I received an email today from Dreamstime with a list of about 500 of my images that have been removed from my on-line portfolio with them because they are "similar" to other images.
Apparently, it's done to "improve my sales". And the files that were removed were "approved by accident".
It looks like they are losing it. It sure looks and feels like complete insanity.

...and, by the way, lots of removed files are not similar at all to anything I have in my port... and lots of them are new files, too - didn't have a chance to sell yet.

I got this recently too. Fortunately they only removed 2 files.

Quote from: Elenathewise on April 18, 2011, 15:12
And the files that were removed were "approved by accident".

Accidental approval.  Yes, this is a new one.

I expect more of this sort of thing in the future, as the microstocks start to accept the fact that their search results can't be much better than they already are, unless they start to actually sort through those millions of images, deleting repetitious junk and spam keywords.   And they might very well hire new people to do this, and not give them much training, so lots of mistakes will be made.

500 images?  Obviously no one actually looked at all of them and made intelligent decisions. Someone is just in there swinging an axe.

Does this practice actually improve the overall site and sales for the company? I doubt it.

Also the idea of "accidental" approvals is silly. How old do they think you are? If your are moving ahead with such a policy at least have the ba**s to call it what it is.

I'm so pleased I haven't wasted my time uploading there lately.  Do they ever consider how long it takes to upload 500 images there?  It isn't a quick process, when you have to go through all those categories.

What I still don't understand is why most of the big sites are being much harder with new images now.  Why don't they just remove all those old files that were taken years ago with inferior cameras and lenses?

My oldest photos were taken with a 6mp camera with a cheap kit lens.  Are they really superior to a 5DMKII with good glass?

Hopefully buyers will realize they can get better quality new images on other sites like Stockfresh, Canstockphoto and Graphic Leftovers.

This getting ridiculous, they took off some of mine as well for insane reasons.

The kicker is that they keep approving low quality images while deletimg high quality "similars".

I dont get it.

Quote from: stockastic on April 18, 2011, 15:53
I expect more of this sort of thing in the future, as the microstocks start to accept the fact that their search results can't be much better than they already are, unless they start to actually sort through those millions of images, deleting repetitious junk and spam keywords.   And they might very well hire new people to do this, and not give them much training, so lots of mistakes will be made.

500 images?  Obviously no one actually looked at all of them and made intelligent decisions. Someone is just in there swinging an axe.

This is what I am thinking. And I know that from a contributor's standpoint, this stinks. But I do believe it will be an improvement for buyers. Having to wade through two or three pages of images that are so similar, one has difficulty finding the difference, is really annoying and never should have happened in the first place. I understand the concept of similars, as we have discussed in the past, and in that context I agree that similars are useful.

Like stockastic says, it might be people with little or no training, going overboard. There never seems to be a happy medium anymore with micros.  

Just implement a search feature like Alamy does which groups similars automatically into a lightbox kind of search results page.

The contributor has no extra work and the search results are not cluttered with pages and pages of similars.

Dreamstime is doing it the hard way/cheap way.

I had 3 pictures removed recently for the same reason; but 500 is completely insane. Removing approved images without a serious reason is a waste of time for contributors and for them as well. I don't think this will help them sell more pictures - in fact they will lose buyers, annoyed by the lack of choice.

Surprised so many have been removed from one of the top sellers! 

Quote from: click_click on April 18, 2011, 16:39
Just implement a search feature like Alamy does which groups similars automatically into a lightbox kind of search results page.

The contributor has no extra work and the search results are not cluttered with pages and pages of similars.

Dreamstime is doing it the hard way/cheap way.

This would be a most excellent way of doing it.

They are only removing files with no sales though aren't they?  I haven't received my notice yet, I know it's coming though!

From Achilles in the DT forum:
Starting today we will begin to select portfolios that are dramatically affected by this issue and clean them of blatant similars, identicals, flipped images and small angle variations that have 0 downloads. We will try to be gentle but some users will see a significant amount of content being removed. Once they are reviewed they will be removed without refusals being counted in the approval ratio.

Strange indeed they call them 'accidentally approved' while its obviously only about the new similars policy...

Quote from: Artemis on April 18, 2011, 16:53
From Achilles in the Dreamstime forum:
Starting today we will begin to select portfolios that are dramatically affected by this issue and clean them of blatant similars, identicals, flipped images and small angle variations that have 0 downloads. We will try to be gentle but some users will see a significant amount of content being removed. Once they are reviewed they will be removed without refusals being counted in the approval ratio.

Strange indeed they call them 'accidentally approved' while its obviously only about the new similars policy...

Do you have a link for the thread?

I expect very soon DT to be in Middle Tier. With this policy the only thing they gain is losing their suppliers.
Wake up DT!

Quote from: cthoman on April 18, 2011, 17:22

Quote from: Artemis on April 18, 2011, 16:53
From Achilles in the Dreamstime forum:
Starting today we will begin to select portfolios that are dramatically affected by this issue and clean them of blatant similars, identicals, flipped images and small angle variations that have 0 downloads. We will try to be gentle but some users will see a significant amount of content being removed. Once they are reviewed they will be removed without refusals being counted in the approval ratio.

Strange indeed they call them 'accidentally approved' while its obviously only about the new similars policy...

Do you have a link for the thread?

Half way down:

http://www.dreamstime.com/forumm_26339_pg7

Well, dont flame me but actually I approve of this kind of action if its justyfied that is ( dont know about Elena though) .  Clogging up the files in an agency is IMO, one of the chief reasons why we have this terrible state at the moment, I bet all in all with the entire Micro world, some 60% could be removed and leave 40% of relevant, not copycats material.

Quote from: Megastock on April 18, 2011, 17:48
Half way down:

http://www.dreamstime.com/forumm_26339_pg7

Thanks!

Quote from: lagereek on April 18, 2011, 17:50
Well, dont flame me but actually I approve of this kind of action if its justyfied that is ( dont know about Elena though) .  Clogging up the files in an agency is IMO, one of the chief reasons why we have this terrible state at the moment, I bet all in all with the entire Micro world, some 60% could be removed and leave 40% of relevant, not copycats material.

It really depends on how is it implemented. Are we talking scalpel or rusty hacksaw? Like someone said above, it would be nice if they came up with a better solution like grouping similars as collections in the search instead of just rejecting them.

Quote from: lagereek on April 18, 2011, 17:50
Well, dont flame me but actually I approve of this kind of action if its justyfied that is ( dont know about Elena though) .  Clogging up the files in an agency is IMO, one of the chief reasons why we have this terrible state at the moment, I bet all in all with the entire Micro world, some 60% could be removed and leave 40% of relevant, not copycats material.

In theory it's a good idea but I stopped uploading after I did a basic search for one of my "similars" that was rejected and couldn't find one photo like it on the site.  It just isn't worth me uploading there when they do that.

Quote from: cclapper on April 18, 2011, 16:35

Quote from: stockastic on April 18, 2011, 15:53
I expect more of this sort of thing in the future, as the microstocks start to accept the fact that their search results can't be much better than they already are, unless they start to actually sort through those millions of images, deleting repetitious junk and spam keywords.   And they might very well hire new people to do this, and not give them much training, so lots of mistakes will be made.

500 images?  Obviously no one actually looked at all of them and made intelligent decisions. Someone is just in there swinging an axe.

This is what I am thinking. And I know that from a contributor's standpoint, this stinks. But I do believe it will be an improvement for buyers. Having to wade through two or three pages of images that are so similar, one has difficulty finding the difference, is really annoying and never should have happened in the first place. I understand the concept of similars, as we have discussed in the past, and in that context I agree that similars are useful.

Like stockastic says, it might be people with little or no training, going overboard. There never seems to be a happy medium anymore with micros.  

Simply wrong. As said in other threads I buy arround 100 - 150 images each month. It takes me 2 sec to overlook a page of results and many times I have to download various "similars" to find the right ones. Dreamstime just doesn`t understand designers needs.

Imagine you need an isolated to be placed on a 480x120 web banner and need the right angle to represent a project nicely. Imagine you need an 4000x1000 cut for a quarter page print add, lets say a smiling girl with a wood in the background. In one image she may stand in a Angle or the shot has a angle that the person is cutted badly in this format. In another one there is not enough wood over the head of the girl to place the desired text. I could give MILLIONS of those examples. And finally we contributors notice too when a whole series of one shooting gets downloaded. Dreamstime is jsut unprofessional. Nothing else.

like I said on other topic I had 46 pictures removed, some from like 2 weeks

Quote from: velocicarpo on April 18, 2011, 18:32

Simply wrong. As said in other threads I buy arround 100 - 150 images each month. It takes me 2 sec to overlook a page of results and many times I have to download various "similars" to find the right ones. Dreamstime just doesn`t understand designers needs.

You should contact them and let them know.  These types of comments will mean more coming from a designer than from a rank-and-file contributor. 

what is the more concerning is what is going in at this minute.. I am far from pro but I don´t send crappy pictures, tons are approved from new contributors, they are giving them incentives to upload but those pictures shouldn´t be approved, they are not even done properly but as they are new they get in.. not going to pick portfolio but you can find this quite fast..

I really think that Dreamstime want a picture of something from everyone, if you produce a better one they said you have already on portfolio, they are just looking for new contributors but not looking into what are approving..