All,
A heads up to everyone it appears that "Attila the Reviewer" has surfaced at BigStockPhoto (BigStock). It has been seven days since my last approval (1) and 29 rejections since then. Hell ... even God rested on the 7th day.
Mark
I noticed you didn't get very many supporters on your comment. I have been on SS for a couple of months now and have been doing pretty good. I decided a couple of weeks ago to try the other top sites and I have to say I was quite surprised at the amount of rejection I got on pictures that had been accepted by SS and are selling well. Out of the 10 pictures I submitted, the rejected all but one. Quite a few were rejected due to "blurry image", which I disagree with. From a new person's perspective, I'd say that Attila the Reviewer has taken a full time position as BigStock.
I'm not going to be my usual sarcastic self on this one.
I have more photos on BigStock than anywhere else of the magnificent seven. Part of the reason is size of course, I have old photos from the old cameras, also I'll confess that I'm still more of a beginner in stock. Sites like IS, SS, DT, and StockXpert, regularly reject photos that get I accepted at BigStock.
The only thing I can guess is that while my pictures aren't the best "stock", some are even highly saturated, they are usually sharp, and that may be the problem that some others are having? 90% of them came from the Canon 10D.
I've had photos taken with the 40D and my 28-135 lens, that are rejected for sharpness. And the rejections can be justified. If I reduce the size of the same images and upload to BigStock, they are accepted.
What I'm guessing at here, since I can't see Mark's or your photos, is that maybe they are expecting crisp, sharp photos, and any softness gets them rejected.
Just a guess. But I don't doubt that both of you are taking at least equal or better compositions, so what's left? I don't sharpen images or use noise reduction. (maybe if there's a big blue sky, that would show loads of CA) in which case select whatever way you prefer and use noise reduction only on the sky.
Normally all I do is, crop, view at 100% for spots, hairs, blemishes, dust bunnies... magic healing tool is my best friend. Then search for logos and things that we can't include, blur, clone or paint those out. Color correction for tint, then levels, black first then white. This isn't heavy editing or time consuming.
If it wasn't for stock, and I was making prints for myself, I'd possibly use the dodge and burn tools to improve areas that needed help. But more editing takes more time.
When I get sharpness rejections on images, shot on a tripod at f/8 or smaller, ISO 100, I begin to think it's the lens. Then I say to myself, this is stock! What the heck do they want for a dollar!
Always remember, if you are counting acceptance and not sales, you can upload just about anything to SV and have it accepted.
Otherwise, don't expect any rational or logical consistency between the sites for what gets accepted or rejected. In fact, you can have a photo rejected, and accidentally re-submit it a second time and it gets accepted at the same site.
I don't bother playing that game or re-submitting anything, but others have taken their chances and had a different reviewer accept the same photos that have been rejected two weeks before. I don't even track my rejections anymore, just accepted and active photos.
Funniest one is a photo that was rejected everywhere except IS and they are the most consistent for reviews of anyplace, from my experience. Similar is a photo that was rejected on 8 out of 9 sites, and it's only up on BigStock. If neither of these sell, 8 of 9 sites, were right? If they do sell, then someone with a sharp eye saw the potential that all the rest missed.
Reviews are subjective, that's life.