Alamy QC rejection on test submission

Point taken, Chris.

However, I understand that the vast majority of Alamy's sales are to publications that are going to print the images in periodicals. This means images are printed at a maximum of 9 by 12 inches, with most images being printed at 1/4 page or smaller. The QC doesn't seem to be consistent with images being printed/displayed at this size. Sure there's the occasional image used at a larger size, but that's a very uncommon (percentage wise) exception. Seems odd that all the work would be judged on standards that only apply to a very, very small percentage of their sales.

As for the weeding out, don't you think there is some merit to the thought that they make it tough so that they are not absolutely swamped with submissions from hundreds of thousands of very mediocre photographers? That was my thinking - that if they make the submission process difficult, then all of the riff raff would abandon the process, and the overworked staff wouldn't have to deal with an overwhelming number of inferior images. This is the weeding out that I spoke of.

Tom Reichner wrote in post #8477013
Point taken, Chris.

However, I understand that the vast majority of Alamy's sales are to publications that are going to print the images in periodicals. This means images are printed at a maximum of 9 by 12 inches, with most images being printed at 1/4 page or smaller. The QC doesn't seem to be consistent with images being printed/displayed at this size. Sure there's the occasional image used at a larger size, but that's a very uncommon (percentage wise) exception. Seems odd that all the work would be judged on standards that only apply to a very, very small percentage of their sales.

As for the weeding out, don't you think there is some merit to the thought that they make it tough so that they are not absolutely swamped with submissions from hundreds of thousands of very mediocre photographers? That was my thinking - that if they make the submission process difficult, then all of the riff raff would abandon the process, and the overworked staff wouldn't have to deal with an overwhelming number of inferior images. This is the weeding out that I spoke of.

What I've learned from a lot of the examples I've seen is that a pretty good number of images are cropped down quite extensively by the buyers, so even though your sold image may have been at some crazy resolution like 4000x6000, they may only be using a 600x800 crop of it, and that's when the technical aspects come into play.

The process is certainly designed to prevent dishonest submissions, but it's still based largely on their old style submission process (which I'm glad to say I'm never following again). Sending in a submission via CD/DVD/HDD cost the photographer, and you can be sure nobody wanted to have to go through a multiple month waiting period only to find out their submission failed. Now that the upload process takes mere days, there's been a greater influx of submissions and submitters. As a result, Alamy changed some things up. Last I knew, they prioritize QC for people who have good track records. Consistent failure = low priority for review, and long term abuse can lead to the account being frozen and the culprit being forced to reapply.

ChrisRabior wrote in post #8477580
. . . long term abuse can lead to the account being frozen and the culprit being forced to reapply.

For many, it is not abuse. It is doing something to the very best of our ability and still not passing for some technical (computer/file related) issue that we don't even understand. Abuse is when someone knows that their submission is not up to their standards, and tries to slip it thru anyway.

I've done everything possible to try to understand what it is they want, and still have not been accepted. I even hired a tutor to come to my house and work with me on preparing images for Alamy. We worked together for two hours and uploaded the images at the end of the session. Waited 11 days for Alamy to review them, only to find that they still aren't up to par.

I would hardly say that what I'm doing is abuse. I want desperately to give Alamy exactly what they are looking for, and have spent dozens of hours and some very hard earned money attempting to do so (tutors aren't cheap).

Tom, I looked through your website and I've seen a lot(LOT) of beautiful pictures. I don't know what lenses you use but it has to be some high end tools. For sure you don't need a tutor to work with you.
I have 53 pictures accepted by Alamt till now.
I guess that around 40 are taken with Tamron SP 60-300mm, 135/2.8 Contax and 135/3.5 MC CZJ. The rest of them with 24-70/2.8 L Canon.
All of them using a 350D Canon.

P.S.

I forgot to add that I used only manual focus with the lenses above except Canon. So, kind of a hard work.

Tom, I looked through your website and I've seen a lot(LOT) of beautiful pictures. I don't know what lenses you use but it has to be some high end tools. For sure you don't need a tutor to work with you.
I have 53 pictures accepted by Alamt till now.
I guess that around 40 are taken with Tamron SP 60-300mm, 135/2.8 Contax and 135/3.5 MC CZJ and same lenght of CZJ but Zebra version. The rest of them with 24-70/2.8 L Canon.
All of them using a 350D Canon.

P.S.

I forgot to add that I used only manual focus with the lenses above except Canon. So, kind of a hard work.