MicrostockGroup

After 200 rejected files at dreamstime for "Too many photos/illustrations on the same subject or from the same series blah blah blah ......" I give up.
I won't upload new files until something changes in their policy.
Don't have problems with SS IS FT BS AL but DT is something out of all.
I quit with them if that's the point of their stupid policy.

Of course not.
Actually I thing DT folks should take some extra classes from IS reviewers.

They need editors with some graphic design background. I can't tell you the strange variety of images I've needed to find to produce the concepts that pop into my mind when designing. You can't predict it and shouldn't try. I also don't care about the photographer who took the shot I need so his/her sales history is irrelevant. It's the quality of the shot that matters. They should accept images of good ( "top") quality and not worry about the rest. If the bulging image catalog is a problem, start weeding out old images.

I really hope people on DT hear you. The "similars" rejections there are not just annoying, often they don't even make any sense. They reject images of the same model with totally different face expressions as similars. You don't have to be a graphic designer to understand that often several images of the same model expressing different emotions are used to illustrate a concept or to promote a product or a service. But your choice on DT is severely restricted because they take 3 images out of available 15.... one of the reason I started to sell from my own site...

The standard answer at Dreamstime is:
Questioning our policy will not be "tolerated."   

They can make up whatever rules they want in their own forum, I don't post much in any of the sites forums any more.  I think they all look at this forum and I hope they never threaten people that have a good discussion here, as we need somewhere to say what we really think.

I don't think any of the sites pay much to their reviewers, even if they could afford experts, it's still really hard to guess what will sell and what wont.  They are going to get it wrong a lot of the time and that's why I would much rather see the sites accept more and delete them if they don't sell after a year.  I think that would make them more money.  There's enough lower quality old files that could be removed, if they want to improve the quality of their collections.

I know Serban, and he can definitely handle criticism.  What is being described here is a problem at all microstock sites.  You can't speak your mind on the IS or Fotolia forums either.  

How do you know it is stupid policy?  Do you know how many buyers actually want 'similars' as a percentage of buyers out there?  It is totally possible that Dreamstime buyers tend NOT to buy similars and complain that the results are clogged up with similar images from the same contributor, and that Dreamstime is actually trying to increase their revenue (and yours) by forcing contributors to self select.  I have no doubt that both types of buyers exist, but who are we to say in what proportion and on which site?  What is good for the site is rarely good for all contributors - do you happen to be one of those negatively affected?  I for one am willing to entertain the idea that their buyers fit the pattern of people who are willing to pay more for a single image, and less likely to want similars...  If nothing else, isn't it a good sign that a stock agency seems to be pushing buyers to pay more for imagery?  Unlike some other sites you get a higher royalty when they sell an image for more...

I'm sorry but my experience shows that his way of speaking and his attitude as a whole is...  

and this is a problem at all sites - for sure

Well, it might be one of the reasons why their share of the market has roughly halved over the last 5 years. The buyers have been voting with their money and nearly 90% of them nowadays choose to shop elsewhere. It's got to be a fair bet that their market share will halve again over the next 5 years too.

It's not just 'similars' from vast series of images either. They virtually closed down entire subjects to new submissions several years ago __ depending upon the bizarre whim of the reviewer at the time anyway. I remember capturing a particularly good stock image of a popular national flag in 2006. DT rejected it as they felt they had 'enough flags now'. It was a 12MP image taken with the 'brand new' 5D whereas all their other images were a maximum of 6MP, most of them taken with P&S cameras (it was 2006!). Fortunately I persisted and slipped it through a few weeks later where it quickly became the best-selling image in it's subject, as it was elsewhere too.

I'm sorry but I could give you lots of examples of DT rejections of perfectly good and unique stock images that buyers on all the other sites seem to find useful. I certainly don't see how that helps them or their buyers.

I have always thought the way the DT search engine will return a whole row of similars in a row is bad, but rather than take the effort to change this (or perhaps put the similars behind one of them or something like that), they are taking a sledgehammer to things.

As usual, the proof will be in what they actually do. I remember IS was once going to get tough on spammers, as far as I could tell they never did.
If they actually clean up their image collection that will be fine, if they delete for example a picture of a sailboat and a rowboat because they are similar to the aircraft carrier, then it won't be fine. Based on my pessimistic view of things there, I suspect the latter. Also, just because someone else has a picture of something doesn't mean I don't want one in my port too.

Reading some of the DT posts on their boards, you'd think the way to make money at DT is to not submit anything and delete all but your level 5 images. Now I bet that would improve the RPI and RPD, but the bottom line is going to hurt.

It is nice that we still get 50% for level 5 images, but dropping down to 30% for level 1 has really hurt the submitter, especially in the long tail images.

They said trust us, your income will go up when they lowered commissions. Mine went down for over a year and only now are back to the level they were before the drop (with plenty of new images).

I think trying to get people to combine multiple images into one is a particularly lame effort. Isn't microstock micro enough? Also it makes the thumbs look like crap.

I also agree w/ Lisa - as long as they don't remove my images it is fine.

Yes, it's horrible. In fact they should take classes from pretty much ANY other big agency, at pretty much ANYTHING regarding stock imagery.

Dreamstime made waaaaaay too much misstakes over the last years and this is just another one. As a buyer, I left already.

The income from over there is nothing but a joke and continue to decline. Commission cut didn`t help. I`m glad that many of the newcomer Agencies start to pass by soon and may make uploading to them pointless for me.