Linking Life » Photo Denied on IStock Photo

Photo Denied on IStock Photo

I have a hard time understanding Stock Photography. I can’t take stock photos. Every time I submit a photo it usually gets denied by Istockphoto.com. Photos that I take, I have come to realize, just are not acceptable as stock photos even though I tend to like them a lot. I think my problem might be editing. I have to take a bit off of the editing bit because it seems to destroy all my files especially when I zoom in. Or maybe the best way to do it is edit your photo in two stages, so it looks good zoomed out and zoomed in. That’s what I will do next time. Next time. Here is the latest photo that got denied by Istock. I think it’s pretty good, but if you look at the full res version here, I guess I see what they mean.

Here is the nice e-mail I got from IStock explaining they think my photo is shit.

Dear NathanColquhoun,

We regret to inform you that we cannot accept your submission, entitled Landscape in South Africa ( http://www.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/11695357/2/istockphoto_11695357-landscape-in-south-africa.jpg) for addition to the iStockphoto library for the following reasons:

This file contains artifacting when viewed at full size. This technical issue is commonly created by the quality settings in-camera, in post-processing, in RAW settings or scanner settings. Artifacting can also be introduced into an image from the result of other factors such as excessive level adjustments.

A little bit more about compression: The JPEG file format uses a lossy compression method. In order to make the file smaller, information is thrown away, or lost. The quality setting that most image editing programs and digital cameras have when saving JPEGs determines how much information is lost. At a certain point with lower quality settings the removal of information during the compression process can become visible in the form of compression artifacts (places in the image where too much detail has been lost). Too much JPEG compression can become visible either in the form of a general loss of detail, or grainy/patterned areas (especially in flat spaces, such as skies).

Compression artifacting can be introduced by the camera and/or by your image editing software at lower quality settings. Also, re-sizing, re-sampling, and re-saving can all degrade the quality of a JPEG image, so one should be careful about re-saving JPEGs. If for example, a photo was re-saved 4 times (even at a quality of 12 or Best) the image quality will become worse each time as pixel information is thrown out each time the file is saved. With this in mind, it is obviously best to start with the cleanest image possible. You may want to double-check your camera settings to make sure it is saving at the highest quality. If you continue to have issues you may try shooting in RAW/NEF mode, export to TIFF and then save as JPEG at the highest possible quality (level 12) with minimal or no post processing effects. Sometimes even trying a new RAW converter could be beneficial.

Noise (pixels of varying color where there shouldn?t be) is most commonly created by digital cameras, especially in darker shadows or under low-light conditions and exacerbates the compression issues mentioned above. You might want to double-check to make sure that your camera?s ISO/ASA setting is at the lowest number (usually 100). In digital cameras, higher numbers (200 or 400) will always result in more noise (just as with film). If you require further explanation regarding this rejection, please submit a ticket to Scout (http://www.istockphoto.com/contact_ticket.php)

For more information about iStock Standards, please see:
http://www.istockphoto.com/tutorial_2.3_noise.php