Frustrating rejections again at Shutterstock

[cdwheatley]

I agree completly that this should never have been refused but the question was 'please tell me how to fix it'.

That was my failed attempt at sarcasm.
I'm no expert but, For me I focus on the color, feel, and concept. Is it inviting?, Is it balanced? could it be used to sell something?  The bigest problem I see is the umbrella. It sounded like a good idea at the time but if I did it again I would lose the umbrella. Unfortunately its not cheap to get there.  Its like the joke "how many photographers does it take to shoot (insert text)? it takes 100... one photographer to take the shot and 99 others to say how they would have done it different. I know Its not going to be one of my top sellers, but it will probably sell a little bit. The designers/buyers are king in the stock world, let them decide.

[stokfoto]

The image is on the front page of BS.congratulations.
funny isn't it one rejects it while another  puts it on the front page:)

I agree with the above comments  had I been the reviewer I wouldn't have rejected it however  I do agree that  it could be improved by  cloning out the drift wood.

[welshsnapper]

 
I'm fairly new to microstock libraries, but I've tried 2 - Shutterstock and Shutterfarm and I get the distinct impression, especially after reading other posters' comments, that these libraries are perhaps using some kind of automated assessment system. A whole batch of mine were rejected with exactly the same reason - 'image contains noise or pixelation'.

First question would be "well, which is it - noise or pixelation?"

I've checked the images in question and they are neither noisy - very clean digital images, and neither do they have any kind of pixelation.

I can only assume that these pictures had not actually been reviewed by a human being.

Can anone out there confirm this theory or otherwise please?

[peep]

What is shutterfarm? I have never heart of them. Does anybody have any experience? Are they worth joining for people who are already with shutterstock?

[welshsnapper]

Shutterfarm is a newish library which offers a payout of $0.50 per 'credit' where the number of credits required to buy an image is set by the artist.

[CJM Grafx]

I am glad to hear it's not just me then regarding SS!

I just found this web site and I am glad I did, there are a lot of great folks here with good advice. I was only submitting to IS, which I just started using at the end of last year, but based on info from people here I joined several of the others.

I submitted my initial ten images to SS this weekend and yesterday the first 4 were rejected, which means no submitting for thirty days now! Oddly enough, the four images that were rejected by SS are my best selling images at IS.

Any way, thanks to the great group of folks here. Like I said, glad I found this site.

Joe

[Snufkin]

I submitted my initial ten images to SS this weekend and yesterday the first 4 were rejected, which means no submitting for thirty days now! Oddly enough, the four images that were rejected by SS are my best selling images at IS.

Yeah, SS seems tougher than IS. I got accepted 2 weeks ago, that was my second attempt, got 9 out of 10 accepted.
Just pay attention to noise and lighting, Joe, because they are very strict about that. You might want also downsample the pics to 4-5 MP range, as it may help to conceal some flaws like e.g. noise.

If you got 6 at the first time, it is not bad at all, you will make it.
From what I have read many people have failed the first attempt, some had to try a couple of times.

[Waldo4]

As of late I've been getting a new rejection from them (2 in the last few weeks) that really bothers me.  They have been rejecting my shots for keyword spamming, which I do not do.

They don't tell you which ones they don't like unfortunately so you just have to guess.

The first one was a glass of beer and a bottle.  Simple enough, but there are 100000 of these shots so to stand out I got very descriptive.  I included all of the styles that it could be by visual inspection, it was a shot of a lighter German Dopplebock (and was in a Dopplebock glass), but I also included Belgian Dubbel and Scotch in the keywords, as by a visual inspection there is no way that you can tell the difference between some examples of these styles.  I dropped the ones that weren't 100% accurate (Belgian, Dubbel, Scotch) and wrote two sentences that completely described my shot, which happened to include every keyword and it got accepted on a resubmit.

Next was an isolated apple.  Again this is a shot that there are 1000000 of so I got very descriptive, and used a less common variety to stand out.  It is cross bred between a Jonathan and a Golden Delicious, a Jonagold.    It is an isolation with shadows, but I included a shadowless clipping path with the file, and indicated as such in the keywords, since lacking a description for buyers, the keywords become the description (some buyers search for files with clipping paths, IMO if it is contained in the file (and you put forth the effort to put it in when it wasn't needed) this should be indicated to buyers).  I am almost sure that one of the naughty words is either cross, path, Golden, or Jonathan, yet these words can describe the image 100% accurately (apple clipping path, Golden Delicious Jonathan cross, cross bred apple, etc...).  These searches however will eliminate most of the isolated apple shots out there, but my words are not innaccurate.  I resubmitted it with three sentences that described the shot that contained every keyword, (no inaccuracies in the sentences either), hopefully it is approved since there is no spamming.

This leaves me with a growing concern that I am going to have to write out descriptive sentences in the reviewer notes for every shot that I submit to justify my keywords, in the end making the submission process more difficult than IS's disambiguation.  Good keywording IMO is one thing that will make your shot found years from now.  If you can describe your shot in a manner that the search results return less than a page of shots, amongst the millions that they have, your shot has to potential to last a very long time.  Even though the search may be ultra rare (or never done), any search is possible, and I want to be included in all searches that are 100% relevant to my shot, even if it is at the expense of showing up in completely irrelevant searches (like religious searches with my apple - golden cross), it isn't my fault that they do not have something like disambiguation that would eliminate showing up in completely unrelated places.

[massman]

Who on earth is going to search with 'golden cross' when looking for an apple, if they are aware that this rare apple exists then surly the would use 'Jonagold'. I understand what you are saying, but I think you maybe taking it a bit too far.

[Waldo4]

Who on earth is going to search with 'golden cross' when looking for an apple, if they are aware that this rare apple exists then surly the would use 'Jonagold'. I understand what you are saying, but I think you maybe taking it a bit too far.

They wouldn't search with golden cross, but cross bred apple is a very legitimate search, as is red and golden apple, as is Golden delicious cross (this isn't the only one).

At SS red isolated apple might last a week before being buried to oblivion.  Absolutely nothing is inaccurate in my keywords, and they would give it rare search staying power.

[gborce]

So what is the best way to contact SS about these rejections? I wrote several times to their customer support through the 'contact us' link, but no reply whatsoever? Is posting to their forums better? Or is there another way?

Btw, I had the same experience with reposting lighting/composition rejected images, they usually get accepted after a couple of times, but it is a pain to do, and keep track of , especially when submitting to 10+ sites.  I only bother resubmitting for IS and SS anyway.