View Cart
Login
You’ve already read Photo’s Technical Flaws Part 1, where common technical flaws of photos depending on the photographer have been analyzed. Part 2 deals with common technical flaws of photos caused by equipment.
Main Technical Flaws Depending on Equipment
Do not submit technically flawed photos to your stock photo agency. Just check for these issues before submitting:
- dust speckles on photos
- color fringes
- blurry corners
- vignetting
- image noise
- color shifts
Dust speckles on photos
Back in the old times when film rolls were used, with every photo to take you had a clean surface on the photosensitive surface called film (yes, even then you had to hassle with objects, scratching lines over your slides). Today, the surface of the camera’s sensor stays the same and catches dust and all kind of unwanted, small things. This results in visible dark dots on the photo, the smaller the aperture used, the more visible they get.
If you encounter these kind of technical flaw in your photos, make sure you get your camera’s sensor cleaned. Existing dust speckles in photos can only be removed in post-processing.
Check your photo selection carefully for such issues and don’t submit them to your agency. Try to remove the dust speckles in post-processing. Imagine you as a customer: Would you spend money on an image with clearly visible dark dots?
Color fringes
Color fringes are a bit tricky. The risk of visible color fringes depends mainly on your lenses and sensor size. This means you can’t avoid them easily. Color fringes are usually more visible in image corners and on clearly defined edges like roofs and branches, even more in back-light situations.
You can reduce color fringes with software in post processing your images, and you can reduce them by using better lenses. If you have clearly visible color fringes in your images, do not submit them to your agency. Try to reduce them in post-processing and consider a better lens or lens/camera if you decide to submit your images on a regular basis.
Blurry corners
The problem of blurry corners is typically caused by poor optical systems, means with cheap lenses. Luckily, in most cases a small amount of blur in the outer corners is forgivable because the main subject is located in or near the middle of the image. So don’t worry about blurry corners too much.
Before submitting your images to a stock photo agency, just check if the blur is not too strong.
Vignetting
Vignetting means darkened corners. Darkened corners are not a technical flaw by nature, they fit a lot of photos very well and are forced by photographers who know their business.
Vigentting appears when the amount of light hitting the corners of the sensor is significant lower than what hits the center of the sensor. This is caused mainly by inferior optics, but can be easily corrected in post-processing.
If the amount of darkening appears too heavy, refrain from submitting your images to your stock photo agency unless you corrected this issue in post-processing.
Image noise
Image noise is a clearly visible colored or luminous noise pattern, caused by the sensor of the camera. Camera manufacturers do their best to keep this noise as low as possible even at high ISO’s. However, if you want a very clean image, you have to use large sensors, avoid high ISO’s or try to correct image noise in post-processing. Do not submit heavily noised images to you agency.
Color shifts
Every camera produces slightly different colors. High-quality camera manufacturers try to maintain the color reproduction of their cameras and lenses throughout their line-up.
As long as color shifts or color casts are not too strong, they doesn’t matter. Whenever possible, try to analyze if a scene appears in a rather strange color in your photo. Try to avoid shooting through colored windows, like car or traion windows. And of course, correct such issues before uploading your photos to a stock photo agency.
You can read more about Common Technical Flaws of Photos – Part 1 here.
You may link this content as you like. Feel free to use this content on your own website, magazine or whatever, just make sure to set a visible and working link to alpineSTOCK.com.