MicrostockGroup
Agency Based Discussion => Dreamstime.com => Topic started by: patw on April 07, 2009, 05:23
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All of sudden my acceptance rate drops like hell at DT since the late of March. Only 3 out of 15 was accepted in my last submittion. Almost all rejections are for "this is well covered....". Funny thing is FT accepted 3 of DT rejected photos. hm...
anyone experiencing similar there?
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anyone experiencing similar there?
Where is your portfolio link?
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All of sudden my acceptance rate drops like hell at DT since the late of March. Only 3 out of 15 was accepted in my last submittion. Almost all rejections are for "this is well covered....". Funny thing is FT accepted 3 of DT rejected photos. hm...
anyone experiencing similar there?
Yes, I had almost 100% acceptance in March, but half of my first batch in April was rejected for this very reason - "well covered..." or "too many shots from the same series". I really hate it when photographs which are technically OK are rejected for those stupid reasons. I would not mind so much if it did not affect my acceptance ratio in a negative way...
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Here is the link: http://www.dreamstime.com/patrickwang_info
I started uploading to DT since middle of February and receiving overall 60% acceptance ratio. Just when I gaining confidence on what I should submit to DT and improving acceptance rate then things changed suddently after a month and half. I've been digging out travel photos accumulated in the past years so nothing changed in my submitted photos.
Peep, I did receive some "too many shots" rejections as well. May be you can try to split them in different bunch of submission. 100% accepted in March? Wow... a dream of me ::)
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Here is the link: [url]http://www.dreamstime.com/patrickwang_info[/url]
I started uploading to DT since middle of February and receiving overall 60% acceptance ratio. Just when I gaining confidence on what I should submit to DT and improving acceptance rate then things changed suddently after a month and half. I've been digging out travel photos accumulated in the past years so nothing changed in my submitted photos.
Peep, I did receive some "too many shots" rejections as well. May be you can try to split them in different bunch of submission. 100% accepted in March? Wow... a dream of me ::)
I did split them - I always do it to avoid any stupid reviewer who does not like the particular subject (he would mass-reject the whole batch). I usually put only two or three images out of series in a batch. And it usually works OK for me both here and on Fotolia. But this time the reviewer was a bit overzealous and obviously looked at the previous batches.
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Yeah they just nailed me too for "well covered subjects".
How long before one of these agencies simply starts posting a list of subjects they currently want, and stops accepting anything else?
And how is a new submitter supposed to know whether a subject is "well covered"?
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If you are having issues with the well covered subject and before shooting you made your research for shooting something not well covered or better than the actual images in the collection, then reply to the email. This is the DT version of IS scout.
Hopefully If they abused the well covered rejection, either your file will be approved and maybe they will be notified to take more care in the future, If many people reply to those kind of rejection
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Let me be devil's advocate for a moment and ask - why do they reject photos for "well covered" subjects anyway? Don't they want new takes on old subjects? Don't they advertise their vast number of images? Do they want the old images to keep selling? What are they afraid of?
Doesn't every subject become "well covered" eventually? And then are they just going to stop accepting new photos and lay off the reviewers?
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yeah been getting a lot of these rejections too lately.
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All of sudden my acceptance rate drops like hell at DT since the late of March. Only 3 out of 15 was accepted in my last submittion. Almost all rejections are for "this is well covered....". Funny thing is FT accepted 3 of DT rejected photos. hm...
anyone experiencing similar there?
Yes, starting in Feb. The same rejected photos are now my best sellers on IS, FT and SS for the last two months. Some well covered subjects can still use new higher quality, better produced, similar images.
What DT has apparently done, (and it's their business, not mine) is issue blanket refusals for "well covered" subjects, that "don't sell well" without regard to the content or quality.
As pointed out in another thread, if you submit a chocolate cookie and get refused for too many like this, the problem may be that someone already uploaded 30+ of the same setup, and same cookie! That's filling the results, instead of a diverse and assorted collection.
If DT wants to market stale old redundant photos, shot on older equipment, smaller size, that's their decision. I can't complain because my sales are going up on five other sites, with the same images that DT (and Panther) just refused. ;D
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I suspect it's about labor costs. Reviewers have to be a big expense for these companies so they're looking for ways to reduce reviewing hours. One easy way is to direct reviewers to immediately reject any image of a subject on the "black list" and not spend even any time looking at its technical quality at 100%.
Remember, as these competing agencies are steadily reducing our prices to zero, they're killing themselves too. The word "commodity" doesn't even describe the situation now. I predict they'll increasingly focus on current needs (i.e. what big buyers are asking for this month) and try to stop spending time reviewing anything else.
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I agree with above. They are mass-rejecting without looking more and more these days. They have top contributors filling the needs anyway...
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It still is better to tell us that they don't want that image than trying to find the technical problem for which they could reject it.
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I once read an interesting article about retailing and malls. Over the years the big clothing stores have ended up selling all the same stuff, and shoppers just got bored and quit going to the malls. Same thing will happen here to some extent.
Right now these microstocks are just DIY warehouses not adding any value to the product. They make money by preventing buyers and sellers from communicating directly. It will take time but things will change.
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He he. I had 8 waiting and another 10 that I submitted earlier today. They cleaned the que, and APPROVED 16/18. Fast and Good accepance ratio ;) Me like longtime...
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It still is better to tell us that they don't want that image than trying to find the technical problem for which they could reject it.
OK - but then they should not use those rejections to decrease our acceptance ratio which they then use to calculate the position of our photos in the search engine results...
It should be something like Accept-Ignore-Reject for any photo. And only the photos rejected for technical flaws should decrease your position in search results.
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I got a "to many similars"-rejection today. It was an image that was already online that I had improved (fixed a crooked horizon etc). I wrote a mail to them about it and wrote a note to the editor about which pic it was meant to replace. Today the improved pic was in my reject list because it was to similar to the picture it was meant to replace LOL
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@OP & all, please read refusal reasons carefuly and correlate the info with your refused images (and in this case, with the ones online). On the "well covered" issue, do a generic search (like "house" and not "red house on a hill") and see how many they are online. Compare the best of them with your submission.
Here is the full reason. From replies above I don't think many people actually read it.
This is a very well covered subject in our data base or the subject of your image is too specific. We are looking for images that exceed the technical quality and creativity of the images already online. Please take a few minutes to browse through the best selling images online (on this subject) and go deeper, play, have a more creative, more personal approach to it, also keeping in mind the technical quality of the image.
@OP as this is not allowed on our forums, it would be a good exercise to use the freedom of MSG and ask for critiques from other users by posting the images. This generic discussion is not helpful without seeing the images.
And remember you're always free to reply to the refusal if you have strong doubts about an image (choose your best refusals only though).
@OP: please don't call our reviewers stupid, they're people just like you and work hard to review your work. Always remember it's many times more difficult for them to refuse an image than to accept it.
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Hi Achilles,
Thanks for your reply. I just feel frustrated on these recent huge amount of rejections and wanted to know if others experiencing the same. I did not use "stupid" in any of my message here and on any other forums. I do appreciate their work and respect the feedbacks on the rejected images.
Yes, as you suggested that I can always go through DT support in the first instance to address any questions or disagreement on any rejections I have got. However there are something else makes me feel not want to do that. I am not going to talk about anything in detail here anymore but will write a message directly to DT later.
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Take it as a challenge patw. Its frustrating for me as well if my images get rejected, but it helps me also to improve. Without the increasing standards of microstock I would not have learned and improved so much.
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I'm sorry Patw, it wasn't you, but another poster who said that.
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I know it sounds cruel, but I would delete all images that didn't sell 2 years or more, and I would implement an algorithm like TinEye in every site to block reuploading of old deleted images and for deleting duplicates. This way images that sell would stay online until nobody buys them 2 years or more, and poor images that didn't sell would be deleted. I know this is not directly connected with the reason "well covered" but I think it would be good for all. It would be good even for contributors who's poor images would be deleted.
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I know it sounds cruel, but I would delete all images that didn't sell 2 years or more, and I would implement an algorithm like TinEye in every site to block reuploading of old deleted images and for deleting duplicates. This way images that sell would stay online until nobody buys them 2 years or more, and poor images that didn't sell would be deleted. I know this is not directly connected with the reason "well covered" but I think it would be good for all. It would be good even for contributors who's poor images would be deleted.
I totally agree with you, although I think the limit should be 3 or 4 years, just to ease contributors into it.
I also think it would be a good idea to delete some of those pics that really are too similar. Like 30 photos of the same pencil from the same contributor. Yes, it would require some resources, but it would pay out because it would make the site more appealing. Also it would solve some of the problems mentioned in the search engine thread.
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@OP as this is not allowed on our forums, it would be a good exercise to use the freedom of MSG and ask for critiques from other users by posting the images. This generic discussion is not helpful without seeing the images.
That's why I asked his "port" in the begin. I should have said the "rejected ones". It's useless to discuss this in abstracto. Maybe Leaf should open a separate category dedicated to rejections + advice to keep it organized. Also, the full size image should be posted. It's easy to put a big bar or cross over it in PS.
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I so agree with this. That is one of the things that must make the searches frustrating for buyers that have to wade through dozens of basically the same image.
I also think it would be a good idea to delete some of those pics that really are too similar. Like 30 photos of the same pencil from the same contributor.
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I also think it would be a good idea to delete some of those pics that really are too similar. Like 30 photos of the same pencil from the same contributor. Yes, it would require some resources, but it would pay out because it would make the site more appealing. Also it would solve some of the problems mentioned in the search engine thread.
This has struck me since day one as the biggest flaw and a huge problem, on every site!
http://tinyurl.com/cospck
Example, not picking on this person, and look at the keywords on the best selling image with two sales.
accident auto automobile beautiful blue break breakdown broken call car cell child childhood clueless complicated damaged drive engine female fix frustration girl hands heart help helpless hood hopeless kid look machine mechanic mechanical mobile motor motorcar parking phone red repair ride scarf solution stop support trouble unhappy vehicle wait winter woman work worries young
(http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/thumb_339/12282589426bfd6s.jpg)
Do they have child drivers licenses now? Help me with Heart and red.
He left out dirt, shoes, weeds, bluejeans, sky, clouds... ::)
Only for the brave, take a look at this, after you look at the keywords. Guess what the photo is? I left off the last few words, which are actually what it is.
a fire a kiss an old age chomk dialogue ecology it and it kiss love love it matches kiss the burnt down matches kiss the burnt matches which have burnt down matches the creative
http://us.fotolia.com/id/12673387
Worst example, but worth the humor of it all, most of these do not include plurals.
FT Red Tomato = Search results: 25807 files
StockXpert Results for "red tomato" 16928 Images
BS = 9,758
123 = 10000 matches
DT = Search results: 24,705
IS = Search results: 24,705
SS = 30,566 results.
The horses are out of the barn, no use to try to close the door now.
DT isn't being stupid, they are sticking their finger in the dike, trying to stop the flood.
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They're trying to stop the flood, but they already have 6 feet of water in the basement and no way to pump it out.
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They're trying to stop the flood, but they already have 6 feet of water in the basement and no way to pump it out.
Old one: It's too late to remember to drain the swamp when you are up to your a$$ in alligators. ;D
How do you go back and edit 6 million photos for keywords, extended redundant series shots, or potential infringing content?
They could throw up their hands and say, it's impossible, or start watching the incoming material, and some day work backwards to make corrections for previous loose regulations. Best part is, I'm not the one who has to figure out how to fix this mess. ;D
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They could throw up their hands and say, it's impossible, or start watching the incoming material
But oddly enough, they seem to be watching incoming material and, at least in my experience, rejecting series of 1s. That is, they cannot afford to add one new image of a "well covered" subject, yet they can afford stuff like this:
http://tinyurl.com/d9yobv
I'm talking about the first 46 "cheeseburgers" (all of which are actually chicken burgers, but would a buyer really care? ;) )
Never mind that some of these are so similar they are hard to tell apart. What about some of these keywords:
beef (chicken, beef, it's all the same, right?), cheddar, cheese (maybe I'm blind, but I can't see a speck of cheese in any of those 46), isolated (ok, some are, but some are not yet still have the keyword), mayonnaise (as visible as the cheese), mustard (ditto), ripe (I love my chicken cheeseburgers ripe, don't you?), snack (ha!).
Has anyone ever gotten a keyword rejection from DT? Perhaps they never look at keywords.
But my biggest beef (sorry) is that they have room for 46 images on the same subject (when a dozen or two would have been plenty), but not 1 more from me on other "well covered" subjects. :P
ETA: The search link above sorts by age, descending, so those first 46 are all new images (accepted within the last few months). And apologies to the contributing photog if you read this. I have no problem with your work (other than your keywording), just a problem with DT accepting so much of it while denying others! ::)
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Rejecting new images is easy. That actually reduces your labor costs because the screeners spend less time checking quality at 100%. Weeding out the junk from 6 milllion old images would be extremely expensive. All they can do is raise standards on new images and delete old ones, that didn't sell, automatically after a cutoff date - that costs nothing. This is what will happen, nothing more.
This means they're now rejecting images that may very well be better than what they already have.
Is this strategy going to improve the quality of the archives over time? I'm not sure, but I doubt it.
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My acceptance rate for DT over the last month is now the lowest of all the agencies. The same reason is used on all of the rejections "This is a very well covered subject" even on one-of-kind originals with nothing like it in the DT library. It is perplexing and frustrating and it would help me understand what is going on if the rejections made sense, but they don't. Maybe I should stop uploading for awhile?
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Has anyone ever gotten a keyword rejection from DT? Perhaps they never look at keywords.
I had one once(I typed leaning instead of learning where the spell checker does not help much :D ) and I could not re-submit, since the image size was too large(in megapixels). Had to do a fresh upload which ended in e rejection because of "this is not what we are looking for". This was quite frustrating but a mail to the editor was sufficient :)
And yes the only sort of rejections I currently get is "well covered subject" and it does not help much to brows the galleries before submitting because also what I think is not well covered or a unique pic gets rejected for that reason. I found a subject what does appear not to be well covered and I currently mostly upload to this subject since I want to raise my AR.
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How do you go back and edit 6 million photos for keywords, extended redundant series shots, or potential infringing content?
However istock is just doing that. How? Little by little...
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I just had 2 of 4 rejected as "well covered subjects". I suggest we introduce the WCS acronym to describe this trend.
I guess what they want now is whatever they think they can sell this week, and nothing else. These companies have enough "stock" images, they don't even want to spend time (= money) reviewing new ones. They want buyers to tell them what they want today, and then have contributors compete for the 1 dollar grand prize. It's not "stock" per se, it's real-time "crowd-sourcing".
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Old one: It's too late to remember to drain the swamp when you are up to your a$$ in alligators. ;D
rofl, race... you get my vote this week for top one-liners ;D
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I just uploaded a flower pic :)
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I just had 2 of 4 rejected as "well covered subjects". I suggest we introduce the WCS acronym to describe this trend.
I guess what they want now is whatever they think they can sell this week, and nothing else. These companies have enough "stock" images, they don't even want to spend time (= money) reviewing new ones. They want buyers to tell them what they want today, and then have contributors compete for the 1 dollar grand prize. It's not "stock" per se, it's real-time "crowd-sourcing".
i'm wondering if it's a certain reviewer or reviewers who are using this rejection , because i've seen it with other sites as well. then there's the other favourite with sites like SnapVillage , what's that?
oh yes, "no commercial value". that's pretty wild too.
8)
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Two offerings, none serious as usual. These came from DT.
We have reviewed your file and this is not quite what we're looking for. To which I'd like to add NQWWLF ;)
More along the lines of not suitable for prime time, or stock, or too many or LCV, NCV, Snapshot Etc. here's one more. I don't understand the Too Specific part at all.
This is a very well covered subject in our data base or the subject of your image is too specific. Which leads me to: VWCS
The second part was directly from Monty Python. ITS
There's one we won't ever get anywhere, but you will get the point. Found Usual Content / Keywords - Unusable. I won't put the acronym down, but it's what they are really saying in all the other kinder rejections. :o
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There's one we won't ever get anywhere, but you will get the point. Found Usual Content / Keywords - Unusable. I won't put the acronym down, but it's what they are really saying in all the other kinder rejections. :o
;D ;D At least, it sure feels that way, doesn't it? ;D ;D
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There's one we won't ever get anywhere, but you will get the point. Found Usual Content / Keywords - Unusable. I won't put the acronym down, but it's what they are really saying in all the other kinder rejections. :o
;D ;D At least, it sure feels that way, doesn't it? ;D ;D
my vote is for
Found Usual Content Keywords Unusable
the best rejection reason.
to which i am sure we all reply , " the feeling's mutual, dudes...i love tofu upside down ! " :o
8)
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it's obvious we are no longer talking about Dreamstime, so ...
here's one i am not quite sure about either: TOO SPECIFIC.
it's the opposite of : no commercial value , i guess.
wouldn't that include racing cars, obama, flowers, office, surfing, food isolated,etc...
in other words literally every top seller? enlighten me please ! ::)
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I'm trying not to overreact :)
These microstocks are all trying to clean up their act. Although I'm fairly new, I get the impression they just finished desperately racing each other to the magic "5 MILLION IMAGES" and when they got there, found they had a giant compost file of unsellable photos that buyers didn't want to wade through. Now they're all rushing to the other side of the boat, rejecting all sorts of perfectly good images. Who knows where this will end up.
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I stopped worrying about rejections. My philosophy now is: "if you like it you can take it". I will not even try to read rejection reason cause most of them seem to be totally fake. Too bad cause I might be missing some legitimate ones. This is really bad situation they are overwhelmed with volume of photos we are over saturated with huge number of rejections. Until one of the sites invents solution for this problem I do not see chance for getting better.
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I care for rejections when I think my image would sell and when it does on other sites. And when AR is important in the ranking of images in search results!
I just started to raise my AR up to 94% in march! And now that! I don't know what to do anymore. Stop uploading? at least my AR would stay like it is now and my pix will stay in the ranking in the search!
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Some rejections have been spot on, for example reviewers spotting color noise in dark areas. But this "well covered subject" thing doesn't really make sense. On the one hand they're saying they don't want more of what they already have. On the other hand they're telling us to look at the "best selling" images and do stuff like that. What the heck?
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Some rejections have been spot on, for example reviewers spotting color noise in dark areas. But this "well covered subject" thing doesn't really make sense. On the one hand they're saying they don't want more of what they already have. On the other hand they're telling us to look at the "best selling" images and do stuff like that. What the heck?
oi, look on the bright side. by the time we finally get to understand rejections, we can all quit microstock and start our own MIND READER business ;D
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The bigest microstock agencies have stable archives now. Few years ago they were in proccess of growing up, they desperatly wanted every single picture contibuters send to them. Now, they can choose what to accept more comfortably. That explains it all. And it is not even close to traditional stock rejections yet.
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And it is not even close to traditional stock rejections yet.
If the rejection rates are going up, I think the submitters shouldn't be asked to keyword and categorize images. That's something we should demand. I have a few "trad" agencies that allow you to keyword AFTER image is accepted, that's not as bad as on micro sites.
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And it is not even close to traditional stock rejections yet.
If the rejection rates are going up, I think the submitters shouldn't be asked to keyword and categorize images. That's something we should demand. I have a few "trad" agencies that allow you to keyword AFTER image is accepted, that's not as bad as on micro sites.
never thought it be a big deal, Perry... but good point. it would save a lot of time on the contributor's end if we are allowed to keywords AFTER approval.
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I think this rejection is fair if they do have already too many similars AND the new submission isn't better in some way (more original, with better lighting, bigger, etc).
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And it is not even close to traditional stock rejections yet.
If the rejection rates are going up, I think the submitters shouldn't be asked to keyword and categorize images. That's something we should demand. I have a few "trad" agencies that allow you to keyword AFTER image is accepted, that's not as bad as on micro sites.
That would be good solution, but in the case you are uploading only to one agency. Imagine going through 5,6 or more sites and keywording the same pictures.
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Ok so at some point the microstocks' customer surveys show that most buyers are finding what they want. So they don't really need any new photos unless they're really unique, and can tell their reviewers to start rejecting anything else right off the top without even bothering to look at it at 100%. That cuts reviewing time way down and is a big cost reduction for the microstocks. A lot of submitters give up, that reduces costs even more. Eventually the archives have all the standard, ordinary stuff anyone is likely to want - all the common objects, foods, architectural landmarks, and 10,000 snappy "business team" and "confident doctor" shots to choose from. Then what? All they would want would be top-drawer new shots featuring unusual subjects or novel treatments - done by pros, requiring serious setup, model fees, extensive Photoshop work etc. . To get those, they have to raise their commissions considerably, and raise the price to the customer. You see where I'm leading - the "microstock" era ends.
Just a bad dream I had last night. In reality, I think there is always a market for creativity. But it's hard to see how today's microstock business model can continue indefinitely.
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it's kinda sad. once they were accepthing anything. and their sales are so bad these days.
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it's kinda sad. once they were accepthing anything. and their sales are so bad these days.
well, i think that's just it, yuliang11. they were accepting anything before and sales are so bad.
so they have to start being more picky so those who gets accepted could start getting sales again.
it's good for us too, it raises our own standard to learn to edit our work.
i am already beginning to disable many of my old images with lots of views and zero dls. just to clean up my act. i was lazy at the beginning too, as i was getting so many approvals. but the no sales prove
that approval is not the important thing, getting the kick ass images that sell is.
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I just uploaded a flower pic :)
Was it accepted?
I just had 13 of 13 flower pics rejected. *sigh*
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I just had 13 of 13 flower pics rejected. *sigh*
Same here ... They seem to reject just about everything I upload at the moment. What really annoys me is that they don't even bother to give you any other reason for the rejection except for the usual "well covered subject" one.
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Just out of curiousity, do any of you find the same rejection reason with other sites.
My roommate who has a portfolio with Stockxpert told me she has the same rejection . I am wondering if the same reviewer moonlights for Dreamstime, Stockxpert and who knows which other sites.
Anyone here has both Dreamstime and Stockxpert who had recent rejections. Can you tell?
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I just uploaded a flower pic :)
Was it accepted?
I just had 13 of 13 flower pics rejected. *sigh*
It wasn't of course, although I had hopes, since istock and shutterstock accepted it and I already had some sales on it .
In addition I received a "lack of composition"
Here is my lack of composition:
(http://69.90.174.252/photos/display_pic_with_logo/204283/204283,1239878604,1.jpg)
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Here is my lack of composition:
([url]http://69.90.174.252/photos/display_pic_with_logo/204283/204283,1239878604,1.jpg[/url])
It's really not a good composition.
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I know, there is not much - meaning no - copy space in it and it has too much contrast for a background image. Nevertheless it sold...
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I am kinda fed up of their stupid "this is well covered..." rejections. I can see they have several similar photos - so what? My photos might not be better but they certainly are not worse than the ones they already have - so I want my chance to compete. It is not my fault somebody else started with them earlier and had already sent something similar. My pictures deserve to be allowed in that competing business. Let buyers decide which one to download. In many countries it would be even against law to prevent competition in that way. E.g. in my country if I were not allowed to sell - say - flowers just because somebody else is already selling them, I could appeal to the law and I would win. This "well covered" sh-t is all wrong. Why do not they just delete the old unsold similar "well covered" images instead?
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They have always been tight on rejections for things like Flowers...but I have noticed more rejections then normal. I think maybe it has to do with them cleaning out their database, who knows. But I wish they would not count rejections for "Not what we are looking for" under your stats. I did however get a $21 referral, so some lucky photographer sold a $210 image.
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But I wish they would not count rejections for "Not what we are looking for" under your stats.
So do I. And another thing that makes me angry with them. They did not complain about those images when they wanted to reach x.xxx.xxx milestone and boast about their huge collection. That time they did not mind such images, did they. And now they are going to reject them and lower your AR retroactively, which is egregious!
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Looks like i fallen foul of this subject is well covered reject, funny as every one else took them even fototilla who are the masters of rejects ,your lost dreamtime everyone else's gain ;)
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Well, 80% rejected for that "well covered nonsense" again. I am fed up. I am going to stop uploading for a month and then I am going to try again. If they stopped with this stupidity, I would go on uploading, otherwise I would not upload any more. This is only a waste of my time. And the sales there have decreased considerably too since they began with this we-have-it-all-covered and go-to-hell-with-your-images policy.
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well one of the images they rejected two days ago sold on 123Rf one view one sale ,so ppl do want new stuff no wonder their sales are decreasing .
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So Dreamstime want to keep old files which are probably of lower quality and reject new stuff ??? A move guaranteed to date the site very quickly!
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They're not, they're increasing at a faster rate than any other agency I upload to.
no wonder their sales are decreasing .
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well one of the images they rejected two days ago sold on 123Rf one view one sale ,so ppl do want new stuff no wonder their sales are decreasing .
Yeah, I have the very same experience. The new files are usually better than their old well-covered stuff and even if they are not better, they are certainly not worse and they are NEW. I used to upload only files accepted at least by two other agencies in Big6. And I did not have a single technical rejection. Only this well-covered blah blah or too many shots blah blah.
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Where I could bargain on one or two rejection for every 100 submissions, I sit with a 40% acceptance rate for this month, every rejection the same reason: "This is a very well covered subject in our data base or the subject of your image is too specific etc." A search reveals that the subject is not that well covered at all. I think the problem lies with new inexperienced reviewers, so I decided to stop uploading at DT for a while, at least until the problem is solved. I try to keep my acceptance rate above 90% and with the current rejections I will soon be trying to stay above 80%.
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Where I could bargain on one or two rejection for every 100 submissions, I sit with a 40% acceptance rate for this month, every rejection the same reason: "This is a very well covered subject in our data base or the subject of your image is too specific etc." A search reveals that the subject is not that well covered at all. I think the problem lies with new inexperienced reviewers, so I decided to stop uploading at DT for a while, at least until the problem is solved. I try to keep my acceptance rate above 90% and with the current rejections I will soon be trying to stay above 80%.
Since about two months Dreamstime seems to have changed their acceptance policy drastically. Before my acceptance was around 80 to 90%. Now I'm glad if half of the uploads are accepted. And as far as I can see it's becoming worser and worser. Let's be clear: It's their right to accept what they want!
But as far I can see, their explanation for many refuses makes no sence. I take my work serious and try to make saleable stuff. I look at the images in the database and try to make them different and appealing and better. Nearly all refusions are for "This is a well covered...." That may be, but if it was the same, I normally would not make and upload it. I make a lot of abstract designs, which come in the abstract categories and it looks like these categories are blocked for new images. What's contributed in there is nearly automatically rejected. If they are making a quality comparison between what they have and new stuff, It's not clear to me what they are judging.
It feels like indifference. They might not be interested in this kind of images anymore?
If this is wise it's not up to me. As far as I can see, they very often miss the best and some nice selling images on other sites and take/hold the lesser quality....
For me it's difficult to see the sence of it. I feel my enthousiasm for this site is lowering. I can imagine that the same effect is on more contributers. Isn't this threat expressing this feeling all toghether? I wonder if this is what they aim for or want to happen?....and if, how it could be in their commercial advantage? What do you think?
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As I've posted here before, I think it's about labor costs, and skilled reviewers cost money. As microstocks struggle to survive and increase their profits, they'll try to focus on what sells and stop spending time (money) reviewing what doesn't sell. So they tell their reviewers that if a subject is on the "well covered" blacklist, don't spend any time on it, just reject it. It won't matter if it's better than anything they have of that subject because it won't even get a serious look.
I am sure if you submitted the best "happy Asian business team" that was ever created, it would get reviewed and accepted, because that's something they think they can sell this week.
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I haven't noticed any increase in "well covered" rejections. Out of 95 images uploaded this month, only six have been rejected, five of those for "well covered." The other was because I'd forgotten to attach a model release. All of the rejected images were simple backgrounds/textures or flowers/trees, which are definitely well covered, so IMO they got it right.
A couple of years ago, I did have a blanket "well covered" rejection on a bunch of shots of fresh rosemary sprigs. Upon further investigation, I found exactly eight shots of rosemary...not exactly a well-covered subject. I contacted customer support, pointed out the problem, and asked for a second review. They reviewed them again, and accepted nearly every image. So...if you really truly think the reviewer got it wrong and feel your images are worth fighting for, then ask customer service for a second opinion.
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I don't mind the ubiquitous "well covered" rejection , so long as when I do check DT to find a lot (or even a just a single half page) of them dating one year or older with 0 dls.
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They have 10 photos of a particular subject, and those photos rarely or never sell. Therefore, it must be a well covered subject with poor returns. But everytime I have been inclined to look to see if it really is a well covered subject those photos don't sell because they are pure crap. Why don't they approve the new photo that was actually taken for a desgner by today's standard stock photographer... it has copy space, it is uncluttered, it has good colour, it is appealing to the eye... and delete one of the old crap ones that are essentially invisible to a designer?
... still scratching my head.
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pixart, that's the point I was trying to make. They're telling the reviewers to just reject images of subjects on the "well covered" list without even looking at them.
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I am kinda fed up of their stupid "this is well covered..." rejections. I can see they have several similar photos - so what? My photos might not be better but they certainly are not worse than the ones they already have - so I want my chance to compete. It is not my fault somebody else started with them earlier and had already sent something similar. My pictures deserve to be allowed in that competing business. Let buyers decide which one to download. In many countries it would be even against law to prevent competition in that way. E.g. in my country if I were not allowed to sell - say - flowers just because somebody else is already selling them, I could appeal to the law and I would win. This "well covered" sh-t is all wrong. Why do not they just delete the old unsold similar "well covered" images instead?
Totally agreeing with you. They shouldn't punish the contributors for their own mistakes. I mean, it's not our fault that they used to accept a lot of crappy photos and now have a full database. Just because a subject is well covered doesn't mean that the photos they already have are any good.
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Fact is, almost everything is well covered by now. To reject images because the subject is well covered is not far from saying we don't accept new contributions, because we have everything we need.
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CCK I think that day is coming. When the microstocks were getting started, their goal was just big archives. Now they're done trying to impress buyers with how many million images they have, and want to cut back on reviewing expenses. So the whole thing is turning around and they may get to a point where all they accept is whatever is posted on a "wanted this week" list.
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Well, they should at the very least have said so - I would not have bothered with them any more if they had said they wanted just some business idiots teams etc. But DT is used to punishing us contributors for their problems - look at the "refunds" they without our permission just take of our account because THEY accepted some fraud credit card. And now our AR would be damaged because THEY used to take a lot of crap (so that they could boast how many pictures they had in their huge database) and now they have too much of everything.
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They've concluded that crowdsourcing can provide all the quality they will ever need and all the contributors they could ever want, for just token payments.
Personally I don't think they're correct, but it will take time for things to turn around and new players to get started.
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It still is better to tell us that they don't want that image than trying to find the technical problem for which they could reject it.
OK - but then they should not use those rejections to decrease our acceptance ratio which they then use to calculate the position of our photos in the search engine results...
It should be something like Accept-Ignore-Reject for any photo. And only the photos rejected for technical flaws should decrease your position in search results.
That is a very good point! Technically perfect work can be rejected and it's costly on your acceptance rate.
Does that mean that we should all search the database for what we are going to upload to see how much of the same is already there? I don't think we all have time for that!
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Does that mean that we should all search the database for what we are going to upload to see how much of the same is already there? I don't think we all have time for that!
That's exactly what DT wants us to do.
The problem is, I've done that in the past, and sometimes still gotten "well-covered" rejections.
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We can't decide by just searching the existing database because we have no definition of WCS . And I don't think they're being totally honest with these rejections anyway. I just had a "concrete background" image rejected as a WCS. I thought it was a really nice one, and anyway, some of these microstocks still list "grunge textures" as something they want. So maybe they should take down the sign....
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Searching for subject covering can give you a geenral idea, but it doesn't help always as the reviewers themselves are not doing the search before rejecting for well covered subject. I'm sure most of time they are just guided by their feeling how an image is well covered. I have recently had an image of ivy seamless background rejected on DT even though there was only one ivy background in the database and it was not seamless. After I resubmitted, with results from the search, the image was accepted. So I'm pretty sure, it is either not in their requirement to do the searches before rejecting, or they are not doing what they are supposed to do.
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DT rejected my rose image because of "well covered..." reason. I resubmitted it with explanation there is no such beautiful red rose in their database, with such evenly spread raindrops, and so brightly red, but they rejected it again ::)
(http://69.90.174.252/photos/display_pic_with_logo/167695/167695,1242439323,1.jpg)
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DT rejected my rose image because of "well covered..." reason. I resubmitted it with explanation there is no such beautiful red rose in their database, with such evenly spread raindrops, and so brightly red, but they rejected it again ::)
([url]http://69.90.174.252/photos/display_pic_with_logo/167695/167695,1242439323,1.jpg[/url])
awww whitechild, i guess dreamstime does not soften with poetry ;)
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awww whitechild, i guess dreamstime does not soften with poetry ;)
Or fake raindrops. ;D
Be honest how many of these have you seen on a stock site? Search for John Glenn on your favorite sites. But it is a postage stamp, thus refused on FT, DT and Panther, for too many like this. When they don't have ANY like this.
(http://174.129.236.184/photos/display_pic_with_logo/111418/111418,1235320981,1.jpg)
Enough whining, they can do what they want, but it is just what the top of the thread says. Rejections by guidelines, not for content or quality.
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Just abnormal rejections. Plus abnormally low sales.
That's not a good approach >:(
I've heard many claims from various microstocker to give up with this stock. Now, I believe that this might be the case.
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I will not comment the previous posts, but as this is on topic, would like to tell you that we're doing consistency monitoring constantly and that I have asked special attention to be given to the "Well covered" reason for the near future.
While the reason was usually associated with others (like lack of composition for instance), we will try to focus now on those reasons solely. This way we aim to show the problem itself, without any reference to what we have online.
Hopefuly this will help.
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Thank you! It makes it much easier to know what to improve if I get concrete reason.
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It always be subjective as long as human is involved besides different agencies have different criteria. Stop worrying about this, same photo may sell somewhere else.
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Achilles ~ Thanks for that information. The "well covered subject" rejection can be confusing, especially for someone who takes many photos of the same subject. For example, my portfolio is FULL of animals (esp dogs). I can get a rejection one day for "well covered subject" and turn around the next day and have another photo of the same subject approved. I pretty much decided on my own the "well covered subject" rejection just meant my picture wasn't good enough to compete against the numerous others already uploaded on DT. Which is totally fine to me, because I'd rather have a small portfolio with lots of sales than millions of images on-line and very few sales.
Now, if you could just get the "Poor lighting" rejection to have just a bit more clarity to give some direction to member (ie: underexposed, overexposed, blown highlights, too dark, too light, direct flash etc.) it sure would help me improve my approval ratio.... ;D
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I will not comment the previous posts, but as this is on topic, would like to tell you that we're doing consistency monitoring constantly and that I have asked special attention to be given to the "Well covered" reason for the near future.
While the reason was usually associated with others (like lack of composition for instance), we will try to focus now on those reasons solely. This way we aim to show the problem itself, without any reference to what we have online.
Hopefuly this will help.
I'm sure it will :) Thank you!! :)
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Just got another photo of fire flames rejected with the reason "We are looking for images that exceed the technical quality and creativity of the images already online. Thank you"
I have many photos of flames and I have not been able to get any of them accepted recently. It feels like there is a brick wall now built for this type of shots. The funny thing is all my recently rejected fire photos were shot with brand new Canon 5d Mark II in 21Mp quality. Half a year ago a lot of similar photos from me was accepted without a single problem. And those accepted were shot on an older 5D in 12Mp. Go figure.
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Achilles just wrote me, that they had a discussion and decided to approve the rejected flame photo. DT is the best, I knew it :)
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I was overly optimistic when I recently shot a dozen well lit 21 megapixel wooden textures. The wood panels were very beautifully worn and I thought these were the finest wood textures ever.
I was prepared for rejections, but DT rejected them all. DT and FT seems to be very hard on textures nowdays.
BTW, three of the textures sell like hotcakes on SS :)