MicrostockGroup

Was surprised to see I only have 6 slots left this week when last night I had about 104. 

March 18, 2011 (09:11)
Contributors: The upload limithas been decreased to 5 submissions/day (35/week). Such measure was taken in order to limit the massive number of similar and identical uploads. We kindly ask you to be more selective with your uploads. - posted by Tangie

35 per week?  OMG, who are they trying to emulate?  Istock?  I don't even get 35, my acceptance is 79.5% and you need 80 so I get half.  For the first time in 18 months I have time to edit my pile and I will have to sit on them and try to remember where I sent what.   

I bet they have been swamped reviewing all the ex-exclusive IS portfolios.

I can't understand their rejection policy, so I stopped uploading months ago.  I really don't like going through the tedious process knowing that my image could be rejected just because the reviewer thinks it's "similar" to something else.  I much prefer spending my time doing something less frustrating.

sorry but never like this one

What is their definition of a week I wonder?  Is it Monday through Sunday maybe?  Most of my slots were already filled when the change took place yesterday (Friday).

I don't. Despite what they say, buyers buy similar images and images from the same series. They buy them a lot. These agencies just need to allow us to organize our images into series and collections. If they want to limit the number of images from a collection that show up in a search, that's fine, but don't restrict similars. They are just being lazy by taking the quick fix solution. It doesn't help buyers or contributors though.

Exactly! Very oftenly I BUY and SELL shots from a Series. DT just doesn`t know how to handle the Volume and try to find a simple solution without thinking too much about their actions.

Furthermore I will repeat what I wrote in another post about DT:

As a BUYER: this whole duplicate thing is complete nonsense. I download per month arround 150 Images and I can assure you that Designers love duplicates!

I give you one example:
Last week I was looking for a typical Microstock Image. It was for an print Publication and promoting the Customers Website (Something like: "Visit our page too!"). So I searched for a couple smiling in front of a Laptop. Now you may think there are enough Images of that, but no, not on Dreamstime. They have to be a certain age and a certain environment. Fastly I found something suitable and downloaded it. But the angle was not right and didn`t leave enough space for the assigned text. Off course you can Photoshop this arround, but time is money and before I struggle around half an hour in PS I looked if there are other Images from the same series with a different angle. Answer: no. I left Dreamstime and went to another page (Canstock) and found it.

Luckily, bad policies hurt agencies more than photographers: if buyers can't find what they need at any particular agency, they will search somewhere - as an independent, I couldn't care less where they buy from (except for agencies with very low %)

Isn't their maximum images allowed per week rate based on your average % of accepted images?  In other words, the higher the % of your images they approve, the more you can submit each week.

Mat

Yes. I have 86% acceptance rate and a limit of 35. Much too low.

you never know what someone could need - that's the truth

and all this restrictions are...

Sometimes, the policies at DT are just crap; how much time does it really take to review a group of 100 images that are all similars; just hit the reject key for 99 of the images and allow the rest of the contributors submit a decent number of images each week.

I do not like their policy of similars but do not punish me because someone else will not follow the guidelines.  At least they allow us to upload and keep in the upload area until submission, that is what I do.

I don't have a lot of similar uploads, but there have been cases where a photo I don't think has a lot of sales potential, sales like crazy...so having to chose what is the best can sometimes be difficult because what I think is good someone else might think is pure crap...so it's difficult when you're limited. I don't advocate uploading 30 similar, but more than just a couple would be much fairer in my opinion.

If DT really wants to take a progressive step, go back and review some of the older files; some of them are pure trash.  Granted  most have sales but that does not indicate quality.  Do a search for bald eagles; you will see older bald eagle in flight shots with underside of wings black (dark shadows), poor focus, poor lighting, etc.  Same thing for pets, some really trashy pet shots, never should be in a professional portfolio of selling images.  I am in favor of good fair standards of acceptance now and using these same standards to eliminate older files that would never get accepted now if submitted.  Why keep 12 million images in your database if 5 million of them are junk; purge this junk