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  1. #1
    can't Re-member lidarman's Avatar
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    Critic from Stock Photo Sites.

    I don't know how many of you submit photos for stock. I got intrigued to use it as an outlet from some of my pix I can't find any use for.

    Well my first two photos get rejected for qualities I thougth were good--composition and lighting.

    So I guess I need to learn either better composition and lighting, or change my perception on what's good, or learn what it is for stock and realize it's a totally diffferent game.

  2. #2
    Captain of the Ship Photo-John's Avatar
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    Re: Critic from Stock Photo Sites.

    It's a totally different game. It's all based on marketability. So it's seasonal and trendy. I also think they're a bit behind the times in terms of image quality. Because they want resolutions that are based on drum scan standards from many years ago, not what's possible or good from current digital SLRs. Unless they've changed the way they operate in the past year or so.
    Photo-John

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  3. #3
    can't Re-member lidarman's Avatar
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    Re: Critic from Stock Photo Sites.

    Quote Originally Posted by Photo-John
    It's a totally different game. It's all based on marketability. So it's seasonal and trendy. I also think they're a bit behind the times in terms of image quality. Because they want resolutions that are based on drum scan standards from many years ago, not what's possible or good from current digital SLRs. Unless they've changed the way they operate in the past year or so.
    I guess I'm referring to the area of Micro-stock. Where stock is sold at low res for websites and small graphics, not magazines. A bud of mine is a graphic artist and he loves the new area of micro stock where he only has to pay a buck or a few dollars compared to tens or hundreds of dollars in the past. What he does, he can buy lots of photos.

  4. #4
    Learning more with every "click" mjs1973's Avatar
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    Re: Critic from Stock Photo Sites.

    I have submitted a few photos for a micro-stock sites. Most get rejected, but a few have made it through the system. It's frustraiting when files get rejected for reasons that you can't see. I have had files rejected for having too much noise when there was no noise visible to me.

    This is one of my favorites "The overuse of a noise reduction process/application has too severely degraded quality and removed detail". The photo that got this complaint was never touched by noise reduction software.

    Artifacting is another reason some of my photos were rejecting. They always suggest chaning the quality setting on my camera. I find that kind of strange since I shoot in RAW...

    It's frustraiting, but if you get a few good files, you can make some money from micro-stock.
    Mike

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  5. #5
    drg
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    la recherche de trolls drg's Avatar
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    Re: Critic from Stock Photo Sites.

    Stock companies will many time look at a very small area of an image and base there entire decision on that part. They may look at an edge border, a background, or a known problem area in a particular type of photo and evaluate soley on that basis.

    Some merely look at a histogram now and if they see any signs of level adjustments (and some cameras are now doing this as part of the in camera JPEG conversion process) they will reject the photo.

    Much of this is automated. The 'feedback' is like all error messages, cryptic and rarely applicable to the real problem.

    One company who will remain nameless that I know the tech people, upsizes the image by 2x or 4x on the long side and then evaluates the image. The know their customers do a lot of scaling and if the photograph won't hold up to, in this case Dragon Fractals is the tool of choice, they will reject the image. Color noise can be a big issue when doing this without any other processing. Just an example.

    I mentioned not long ago in another post about stock, many of the new 'micro stock' companies only want certain types of images. You may have to look at their samples to get an idea of what they really want, and realize they usually have customers waiting who they, the stock company, know exactly what they can sell them.

    If all else fails, start your own Stock Site and just sell CD/DVD of 100, 200, or 500 images.

    I saw a whole big display rack at Barnes and Noble this past week of nothing but Stock imagery for Graphic Designers. Way over priced and much of it was renderings, sketches, and no way to evaluate the offering without purchase, but one job could have easily paid for half a dozen disks.

    Good luck!!
    CDPrice 'drg'
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