Pictures rejeted- critique welcome

Forum|Forum|2 years ago
April 28, 2023
6 replies
916 views

Hey, I must say I am a bit disappointed as all my pictures got rejected. Here I added a few examples. Critique more than welcome. I am a bit confused as a saw a few in the stock that where lower quality than the below (in my opinion). Any ideas on improvement or reasons?

Contributor critique

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Correct answer Nancy OShea

I like your concepts. Very nice. Watch your white balance. Customers want neutral color balance. If they need to color-correct first, they might be less inclined to buy it.

It's rare that Stock customers will use an entire image. They usually select parts of it to combine with other elements & backgrounds. Therefore, your keyword subject should always be fully focused. The holy grail for composite artists is a subject with sharp, well-defined edges on a neutral background. The less extra work the customer has to do, the better. 🙂

Hope that helps.

jacquelingphoto2017

Community Expert

Hi @Kai5FFB ,

I believe the first file is a bit underexposed and also it is noisy

DSC09583 has a white balance issue. and too much is out of focus.

I like the composition for the lizard. However, it is not completely in focus.

Best wishes

Jacquelin

Abambo

Community Expert

5199: High noise level, missing contrasts:

9583: Whatever this is, it's disturbing:

6794: check the lizard.

You did not post the full resolution pictures, so sharpness and artefacts could not be checked. You absolutely need to post the picture as submitted, if you want to get a correct assessment.

For the lizard, the blurry background is not a problem. But I also feel that the exposure imbalance of the background vs lizard could be a concern.

ABAMBO | Hard- and Software Engineer | Photographer

Jill_C

Community Expert

DSC05199-2.jpg - artifacts in the sky. Zoom in 100-200% and you'll see them

DSC09583-2.jpg - also artifacts in the sky and a lens / sensor spot on the left side

DSC06794.jpg - depth of field is too shallow, rendering most of the image out of focus. The lizard is not sharply focused either.

Jill C., Forum Volunteer

K

Kai5FFBAuthor

Participant

Thanks Jill! So I should concetrate on making sure the lens is always clean & focus. Regarding depth of field - I thought this will help to identify the lizard vs background but I also read this in the other comments. So it should not be used to the extend that I did, is it?

Jill_C

Community Expert

The problem with shooting "wide open", that is with the lowest f-stop number on your lens, which results in the widest aperture, is that the DOF (Depth of Field) is so narrow that even the slightest motion of the subject or the camera will throw the subject out of focus. When you're shooting an object such as this lizard, you want the entire lizard to be in focus, with his eye as the focal point. So, if you choose a very wide aperture, the DOF is so narrow that the head of the lizard could be in focus, but maybe the tail is out of focus. Unless the subject is exactly parallel to your lens, some part of it will likely end up being out of focus. Even if you stop down the lens and use an aperture of f4.0, f5.6 or even f8, you'll still get a nice soft background.

Jill C., Forum Volunteer