Microstock Photography

The 100% Rule

Finally, before we get started on some practical examples of problem
images and solutions, let’s agree on a simple rule you need to follow
from now on: the 100% rule. Always check your images at 100%
magnifi cation on screen in your chosen image editor. That way, you
are looking at the actual pixels and you will see defects much more
clearly than at a lower magnifi cation.

Noise

Time now to turn to some specifi cs of problems with images that lead
to rejections. We will start with public enemy number one—noise. To
be a big noise in microstock, avoid noise!

Digital noise is the number one reason why images are rejected by our photo

screeners.

Jon Oringer, CEO, Shutterstock

Noise takes different forms and is usually most clearly visible in
areas of even color, such as a clear blue sky. Luminance noise looks
like fi lm “grain” (Figure 5.5). Variations in the sensitivity of individual
photosites (the bits of the chip that record light) in digital cameras can
cause the appearance of grain in an image. When this is even and very
fi ne, it may not detract from an image at all; in fact, there are a few
circumstances when adding a little grain can be benefi cial (as we will
see later). Generally, however, this grain-like noise is bad, and too
much will lead to your images being rejected. Compact digital cameras
use smaller sensors with poorer light-gathering properties, and this can
lead to more noise (Figure 5.6).

Another tip is to expose to the right. This as an advanced digital
camera shooting technique that you can try if your camera has a his-
togram display that you can use to check the exposure of your photo-
graphs (most do). Before explaining how to do this, it is worth
discussing the theory.

There is a noise fl oor in all imaging devices. Think of this as being
like background noise affecting your stereo system. The more you turn
up the music volume on your stereo, the more diffi cult it will be to
hear any background noise from the electronics. Similarly, with a
digital camera, the more light you let in, the more any noise will be
suppressed. But the risk is that if you take this too far, you will over-
expose highlight parts of your images, leading to those horrible white
blank areas. So, it is a balancing act to “max out” the exposure without
burning out image highlights.

Figure 5.7 illustrates histograms of digitally captured images.
The histogram on the left has a gap to the right, which means the

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