I think y'all misread the wow. It was not the kind of wow that one give when one is watching a fireworks display. It is more the wow that one gives when one sees a lightning bolt hit a tree 30 feet away.

Thanks for sharing that, M. It is so easy to get caught up in the here-and-now and ignore the fact that there was a "then". Some of those shots were images that contributed in my interest in photography in the first place.

Next step is to farm out all the photography work to China, just like like the manufacturing industry is doing. That'll drop the prices - but they may have to allow for substantially lower quality.

And I just noticed they increased their max file size to 30 MB. When did this happen? Of course, I usually use the flash uploader but only had a single file to upload this morning so went through the http upload and noticed the different size.

I think it is safe to say that FT has become microstock's poster child for schizophrenia.

I really really really really dislike categorizing the images after they've been uploaded. Every site is different and none of them seem to have really mastered the concept of "drill down".  It seems that so many images fall into more categories than categories allowed or there just is not a proper category for the image at all. And many of the category names are more obfuscating than helpful. I think this is one area where sites could use improvement.

Again, thank you for submitting your photos. MSG  however:

Photo #1 <<power supply>>: DOF not Justified.

Photo #2 <<video card>>: Your photographic skills are excellent, however we at MSG do not feel this is suitable for stock.

Photo #3 <<external DVD burner>>: Image shows artifacting. This condition can occur through overfiltering or viewing in excess of 300% normal size.

Please correct and resubmit.

Thank you.

How about letters? Business, professional, personal, even love letters and Dear John letters.

EX:

Dear [Insert Recipient's Name Here],

I really enjoyed our time together, but it isn't working for me. Your mother is much too hypercritical of me, she dresses you in funky styles from the 80s (that's 1880s, mind you), and you have yet to learn proper oral hygiene.

Still, you are funny, but then, looks are not everything.

Have a wonderful life.

Yours truly,
[Insert Sender's Name Here]

It's nice to be nice.

And it doesn't cost anything. And it just might make someone feel better - both the giver and the receiver of the compliment. Both sides win. Now if we can just promote this philosophy . . .

The column under the camera is for ratings. It shows your average rating and the number of ratings it has received.

I was going to take a photo of some scrambled eggs or maybe an omelet, but then I realized I'd probably need the signature of the Mother hen, the people who made the plate plus the designer and company that made the silverware.

This is getting ridiculous.

If it's on a table, don't forget the release from the table manufacturer. If a wall can be seen in the background, you'll probably need releases from the homebuilder and the architect and whatever paint company's product that was used in painting, the drywall manufacturer, etc. And let's not forget the releases from all those microscopic dust mites that are floating in the air in front of the camera as well.

The original post was a little shorter than I wanted since I was in a bit of a hurry. So here's the full story behind this particular photo. I took 7 photos from a recent portrait session and isolated them. Every single one looks better with the background originally behind it and none of the photos were intended with isolation, or even stock, in mind. I took my time with some isolations, others, like this, were hacked in using the polygonal selection tool.

Part of the purpose of this was to see if I could make any sense of FT rejections. Of the seven photos, three were accepted. Two of them I expected, one I did not as the isolation was not much better than this. One of the rejected shots was obviously over-saturated, cropped and upsized to give some noise and some artifacting I expected a technical rejection, got a "type of photo" rejection. For two more with obvious shadows which look nice with the shadows continuing on and playing against the background (a brick wall painted white) but looked rather odd when isolated because of those same shadows, I expected these to get a "type of photo" or "aesthetic quality" rejection as that was the quickest and most obvious thing to see. These received technical rejections.

And then this one. I would have rejected it within a few seconds for technical reasons. Definitely not for "overabundant category". That is what shocked me on this one. Not the fact it was rejected, but the reason. It is like the reviewer clicked whatever button happened to be closest to his mouse cursor. Same with the others.

I agree completely with DanP that isolations, especially of people, should be done with background and lighting. Photoshop should be used for spot touches (the stray hot pixel or the darn cat hair that found its way onto the background.

And I'm really surprised that no one mentioned my misspelling of "overabundant" in the subject line!