT, 123, BS, CS)?

2) how does that mix with the requirement to upload a photo-ID (I already used my photo-ID for my personal account)?

3) how does that mix with the requirement that all uploaded pictures must be made by yourself (It's possible that they will be made by several photographers working for the studio. The rights will belong to the studio)?

4) is it possible to just let the agency take the witholding tax, or is it absolutely obligated for companies to submit tax forms to the agencies (non-US company)?

5) anything else worth mentioning like tips, personal stories, etc, are very welcome..

great! time to post a new topic..