Author Topic: I got a rejection at Dreamstime?? (Read 5435 times)

dragonblade · « **on:** February 04, 2020, 00:23 »

Something has just happened to me that has me extremely puzzled. And it's something that's very rare too. I actually got a rejection at Dreamstime. As you know, DT accepts just about anything. I honestly can't remember the last time I got a rejection there but it was probably over two years ago. And I could probably count my total number of rejections at DT with just one hand.

And the reasons for the rejection are bizarre. "The image is overexposed." I disagree. The subject (an insect) is correctly exposed. I bracketed different power settings on my speedlight and selected the most pleasing exposure for submission. The background may look very light in appearance but that's because it's white. Pure white. And there's certainly nothing wrong with a white background as you'll find many of those in microstock images.

The other rejection reason is: "Poor lighting." I say nonsense. I used off-camera flash positioned at roughly 45 degrees from the subject and I also had a diffuser to soften the light. Additionally, I also used a reflector to bounce light back into the shadow areas. As a result, my invertebrate subject was evenly illuminated by soft lighting. I have no idea why DT regards this as poor lighting.

My gosh, is this a sign that DT is becoming more like SS? I haven't had any photo rejections from SS for a little while but Ive heard of many other contributers over there complaining about ridiculous rejection reasons. Actually, by the way, this very same image was accepted by SS. Ive also submitted it to Adobe Stock but haven't heard back from their review team yet.

Regardless, I'll resubmit it to DT and see what happens.

Microstock Posts · « **Reply #1 on:** February 04, 2020, 01:29 »

When a reviewer doesn't like your image for whatever reason they will reject the image and often give any reason. You don't have to take the rejection reasons literally.

I just got a rejection reason on ss for a vector image I made, "A reference image is required for this submission but was not provided."

I did submit the reference image, but the reviewer didn't bother to check it, or he just didn't like the image but put that reason.

Just submit again.

Brasilnut · « **Reply #2 on:** February 04, 2020, 06:01 »

Other than iStock, AS, SS and Alamy, I don't care about rejections at these small agencies.

Do others feel the same way?

Pauws99 · « **Reply #3 on:** February 04, 2020, 06:37 »

Quote from: Brasilnut on February 04, 2020, 06:01

Other than iStock, AS, SS and Alamy, I don't care about rejections at these small agencies.

Do others feel the same way?

Yes its probably not financially justifyable for most of us to upload new material let alone chasing down rejections. Only if I had something I thought had huge potential value would I consider resubmitting.

BalkanskiMacak · « **Reply #4 on:** February 04, 2020, 06:54 »

I don't really care neither, apart from BS (it's a mid performer with me... I know, my kind of good results on BS are the weirdest thing I have in my microstock performances).

Anyway, from my experience, DT rejections for quality occur two or three times per year, so I don't really mind, because there's no impact on the performance whatsoever.

That being said, I have noticed they have as well a couple of weird restrictions, like SS, but in more hardcore, on punctual things. I know for instance that they will reject a picture (in editorial) on which a Starbucks logo appears... even though it's not the center of the attention. I got recently a couple of random shots of streets where there was a Starbucks in background, with a logo not bigger than a couple of pixels that got rejected for that reason. I get the same thing with a few other brands, but once again, I'm not sure there's some real impact considering it's less than 1% of the submitted pictures.

Pauws99 · « **Reply #5 on:** February 04, 2020, 08:50 »

Yes I remember many years back getting a Starbucks rejection now you mention it.....not been in one of their coffee shops since ;-).

Hannafate · « **Reply #6 on:** February 04, 2020, 10:01 »

That is weird. A quick look at their most recent images shows that their standards are very low.

Maybe they're trying to tighten up?

Nah, you just got a lazy reviewer who gets paid per image reviewed.

dragonblade · « **Reply #7 on:** February 09, 2020, 09:41 »

Yea I'll definitely resubmit. By the way, this very same image was accepted by Adobe Stock fairly recently.

So there you have it - DT was being more strict than SS and AS in their review process.