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The two main reasons some of my submissions to Istockphoto got rejected are purple fringing and artifacting.

To purple fringing there is a straightforward solution, a combination of a saturation/hue adjustment layer and masking in PS will get rid of that. With time the eye learns where to look for fringing and the editing process becomes easier. There’s no real in-camera solution to purple fringing short of not shooting high contrast images or getting insanely expensive lenses…and even then it’ll creep up on you from time to time.

Artifacting is a lot harder to avoid.  For a long while now I thought I knew what artifacting was. Granted I don’t work with a calibrated screen, I can tell when there are jaggies in an image… or can I? Until I understand Istockphoto’s definition of artifacting I’ve decided to perpetually disagree with the scouts.

In the meantime here are a few thoughts on how to avoid those ”this image is not good enough for us” emails:

Get the image right, straight out of the camera.  Think it through. Try and use whatever available light (natural or strobes) to make the image pop on its own, without PS. Post processing can do a lot but Istockphoto pays you to provide an image, not to tinker with it, that’s the buyers job.

Shoot raw, you’ll have way more leeway when editing. Raw saves all the information your sensor captures. It won’t give you sharper images but it will give you peace of mind.

Turn off auto enhancements.  If for some reason you’re still shooting jpg turn off all in-camera sharpening, noise reduction and contrast and color boosts. This lets you control all of this later on when you’re processing the image.

Steady your camera. A good tripod will go a long way in making your shots sharper. Shoot with a remote (wired or wireless) and in some cases flip the mirror up before you take the shot to further reduce camera shake. When using an IS (or VR for you Nikon fans out there) lens with a tripod, shut the IS off.

Low ISO is key to getting an image past the gates. Use the lowest possible ISO for the desired combination of shutter speed and apperture to get the least noise in your image. When working with studio lighting use ISO 100 if you can’t go lower than that.

Do not overprocess. Sliders are something to be gentle with. Never introduce colors or contrasts into an image that could have not been there naturally. Overprocessing leads directly to artifacting. Check your images for  artifacting  and purple fringing at different zoom levels, all the way up to 200-300%.

Know your lenses. Good lenses produce good images. Unfortunately when it comes to lenses you get what you pay for. Invest in good lenses rather than an expensive camera body. All lenses have a sweet-spot, an aperture where they’re at their sharpest. Use that to your advantage when being creative with aperture.