Yesterday I received an e-mail saying that Fine Art America sold one of my photographs and that my profit on the sale was relatively substantial. Hoo ha! Life is good.
Then I got an e-mail from FAA a few hours later saying that the photograph is grainy. Would I fix it and re-upload it so they could print it? Life suddenly not so good. If I can’t fix it, I lose the sale. I also lose face.
I checked my original image. Yes, it is grainy. Specs: Canon 50D, Canon 70-200 “L” lens, ISO 200, 1/100 second at f/9, one-third stop underexposed. Link to the image at FAA:
http://fineartamerica.com/featured/1-coastal-british-columbia-carol-leigh.html
I sent an e-mail immediately to FAA telling them that I understood the problem and also understood I needed to act quickly to fix things and would get right back to them. Major adrenaline rush going on now, as you can imagine.
I had, some time ago, purchased Topaz DeNoise, which, obviously, is designed to ameliorate noise or grain in one’s photos. I’ve never used it. Kind of clueless about it, but I began working on my picture, learning as I went. Here’s a link to their website:
https://www.topazlabs.com/denoise
An hour later, I uploaded my de-grainified photo to FAA and let their quality control people know that it was up and ready to go. Here’s what I wrote FAA: “I have altered and uploaded the image, cutting down on the grain, and I hope it now meets your standards. If not, I sincerely apologize to the client and to you for taking up so much of your time. Please let me know how you end up proceeding with this picture. Thanks.”
That was noon yesterday. No word until just now. The photo is fine and is being printed and sent off to the customer. ALL THIS THANKS TO TOPAZ for making it easy for me to salvage this sale with a minimum of effort, using their (inexpensive) program which was relatively intuitive.
Whew! Just thought I’d let you know . . . I’m so impressed with what Topaz was able to do for me to fix this photograph, this sale, and to make my buyer happy.
©Carol Leigh
All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh. Thank you!
