MicrostockGroup

How are these landscape images? Do you guys think they are better than snapshots? The top one is Mt. Rainier at sunset, the middle ones are Death Valley, a saltflat and some sand dunes, the last one is an oak I shot into the setting sun at Mt. Diablo state park in California.











And here is my website for a wider range of images I have taken-

http://rasmussenimages.smugmug.com/

I am not pimping my images or anything, but all of these were just rejected by a certain microstock site for being low quality and like too many others in their collection, and yes, they did hurt my feelings. I know it is late but I can't help it, I am so upset I probably will not even be able to sleep tonight. I keep thinking I am getting better at this but I keep getting shot down/ignored. I am fairly successful with vectors and a few other things on the micros but it is frustrating that my passion is with landscape photography and I don't seem to be any good at it. Sorry to complain but my frustration has been building up for quite some time now. I put more work into this than the average snapshooter, generally use a tripod, filters where appropriate, like a graduated ND filter, and put considerable effort into shooting these. The Mt. Rainier shot I had to hike back at night because I cannot camp there.
 

The top one is great, reserve on the noise. I will not send the one of the tree and would try to improve contrast on the other. Either do a tone mapping or use Topaz plugin for CS3.
Generally speaking most sites like landscape photos with pop up colors except Istock
Good luck

I shoot mostly landscapes too and get alot of landscape rejections.  I would think however that your Mt. Ranier shot would sell to some degree, but again, microstock in general doesn't place a high priority on such images unless it conveys some kind of concept.  Now if you had a tent in there or a young hiking couple holding hands and enjoying the scenery it would be more marketable as a stock image.
In my nature and landscape stock photography I try to get some sort of a human element into the image.
Sometimes I'll even do a dayhike and carry along a tent and a few camping props to quickly set up, take a few shots, and then pack up again. 
Don't take rejections personally as they're reviewing purely on the basis of a "will it sell here?" mentality.

Thanks for the feedback, when I wrote that late last night I was just upset about the rejections and was tired, etc. It wasn't Fotolia even though they will probably be rejected there too based on what you are saying about them.

 I used to upload lots of generic landscape images to the site in question and they were mostly accepted back then(1-3 years ago). Then I started selling my better landscape images as RM on Alamy but I am not sure I am making more there than I would if they were on the micros. I have seen other photographers who specialize in traditional landscape do quite well on the micros, in particular Eric Foltz and AVTG on IStock seem to do quite well for some reason. I have seen other particular images of landscapes do well also, perhaps not quite as successful as vectors or the kind of images Yuri Arcurs produces, but I have seen some do quite well. I like to have variety in my portfolio and I wanted to upload some of what I think I am best at (landscapes) to draw more attention to the rest of my portfolio and give it some uniqueness.

I don't have CS3(only CS2), but maybe if I adjust the curves slightly they might be better? As far as the oak tree shot, I dunno, I saw that and thought it looked interesting and unusual because of the lighting, I was experimenting. What is wrong with it, is there anything I could have done to better take advantage of that lighting situation?

Great images marco, if they are good technical quality at 100% I bet they will also sell. Landscapes do sell, maybe not as much as pictures with people, but they do. I really like the first one, although it might be a bit over saturated for iStockphoto.

Isn't the top one over-over-saturated?

yes whitechild, for SS no, for IS yes. and also over processed by IS standard too.
i agree with you on the last image. i would work on getting more out of the shadow details with the rest.
all nice images by the way marcopolo, if you feel it's worth it, i would use the curve or Hi/Shadow feature to get it to reduce the contrast range. even play with gradient layer too.
but for SS, i wouldn't do anything but submit it as is. if they reject you it will be composition.

that's my tupenny's worth of comment.

Hmmm.... Not sure if you're paying me a compliment or expressing surprise that I have managed to have some success selling landscapes at IS.

Anyway, here's some advice.

1. Diversity. By diversity I mean shoot at as many locations as you can. Start with the National Parks, then State Parks, then landmarks and just keep expanding your portfolio.

2. Diversity. Don't just shoot the "trophy" shots. Look for unique views of well known landmarks.

3. Don't expect to visit a location once while on vacation and get a bestseller. Over the last 15 years, I've been to almost all the national parks multiple times, visited hundreds of state parks, and have crisscrossed the entire U.S. 12 times to get the shots I have in my portfolio.

4. Be honest. Compare your images to your competition. Just because you have a shot of Mesquite Dunes in Death Valley does not guarantee that it will sell when matched up against the 100s of other similar shots from the same location. Is your shot the best shot you've seen from that location? If not, keep going back until you get the shot that you know you'll never be able to beat.

Instead of posting here asking if your shot of Rainier is any good, try posting your shot and what you consider to be the best shot of Rainier on IS and ask people which they would buy.

5. Accurate keywording and good captions.

Good luck.

Wow, every single image you posted is simply gorgeous! Well, at least to my mind Great lightning and colors! Are these HDRs? Cannot imagine why these were rejected. Accept perhaps if you uploaded them together as an application for some agency. They like diversity, so 3 or 10 landscape images(no matter how great) will perhaps not be sufficient? Well this is just a guess. I wouldn't reject them except they were full of artifacts etc

I really like the first three, the rest leave me indifferent. For the first one I would suggest better postprocessing to bring out the punch, it is beautiful, but not striking enough in terms of contrast or colors, also try playing with dodge and burn.