Registering selling stock at alamy, but don't technically have a business

[slappy sam]

I want to apply to alamy and sell some stock photos there, but on their registration they ask (required fields) for my business name and site. Should I just fill this out as My Name Photography and use my website? I haven't registered this as a business, but I put "My Name Photography" on most of my photos as a watermark... and I do occassionally sell photos so I guess I could be called semi pro at this point.

What should I do? I want to put My Name Photography on their form, but I also haven't legally registered myself as a business and don't have any plan to do so soon, so I don't wanna lie.

Help... :O

P.S. Can I even get into alamy with 8mp photos? And do your photos have to be typical "stock" photos or will a collection of mostly landscapes with some other assorted shots work?

Edit: On a related note, if I was to sell photos that I took at an aquarium, would this be illegal?

[slappy sam]

Hoping to get a reply... :(

[ChrisRabior]

I submit shots to Alamy with my XT, but you have to upsize them first. I do that in PS2.

As far as your business name, I'm pretty sure I just put my name. Not "my name photography", just my name.

In terms of what sells, check out http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/AlamyPro
It's a forum on yahoo for Alamy contributers that was around before Alamy released their own forum. Good self reported database on what has sold for people.

Now, as for what you can submit, that all depends. Some places require you to get the proper releases before they want you to post them for sale. The Detroit Zoo is a great example. Alamy has a nice little tutorial for new contributers. Give it a good read. It should give you a very good starting point for understanding the different licensing schemes, whether or not you need model/property releases, what they're looking for, etc.

EDIT - Landscapes are definitely acceptable for stock. Just keep in mind that Alamy may already be flooded with shots very very similar to those you're uploading. You'll have to provide some exceptional shots if you want sales from landscapes.

[miklav]

Yes you can sell photos via Alamy as an individual not having officially registered business.

Yes you can participate having 8 MPix camera - but you have to upsize the pics to match their requirements.

Yes they allow upsizing and even recommend it by themselves.

No, it is not really required to use fractal software, normal photoshop bicubic resize does the job as well.

Beware, that they review all pending submissions at once, and one single rejected picture would mean the whole batch rejected (but you can indeed resubmit the other pics).

[slappy sam]

Thanks for the helpful replies. You guys answered my questions exactly :D

Chris, thanks for the link I will have to check that out.

miklav, thanks for the answers. I'm reading up on their submission guidelines and such now. How sharp do these photos have to be at 100% to be accepted? To be honest, some of my photos are a bit blurry at 100%, and after upsizing they will only get worse.

Edit: How do you get photos 48mb? I have a file I just saved as a jpeg and it is 7200 x 4800 px and only 8.9mb!

Edit 2: Oh wait, I probably want the file to be saved in .tif right? With this my file is approx 4000 x 6000 px and 72 mb.

Here is a 100% crop - is this sharp enough? I have no in camera sharpening, nor any sharpening done in photoshop, and it sounds like I'm not supposed to.

[ChrisRabior]

That looks pretty noisy to me..
Are you using Photoshop?

I upsize my images 148%, usually results around a file 5115 at the long end, 3410 at the short. File size ranges from 6 - 10 MB. That results in a file that's greater than 48MB when it's uncompressed in Photoshop.

[slappy sam]

Yeah, my file is actually almost exactly that same size. Its 50mb when uncompressed.

I am using photoshop. I took that photo at 100 ISO - I'm really not sure why it is so noisy (I noticed that too). I haven't brought up the exposure in ACR either, so thats not the reason.

[robgr85]

Yeah, my file is actually almost exactly that same size. Its 50mb when uncompressed.

I am using photoshop. I took that photo at 100 ISO - I'm really not sure why it is so noisy (I noticed that too). I haven't brought up the exposure in ACR either, so thats not the reason.

maybe the time of exposure was too long?

[slappy sam]

On the alamy website it says:

Upload your files or folders of JPEG images using AlamyUpload on the next page.

Please check that your images meet our technical criteria and are: Alpha-numeric file names ending in ‘.jpg’.

Does this mean that my 48mb images must be jpegs? I don't know how I would get a jpeg image this size. I have approx 17 megapixel upsized images that are 50mb saved as tiffs. If I save them as jpegs they aren't even 9mb.

[robgr85]

On the alamy website it says:





Does this mean that my 48mb images must be jpegs? I don't know how I would get a jpeg image this size. I have approx 17 megapixel upsized images that are 50mb saved as tiffs. If I save them as jpegs they aren't even 9mb.

hot no experience with alamy, but I think that they mean You have to send files in format jpeg, which uncompressed would be bigger than those 50Megs. Give it a try and Write here if it works, I will probably try alamy too. Do You know how much bandwitch would be used by photogs of alamy? How big space would they need to store those enormous files?

Cheers,
Robert

[Anke]

On the alamy website it says:





Does this mean that my 48mb images must be jpegs? I don't know how I would get a jpeg image this size. I have approx 17 megapixel upsized images that are 50mb saved as tiffs. If I save them as jpegs they aren't even 9mb.

Yes this 48Mb is the uncompressed size, your 9Mb jpg opened in PS is probably bigger than 48Mb uncompressed. You can tell by selecting the size option in the lower right drop-down box on the opened image.
If you upscale your image straight from camera by 150% you should get more than 48Mb.

[ChrisRabior]

When you open a jpeg file in Photoshop, the image window should have the uncompressed file size listed in the bottom corner of the image window. By definition, a jpeg is a compressed image. A 6-10MB jpeg file is probably upwards of 45-60MB when opened in a viewer. Alamy simply wants the open version to be 48MB.

Probably should have directed you there in the first place, but Alamy's own forum is a good place to read up on technique for uploading. Just search for topics on upsizing. Should be several well worded and very complete tutorials on the different methods people have.