Anyway it's easy to shoot "sliced tomato". You could borrow title and key words from Mr Pork Knuckle and upload one photo every other week hoping to strike gold.

Quote

These are things that anyone serious should actually avoid and not waste their time, but people keep shooting and shooting and wonder why their RPI isn't so good?

Isn't it the newest SS plan about? I mean resetting the level every new year and asking people for a new photos of "sliced tomato"

I think maybe? If the idea is, More Photos = More Money, then let those people beat their fingers, burn out their lights and cameras, and waste time shooting more "Sliced Tomatoes"

If someone is smarter, they will shoot something that actually has a chance, or at the least, not shoot things that there are hundreds of thousands already with little new demand and little existing demand.

Sliced Tomato is just a example of things that are senseless to bother shooting and uploading. But for some reason, they keep getting made, uploaded and accepted.

248,690 sliced tomatoes isolated stock photos. Today. 2/1/2022

but mine will blow all the others away!

Yesterday I uploaded two photos of "raw pork knuckle" with a completely different backgrounds. One approved and another rejected for "Similar Content". The background is completely deferent, anyway they caught as similar. Keywords for backgrounds are different.

While Shutterstock's rejections for similar content are often not justified and don't follow their own rules, their Similar Content FAQ says  that the same content with just different background is too similar and will not be accepted.

https://support.submit.shutterstock.com/s/article/Why-was-my-content-rejected-for-Similar-Content?language=en_US

248,690 sliced tomatoes isolated stock photos. Today. 2/1/2022

That's just the isolated!

but mine will blow all the others away!

Yes like the best ever perfect cheeseburger? I remember that quest from probably 2009.

268,149 cheeseburger

But still one word searches aren't realistic for what any intelligent buyer would actually enter. Someone reasonably smart would use at least three words to narrow down what they wanted.

67,723 cheeseburger and fries with lettuce and tomato - which is still 67,000 results for the same thing, and makes it not worth shooting.
Cooking a little better - 2,383 double bacon cheeseburger (everyone loves bacon and it's a hot item now?)
1,491 double bacon cheeseburger with fries - but over half the images have NO FRIES!

To add something that's actually of use to this, the words "and" or "with" make no difference in the search results.

Have fun finding good subjects that someone might actually want and then making something with a 3 or 4 word description and keywords that make yours stand out.

Not that it means this one will every make me rich or get many sales:

1 purple basil eggplant and tofu with sauce

purple basil eggplant and tofu with sauce

Popularity: score High, Usage score: High usage!  Someone is getting rich!

Quote from: Uncle Pete on February 02, 2022, 13:46

purple basil eggplant and tofu with sauce

Popularity: score High, Usage score: High usage!  Someone is getting rich!

Don't believe anything the image ranks show. We can see that when people have better images, that make more, and show, No Sales. Here are the real numbers on SS for my Tofu with purple eggplant topped with basil and garlic sauce.  14    $5.97    3/12/11  Yes that's it, since 2011 $5.97 which is less than the order of food would cost at the Indonesian restaurant.

It probably ranks high because, it's the only one? Or maybe because people who searched for some of the words, later bought the image. I suspect (no proof, just a WAG) that when an image gets a DL for words, matching the search words, the rank goes up. It makes sense. Words + DL = rank improves.

Keywords are killing everything. Could you guess what's on photo below based on description and keywords?

"Korea buffet dessert food table"

"breads, buffet, bulgogi, cake, chinese new year, cookies, culinary, dessert, dim sum, food, fried, fruit, galbijjim, grape, ice cream, japanese, jokbal, kiwi, korea buffet, korea pancake, korean, korean traditional food, orange, pineapple, rib, salad, stewardess, tiramisu cake, tofu, tofu sandwich, tomato sauce bottle, trotter, vanilla, vegetable, yogurt"

Hint: only two keywords are related to the photo 

https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/korea-buffet-dessert-food-table-1892796508

There are some funny ones in there like tiramisu cake along with the many that are nothing in the photo. But funny thing, they left out colander? Sometimes, and I know I've done it, when tagging a group of photos, one can get the words from something else, and it's all terribly wrong. Without looking the same person should have a real photo or a number of them of the Korea Buffet Dessert Table?

Now if it's totally wrong and spam? Yeah that happens too.

Quote from: Uncle Pete on February 02, 2022, 13:46

1 purple basil eggplant and tofu with sauce

eggplant with yuxiang sauce?  one of my alltime favorites! I make it with lamb or pork.  (we had a neighbor named yuxiang)

I don't have a clue, I just eat things, and often it was "Here eat this..." What is it? "You'll like it!" Tofu and tripe, hot chicken knuckles, the things that the cooks and kitchen help had, that was left over from making the food for the paying customers. Menu only says Vegetarian Tofu in Garlic sauce. Indonesian restaurant that is now sold.

I still wonder how you get rejected for similar after years and someone else, obviously dribbles his uploads in, same angles, same cut of meat or basic elements and his get passed?



The old, old, early years, (poor image) chicken Marsala is mine. SS image recognition sees all those others as similar. It's just not very smart.

How did the 7 + 4 around mine get passed? Looks like the garnish moved. 

Well, my 10 cents from the video side of things...
...
I try to give at least 2-3 good variations on every clip, which brings my batches to an average of 20-40 clips.
This makes them fall right into the "similar content" trap.
My workaround  - 2-3 submissions at least a few days apart (which probably pass through different reviewers)
This usually ends up with 80-90% of the clips accepted.

unfortunately, that won't work with images -- the AI(?) checks against your entire portfolio before a reviewer sees it.

funniest one i've seen in awhile -- none of the similars are remotely related to a prehistoric site (except for the triscuit found in Tut's tomb)

https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/hunting-scenes-neolithic-paintings-catalhoyuk-6500-508200409

and pizza?  tree bark would be more similar

STOP the Whining! Improve your food photos https://www.shutterstock.com/blog/instagrammable-food-photo-tips

Trouble with some parts of that article are.............."4. Shoot in Natural Light

Lighting can make or break a food photo�or any photo for that matter�and it�s not something that can be fixed in Photoshop. Artificial light can make your food look unappealing and unappetizing, so it�s typically best to avoid it when possible. That includes using a flash. "

Clearly, the author has never taken the trouble to learn how to use 'flash'/'strobe'. I think I can count on the fingers of one hand how many good-selling food shots I've taken using natural light! My food photography clients don't have windows facing the right direction...so I use artificial light and that's usually strobe! SS often has articles giving junk advice.

Remember this set? But they are all different users.

I'm sure I have a photo like this. Let me upload it.