Behind The Scenes Question

I don't think so Parker, I believe cancelled is cancelled.

if you think the quality is bad, fix it now anyway.

you will usually have 3 days to fix it, up to a week sometimes. but they will warn you first - but you get it in private mail and sometimes you don't get the warnings, i got mine on the third one once. it would simply tell you that the sale is canceled and the amount you didn't get. but it will never tell you why. but if your not sure you can post it here. otherwise fix what you think needs fixing right now.

---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

I had an image that sold but was grainy/noisy and wasn't printed. I since removed it from my port. Always keep the attitude that your best images haven't been made yet. If the image is not salvageable just delete it and move on.

Thank you everyone for the great advice. I think you have answered my question Mike. It was definitely not three days. Thanks!

if you didn't get the dreaded mail, then it was something else. like his card was bad.

when i send work i remove noise that people probably would never see. just to be on the safe side.

---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

Mike,

Removing noise? Is that just for photography work? Or would it apply to
digital images of all sorts? At the root of my scanner process is a digital file.

What commands in PS are you using?

Dave

it shouldn't have noise. the printers don't mind it if it's a little soft up close. they don't like blocks, stretching, jaggies, and noise. if you have a digital image, and you enlarged pieces of it, they might not print it because its not even. noise is the same. if your using a good scan of a painting it shouldn't matter much. i use composite, and have to be careful of using textures that have blocks up close, or things with noise and even it out if it has any.

i will make a new layer using a median of 15. this will blur the heck out of the picture, but still leave contrast edges (don't use Gaussian blur which blurs everything). set that layer mask to black so it vanishes.

then use a soft brush set to white, and on the mask use a tablet to pen in the areas that are noisy. this will help converge the noise, but you have to be careful not to mash detail too much. i use this on all my images that needed. skies, walls etc

if you use blur and you get near an edge it create a sort of sprite near that edge and it will look bad, like its glowing. median will prevent that. median is also good for rounding masks off so you have nice smooth lines after. its how i cut everything out. quick dirty lasso on mask, apply, select the object make a new mask and run median on 30. and it rounds the corners, but it also remove thin things.

---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

Mike, you made me curious. I thought I was pretty good at Photoshop but I've never used the median filter for noise reduction so I Googled it and found this lesson that might help others use your technique. http://www.ronbigelow.com/articles/noise-2/noise-2.htm You're brilliant to use this the way you do. kudos. I'll be trying this on some skys that I want to keep smooth while adding structure or tonal contrast to the rest of the image.

median was designed for noise reduction, but its usually used at a level of 2 or so. i often use median to round a corner of a square. you can run it at say 20-100 depending on size. it creates a flat fillet on the corner. if you run it again, you get a nice round corner.

for noise, i have 25,000 iso, so i had to make something that would blend it really well. but it varies where the noise is. its still not perfect because its a lot of work, but it works pretty well, especially if you get the dreaded mail.

---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

Mike that's an awesome little tutorial up there ... I can't wait to give it a try.

Thanks Mike and thanks for posting the link Mary Jo, that's so helpful. I had an HDR image which was very grainy and they refused to print it until I had reduced the noise, now I'm paranoid about having any noise but I hate the way the detail gets lost so I must try this.