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Messages - Lincoln
1
« on: September 13, 2007, 10:17 »
Thanks for the advice so far. As for the type of subjects I think I should start out with something small and easy. Maybe food dishes and pastries? Or small figurines? And as for equipment, just my camera (and a tripod).  BTW Bateleur, what kind of light do you use to burn out the background? There's a Ritz Camera nearby here, so if they have lighting equipment I might grab up something depending on what I learn (and need).
2
« on: September 13, 2007, 00:44 »
Yello, I've been surfing the Shutterstock forums and came across one fellow who wrote a very helpful post on how to prepare yourself to apply for Shutterstock. One of the suggestions was to check the portfolios of those recently accepted and also check the top downloads by week to see what's selling. By doing so i noticed a significant number of photos use a completely white background with a colorful object in the forefront. Is this something that's done in Photoshop, or is it a white sheet or board that I've seen photographers use? I'd like to experiment and see if I can shoot such a photo myself. Any suggestions appreciated.
3
« on: September 09, 2007, 12:40 »
I know it's easy to say, but you shouldn't take the rejection personally, Lincoln - they merely evaluated the commercial value of the images you supplied as it pertains to their clientele; they weren't making any sort of judgement on your photographic abilities at all.
Well that''s the thing, were they all rejected because SS thought they won't sell, or for technical reasons? I thought SS would simply review the technical quality of my photo samples. If it's commercial value they're concerned about, then I could try taking the kind of photos they're looking for and use those for samples instead. For technical quality I'll just have to rely on iStock and this board's input. It'll probably take me about a month to come up with ten new photos that SS will like.... just in time to apply again.  There seems to be a lot of good people here so I think I will upload the samples here first to get everyone's input before I apply to SS again.
4
« on: September 09, 2007, 01:14 »
It's the best moneymaker for most submitters. Taking it personally and refusing to deal with them anymore is detrimental to you only, not in the least to them. They also do not consider themselves being in a business of educating photographers - there are enough resouirses for that including their forums where your images will be analyzed and mistakes explained should you post them asking for help.
There's still a stark contrast between my abrupt experience with them and with iStock. iStock was very thorough in the review process, so I had expected that Shutterstock would be the same way. Obviously not. I guess I was spoiled by iStock's hand-holding. 
5
« on: September 09, 2007, 00:51 »
Shutterstock usually review images within a few hours, so that's normal.
Take a look at your rejection mail again. You have to get I think seven or eight accepted out of the ten. You might find several of the images don't have any rejection explanation - that's because they didn't bother looking at them once you'd had the maximum failures.
Shutterstock have 71,000 contributing photographers and the lowest acceptance rate down at 40% or so.
I read on their site that they review every photo regardless of whether it meets the quota or not. I also read though that they sometimes experience glitches where all photos are rejected without anyone reviewing them, but once support was notified you could immediately resubmit again. I don't think this was the case for me, or I would have heard something by now. Here's my list of rejections: ID Status
------------------------
5061175 Rejected:
5061178 Rejected:
5061181 Rejected:
5061184 Rejected:
5061187 Rejected:
5061190 Rejected:
5061193 Rejected:
5061196 Rejected:
5061199 Rejected:
5061202 Rejected:
Regards,
Shutterstock Support Well I certainly learned a lot about where my photos were lacking.
6
« on: September 09, 2007, 00:04 »
Have you been accepted yet Lincoln?
I currently have two images accepted to iStock, but I'm planning on doing a few more photo "expeditions" so I have a really GOOD third one I can use to upload for the third sample. The last few samples I tried kept getting rejected, so I want to be careful this time before I reach their quota of rejections and have to start all over again. Shutterstock REALLY pissed me off though. They rejected EVERY single one of my photos, including the ones accepted by iStock, without giving ANY explanation as to why. I sent them an email about a week ago and they just blew me off. I just wanted to know what the problem was with the photos so I could learn from it and learn where I needed to make improvements for next time. It was suspicious because I uploaded the 10 photos on a Sunday evening, and I got a response barely two hours later indicating that all my photos were rejected. Really, that fast huh?  At least iStock gave me detailed explanations that made sense to me and were very helpful. Shutterstock just basically flipped me the bird. I don't think I'm going to reapply to them either, even if they are more traditionally lucrative than other microstock agencies. I did get accepted to Dreamstime, Fotolia, etc, without any problems though. Dreamstime was weird though, apparently I can only upload one photo at a time. 
7
« on: September 08, 2007, 22:15 »
I've been filling out the Description and Keyword portions of IPTC, but I noticed there's about ohhh, a billion or more fields you can fill out as well. Some of them even require knowledge of the proper codes to help define whether it's a scenic, portrait, etc type of photo. I don't want to waste too much time on IPTC, so how much of it should I really bother to fill out?
8
« on: August 28, 2007, 22:26 »
Thanks, the good thing is that I'm learning how to reuse my camera all over again. I just need to learn to work within its limitations. I'm currently learning about HDR techniques, which offers exactly the kind of dynamic range I've always wanted my photos to have, especially for outdoor and landscape shots.
9
« on: August 25, 2007, 11:59 »
Thanks for checking! I've checked through some of my best photos again, and for some reason the noise seems to come and go sporadically. I'm not sure why. All of the battleship related shots though had noise in them. I have several other photos that didn't have noise, even though the lighting conditions were the same. One of them got accepted too. I should find a board where people use the same camera and see if they've found workarounds for the noise, and when it's likely to show up. I just hate the fact that some of my best super duper shots can never be sold because of these blemishes, and it's not like I can go back and retake them either.  Oh well.
10
« on: August 23, 2007, 11:02 »
The again, concept of SLR was not appaling to me at all, used to shoot with one in film times and in fact missed a lot about it. Obviously different for you judging from what you say about pains of SLR...
I'm not saying using an SLR would be appalling, only that it might be too much of a costly investment for something that is still just a hobby for me. I didn't even see the purple fringing by the way until you mentioned it. But it's so minute in the background that you can barely see it.  I see your point though. I've been shooting in P mode 90 percent of the time with this cam, which is kind of silly considering it was designed for those who like to customize EVERY setting. It also has a built in noise filter, which I kept off as well, mainly because I never knew I had one till I started fiddling with it recently. So, I'm not gonna give up with this camera just yet.
11
« on: August 23, 2007, 09:59 »
I might go for the E-510 if I see myself getting more professionally minded, but I never liked the pains (and expenses ) of using a modular camera.  For noise reduction I have Grain Surgery used within Photoshop. I don't know how this compares to Noise Ninja or Neat Image though, but I think it's slower. The last photo that got rejected was a battleship photo that got rejected as usual for undue artifacts. What annoys me is that my camera was set at ISO 50 and there was STILL noise. That really pisses me off. But, I used Grain Surgery and the results seemed to be MUCH better. Can you guys take a look though? The first photo is the one that got rejected by IS. I'm not going to fault them for this though, because there was clearly noise. The second one is after a single pass through Grain Surgery. I think this would pass inspection, but I'm not sure if it might be too "smudgy" as a result of the noise filtering. http://www.habitationofjustice.com/images/Battleship.jpghttp://www.habitationofjustice.com/images/Battleship-noisefree.jpgBTW, if I want to downsize an image, is that just a matter of resizing in Photoshop and saving in the max (12) JPG setting, or should I use another approach?
12
« on: August 22, 2007, 09:18 »
I am not saying it's impossible, but forget easy and quick fixes. careful picking of the subject, good lighting, well though through metering, careful inspection and fixing will do the trick. Price to pay is your time and effort (which may not necessary be a bad thing for the starters, you will learn a lot), and limited freedom of chosing the subject, time of the day, etc.
I love Oly, they are very nice player but really, as far as technically suitable for microstock shooting is concerned, only their latest generation (e-410/510) nailed it.
Yeah I should clarify to say I don't mean you can do anything with RAW, just more than you can with JPEG. I'm going to check out the cameras you mentioned.
13
« on: August 22, 2007, 09:12 »
I have no experience with your camera, but considerable experience in IS rejections. (grin)
Have you tried downsizing your images to iStock 'Large' size (1820 x 2730)? This might go a long way in getting rid of your rejection gremlins.
I never even thought of that. I tried downsizing all the way to 1600x1200, and while the noise is not as noticeable, it's still there. I HATE noise as much as IS apparently does, but I may have no choice but to use TIFF or RAW, then use noise filtering software to clean up the photos, but that may end up being more trouble than it's worth. This sucks. I really love my Oly camera, but it was only until I started viewing photos in full size that I noticed how noisy it can get. iStock has made me hate all the photos I used to love so much now. 
14
« on: August 22, 2007, 00:20 »
iStockPhoto's people are a bunch of snobs. They like my photos, but the most consistent complaint I've been getting for rejected ones has been "undue artifacts, undue artifacts, undue artifacts, wah wah wah wah, undue artifacts, sniff, sob sob..." Sheesh. They just saying that cuz they don't want my photos to compete with theirs. I kid, I kid.... I think. Previously, I had my camera set to save photos in the highest JPEG format available (SHQ 3264x2448), but it's capable of taking pics in TIFF and RAW too. (I have an Olympus 8080Z) I'm thinking I should just go with RAW since I can postprocess it to death if need be, but it takes about 20 seconds per photo to finish though, and I can just forget about taking continuous shots too. I've had this camera for a while, but is this still typical of how slow RAW is on a digicam that's not a dSLR? If it is, I may keep the current JPEG format and tinker with the settings a little more. I don't get it though. On a clear blue sky, bright day, the photos will sometimes look awesome, and then out of the blue noise starts showing up en masse for no reason (even when ISO stays the same). Anyone else experience this? Any suggestions on how I can reduce these kinds of distortions? I'm not a professional so springing for a more prosumer level camera isn't really cost effective for me right now.
15
« on: August 14, 2007, 20:05 »
ALMOOOOST!!!! I got an email from iStock, turns out one of my photos passed inspection, but the other two failed. This confirms the need to have all three pass inspection in order to get accepted. The good news though is that I called it perfectly. I only felt one of the three photos would pass, but I was hoping one would be enough. The one photo accepted and the two rejected were based on the very same conclusions I made myself, which shows I'm thinking along iStock's wavelengths in terms pf photo quality, so that's encouraging. The other good news is that I can use samples that normally would not be accepted into iStock's inventory. I didn't know that, and because of it I was pretty limited in choosing what samples I could upload. Most of my photos are landmark or landscape photos, generally the kind that iStock either already have an abundance of or require a property release for. But for the application process they're just looking to evaluate the quality of my photos. Sheesh, I wish I had figured that out the first time around. They got back to me pretty fast though, and suggested I replace the two failed samples with fresh new ones for a second review. If at first you don't succeed.....
16
« on: August 07, 2007, 23:37 »
I'll be happy enough just to get accepted at one. Otherwise I'll have to resort to street vendor trading: "Excuse me sir? Sir? Would you like to buy a photo? Slight noise and a little purple fringing, but otherwise it's a perfect addition to your collection..."
17
« on: August 07, 2007, 15:17 »
Thanks, I will. They said about two weeks so we'll see. Do you know if you can still get accepted if only one sample passes inspection?
18
« on: August 07, 2007, 00:19 »
Well, after sifting through thousands of photos I've personally taken, I found maybe 8 that might be stockworthy, and from them I picked three samples to upload for my application. One of them I think is a sure thing (I hope), but the other two were iffy. Still, they were the best I could come up with since they were unique and had no noticeable photo blemishes.
Ah well. I'll probably wait to see how iStock responds before taking a look at Stutterstock.
19
« on: August 06, 2007, 22:43 »
I've been reading the terms on iStock and noticed this: For greater certainty, you may not:
l. post a copy of the Content on a network server or web server for use by other users; or Hmm, that seems to apply to sites like Flickr, though I'm not sure what they mean by "use by other users." The rest of the terms make it clear that they don't want you to resale or profit from the image via other venues unrelated to iStock. That however makes sense to me.
20
« on: August 06, 2007, 20:58 »
Take it from someone who happily uploaded everything in sight to all sites at the beginning, not giving it second thought, lol. They do have a way to sober you up in hurry
Or getting you to drink again. Don't worry, I'm going to carefully read through iStock and Stutterstock's terms before doing anything for sure. I have to admit I'd rather see them being photo * about it than to let every Tom, Dick and Harry upload their images. I'll feel all the more like a special person if I can get in.
21
« on: August 06, 2007, 20:45 »
I see you shoot with Oly 8080... be careful with noize, especially in the blue sky, that camera is known to be a noizy beast. And do not submit too many of similar theme shots for your test. 10 "travel" photos will raise their flag even if they are good. Try to show variety
Variety is good. I use a tripod and keep my ISO limbo low to avoid noise. I love taking nightshots and love this camera for it too. That reminds me, can you get away with post processing? I have a noise reduction plugin in Photoshop that I use sometimes, but not often.
22
« on: August 06, 2007, 17:52 »
Lincoln... have you familiarized yourself with requirements of major sites for photo acceptance? Maybe to avoid surprizes you may want to post your candidates here first, both thumbnail and 100% crop, before submitting them to reviewers. Experienced folks here may save you a lot of grief
I've skimmed through some of the requirements for photos, but I'll only know for sure once I upload a few samples, which I'll probably do tonight. Here's a Flickr link to a very small sample of my photos reduced to 800x600 (original was 3264 x 2448) http://www.flickr.com/photos/37393811@N00/sets/72157594226392086/The photos of Lincoln and Capitol Hill are some of my better photos, but don't represent what's typical. I like to take photos from unusual angles of a broad number of subjects, except for people, unless in unusual circumstances. I just read what iStock is particularly looking for, man they sound mean.
23
« on: August 06, 2007, 16:44 »
Lincoln, if you want to see fast success, try to get into shutterstock. They are pretty hard to get into, but as soon as you are in, your images start to sell 12 hours after they got accepted. Istock is strict yes, but it is not a good site to upload plenty of images in a short time period. They only allow you to upload I think 25 or 20 images per week in the beginning. Well that sucks. I hope my best photos pass the test. This should be interesting. BTW, forgive me since I'm a moron, but what does IPTC stand for? I assume there's software I can use so I can easily add the respective keywords into them?
24
« on: August 06, 2007, 13:20 »
That sounds like a plan. I'll let everyone know how it goes. Glad I found this forum! 
25
« on: August 06, 2007, 13:07 »
True, probably half the photos will probably be of stock quality, so I'll have to sift through them and see what may pass their scrutiny. I was going to do what you suggested, upload some of my best samples and see what happens. I've been a amateur photographer for years, but I'm only now exploring this, partly because I've only heard about microstock photography recently, and partly because for all those years I've been a poor boy who only had dial-up access to the Internet. Now that I finally have broadband though i fear I'm already too late for the party. *sniff*
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