Guys, guys, guys, Baldrick is right.  SS don�t want BETTER stuff they want DIFFERENT stuff and they don�t give a crap whether you are �top echelon� or not.   They are not anything like IS who don�t care what kind of boring crap is submitted as long as it�s TECHNICALLY good.  Different won�t sell as well as mainstream for the contributor but it�s additional sales from the point of view of the business.

Them not caring about top echelon is great. I mean who-T-F are they? They just sold more than the others. So what? So  what? Some of them have done it just because they started among the first, but their photos are still varying from cr@p to average.

I don't completely agree on IS accepting all the cr@p as long it's technically perfect. IMO SS doesn't get DIFFERENT stuff, really conceptual or just not acceptable by some puritan code, e.g too violent, or just too tightly cropped (no copyspace). But some buyers need just that, for book covers etc. And that usually means ELs Wink. In this case I like IS better although I hate them

 

shank puts his fingers on every matter, there is no PP there my friend, you are the Yuri of the PP not the SS one!

Perhaps the company has been too lenient in the past on quality.It has a huge library now and if it continued accepting the majority of content submitted by its contributors the quality would be diluted.
If as the majority in this thread suspect,the inspection has got harder,i would except the new standard,learn it and match it .Simple.

There in lies the rub... 

The common theme of this whole thread is a lack of consistancy and not understanding what Shutterstock now want, I have no problem with the bar being raised, I'm relatively new to all this so it can only improve my peformance...  If it was a logical rejection pattern, if there is one I cannot see it and that also seems to be the case for many experienced and succesful submitters too.

They can never have too many images.  I often can't find anything like the photos I'm uploading and they still get rejected.  It's a big world and they would need billions of images to cover everything.  And fashion changes, people change, places change and the cameras we use improve each year.  They really should be encouraging us to keep producing new content.

Looks like I'm going to have to get my own site and sell direct.  I know people would buy some of the stuff that most of the big sites are now rejecting.  I think it's a crazy policy for the sites because lots of us will be looking at other ways to sell our new images now.

My thoughts exactly. The buyers know what they want much better than the reviewers do. Let the buyers decide.

I too have begun to think lately about different ways to sell my images, and as a result I have been doing more searches on the stock sites. I have been shocked at how many gaps there are in the microstock inventories, how many subjects are not covered or covered very thinly. The total current microstrostock inventory could be several times larger than it is and still have room for many, many more images.

Quote from: VB inc on July 11, 2011, 18:39

how many images are too many images? i think SS went past it 2 years ago

They can never have too many images.  I often can't find anything like the photos I'm uploading and they still get rejected.  It's a big world and they would need billions of images to cover everything.  And fashion changes, people change, places change and the cameras we use improve each year.  They really should be encouraging us to keep producing new content.

Look at it from the agency's perspective. Its mainly a subscription based model where there really is no benefit to the agency to have 30 million images. For the buyer there can never be too much images to choose from. I would understand if its more of a pay per download model where each image is unique and has an actual download cost tied to it.

I don�t believe buyers will complain about the amount of results for their search, if I was a buyer I would look at most popular or newest to get fresh content, if there are hundreds and hundreds better.. SS is a subscription agency where a buyer can get 25 pics per day, if they miss a few no problem they have plenty more slots to download.. I really think they should clean their collection instead of these weirds rejections for pictures well produced..

and the true is that there are two types of reviewers, the ones that approved all pictures done in perfection.. and other that go to low commercial value or other reason when they feel they aren�t worth to SS which ain�t wrong, the only problem is the favoritism of some that I guess have "quick" reviews (not talking about top contributos but some that I keep track) and some of that were just as good as a "lower" contributor that might have less files online or sales.. but I dont believe they have a perfomance feature next to contributor during the reviewing... but who knows..

Perhaps the company has been too lenient in the past on quality.It has a huge library now and if it continued accepting the majority of content submitted by its contributors the quality would be diluted.
If as the majority in this thread suspect,the inspection has got harder,i would except the new standard,learn it and match it .Simple.

that's precisely the problem - there IS no standard - rather it's random selection of reviewers ,many of whom do NOT follow the existing standards

one solution is a better search algorithm, rather than limiting the collection - netflix PAID for a contest to improve their recommendations algorothm.  no ms agency seems to be investing much effort in fine tuning the search based on buyer's needs.

for example, in the initial search limit the # of similars shown, BUT indicate there are similars so the buyer can choose how to continue
s

I just submitted 2 - exactly 2 images to SS.  Identical shots, identical subject (a closeup of an industrial object), identical exposures.  The only difference is that one is on a black background, the other is on white.  Like I said - same camera settings, all I did in postprocessing was tweak the white/black points bit to get pure backgrounds.

Within an hour they'd been reviewed.  Yup, you guessed it. One was accepted, the other rejected for "noise".  


[sigh]

it's getting really difficult now 

only the picture on the left got accepted. all the others rejected coz of similarity.... hmmmm.... for me every shot is quite different, isn't it. and also - if somebody is looking for an asian woman standing/walking with luggage on white background he/she won't find too many results.... 

Not quite different, but who's buying shots isolated on white anyway? It's a loss of time, unless you're satisfied with a couple of DL/image per year (unless they're unique, which these aren't).

This is a double profession: photographer and soothsayer ...

Quote from: luissantos84 on July 18, 2011, 07:39

it is a nice picture, the true is that DT is almost demaning this or we won�t have pictures online..

I agree. If those pictures aren't good stock images then 90+% of what's on the microstock agencies isn't either. Good images IMO.

Exactly, 90% is rubbish. Mostly total rubbish.

Quote from: Slovenian on July 19, 2011, 18:37

Quote from: michaeldb on July 19, 2011, 12:14

Quote from: luissantos84 on July 18, 2011, 07:39

it is a nice picture, the true is that DT is almost demaning this or we won�t have pictures online..

I agree. If those pictures aren't good stock images then 90+% of what's on the microstock agencies isn't either. Good images IMO.

Exactly, 90% is rubbish. Mostly total rubbish.

mate I would love to see your NON stocky stuff that sell like hot bread

I won't bother posting it for you, you wouldn't understand it anyway . Ignore back on, so pls just stop quoting me and save the time to come out with all that nonsense you always do by replying to people who didn't put you on ignore. Yet.

I submitted 60 pics yesterday, all accepted, not a single rejection. I just wrote this to annoy ppl.