Author Topic: Stupid policy! (Read 18480 times)

fritz · « **on:** March 27, 2011, 18:47 »

After 200 rejected files at dreamstime for "Too many photos/illustrations on the same subject or from the same series blah blah blah ......" I give up.
I won't upload new files until something changes in their policy.
Don't have problems with SS IS FT BS AL but DT is something out of all.
I quit with them if that's the point of their stupid policy.

Sean Locke Photography · « **Reply #1 on:** March 27, 2011, 18:51 »

Did you submit 200 images of the same thing?

fritz · « **Reply #2 on:** March 27, 2011, 18:55 »

Of course not.
Actually I thing DT folks should take some extra classes from IS reviewers.

sharpshot · « **Reply #3 on:** March 28, 2011, 02:16 »

I don't think it's the reviewers problem, they used to be good. They changed policy so that now buyers have a lot less to chose from. Reviewers have to try and guess what will sell and what wont. I don't think the policy works, lots of contributors will just stop uploading and buyers will be forced to use the other sites to see what they are missing. Reviewers will reject lots of images that would sell well and will accept some that don't. Hopefully one day they will see that it's costing them money and they will come up with a more sensible solution, like accepting more images from people with a good sales history.

digitalexpressionimages · « **Reply #4 on:** March 28, 2011, 07:12 »

They need editors with some graphic design background. I can't tell you the strange variety of images I've needed to find to produce the concepts that pop into my mind when designing. You can't predict it and shouldn't try. I also don't care about the photographer who took the shot I need so his/her sales history is irrelevant. It's the quality of the shot that matters. They should accept images of good ( "top") quality and not worry about the rest. If the bulging image catalog is a problem, start weeding out old images.

anonymous · « **Reply #5 on:** March 28, 2011, 08:07 »

Quote from: digitalexpressionimages on March 28, 2011, 07:12

They need editors with some graphic design background. I can't tell you the strange variety of images I've needed to find to produce the concepts that pop into my mind when designing. You can't predict it and shouldn't try. I also don't care about the photographer who took the shot I need so his/her sales history is irrelevant. It's the quality of the shot that matters. They should accept images of good ( "top") quality and not worry about the rest. If the bulging image catalog is a problem, start weeding out old images.

+1

Elenathewise · « **Reply #6 on:** March 28, 2011, 11:36 »

Quote from: digitalexpressionimages on March 28, 2011, 07:12

They need editors with some graphic design background. I can't tell you the strange variety of images I've needed to find to produce the concepts that pop into my mind when designing. You can't predict it and shouldn't try. I also don't care about the photographer who took the shot I need so his/her sales history is irrelevant. It's the quality of the shot that matters. They should accept images of good ( "top") quality and not worry about the rest. If the bulging image catalog is a problem, start weeding out old images.

I really hope people on DT hear you. The "similars" rejections there are not just annoying, often they don't even make any sense. They reject images of the same model with totally different face expressions as similars. You don't have to be a graphic designer to understand that often several images of the same model expressing different emotions are used to illustrate a concept or to promote a product or a service. But your choice on DT is severely restricted because they take 3 images out of available 15.... one of the reason I started to sell from my own site...

digitalexpressionimages · « **Reply #7 on:** March 28, 2011, 12:51 »

Quote from: Elenathewise on March 28, 2011, 11:36

Quote from: digitalexpressionimages on March 28, 2011, 07:12
They need editors with some graphic design background. I can't tell you the strange variety of images I've needed to find to produce the concepts that pop into my mind when designing. You can't predict it and shouldn't try. I also don't care about the photographer who took the shot I need so his/her sales history is irrelevant. It's the quality of the shot that matters. They should accept images of good ( "top") quality and not worry about the rest. If the bulging image catalog is a problem, start weeding out old images.

I really hope people on Dreamstime hear you. The "similars" rejections there are not just annoying, often they don't even make any sense. They reject images of the same model with totally different face expressions as similars. You don't have to be a graphic designer to understand that often several images of the same model expressing different emotions are used to illustrate a concept or to promote a product or a service. But your choice on Dreamstime is severely restricted because they take 3 images out of available 15.... one of the reason I started to sell from my own site...

Exactly. I actually posted a comment in the bulletin board on dreamstime to suggest the programmers add in a little check box in the upload interface for similars. When you have a bunch of images on a theme you check that button to indicate it's a series. That way when the search results show up, only one of the series will be displayed but there would be a little button that says "see more like this" which a buyer can click to see the rest of the series. Keeps it streamlined but doesn't hurt sales. i don't know if any of the admins read the post or will do anything about it but I can always hope.

WarrenPrice · « **Reply #8 on:** March 28, 2011, 13:11 »

The standard answer at Dreamstime is:
Questioning our policy will not be "tolerated."

Mantis · « **Reply #9 on:** March 28, 2011, 18:24 »

Quote from: WarrenPrice on March 28, 2011, 13:11

The standard answer at Dreamstime is:
Questioning our policy will not be "tolerated."

^ This is what I've found out to be true. I've been shut down more than once when posting in forums (in a very nice way I might add) with a threat of account suspension via site mail on the last time. The head guy (I think his name is Serban) just does not take criticism very well. That's just bad business not to listen to their customers. I call us customers because we do get paid from them and provide the foundation from which they make their profits as well.

Just another issue to deal with in the world of microstock.

sharpshot · « **Reply #10 on:** March 29, 2011, 00:47 »

They can make up whatever rules they want in their own forum, I don't post much in any of the sites forums any more. I think they all look at this forum and I hope they never threaten people that have a good discussion here, as we need somewhere to say what we really think.

I don't think any of the sites pay much to their reviewers, even if they could afford experts, it's still really hard to guess what will sell and what wont. They are going to get it wrong a lot of the time and that's why I would much rather see the sites accept more and delete them if they don't sell after a year. I think that would make them more money. There's enough lower quality old files that could be removed, if they want to improve the quality of their collections.

hose · « **Reply #11 on:** March 29, 2011, 09:09 »

they have enough ways to "improve" the collections - they have the level based system which is making like selection for the buyers - and there are other ways to push the good photos up - which they think would sell more

if a photo has no technical problems it is purely stupid to reject it

I agree for this guy Serban - he has absolutely bad attitude and should be removed

djpadavona · « **Reply #12 on:** March 29, 2011, 09:49 »

Quote from: Mantis on March 28, 2011, 18:24

^ This is what I've found out to be true. I've been shut down more than once when posting in forums (in a very nice way I might add) with a threat of account suspension via site mail on the last time. The head guy (I think his name is Serban) just does not take criticism very well.

I know Serban, and he can definitely handle criticism. What is being described here is a problem at all microstock sites. You can't speak your mind on the IS or Fotolia forums either.

djpadavona · « **Reply #13 on:** March 29, 2011, 09:51 »

Quote from: hose on March 29, 2011, 09:09

I agree for this guy Serban - he has absolutely bad attitude and should be removed

Uh, he owns Dreamstime.

Megastock · « **Reply #14 on:** March 29, 2011, 12:55 »

How do you know it is stupid policy? Do you know how many buyers actually want 'similars' as a percentage of buyers out there? It is totally possible that Dreamstime buyers tend NOT to buy similars and complain that the results are clogged up with similar images from the same contributor, and that Dreamstime is actually trying to increase their revenue (and yours) by forcing contributors to self select. I have no doubt that both types of buyers exist, but who are we to say in what proportion and on which site? What is good for the site is rarely good for all contributors - do you happen to be one of those negatively affected? I for one am willing to entertain the idea that their buyers fit the pattern of people who are willing to pay more for a single image, and less likely to want similars... If nothing else, isn't it a good sign that a stock agency seems to be pushing buyers to pay more for imagery? Unlike some other sites you get a higher royalty when they sell an image for more...

hose · « **Reply #16 on:** March 29, 2011, 14:43 »

I'm sorry but my experience shows that his way of speaking and his attitude as a whole is...

and this is a problem at all sites - for sure

Artemis · « **Reply #17 on:** March 29, 2011, 15:04 »

they posted in the forums they're going to start culling drastically in similar series:
From Achilles:
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.

I also think their policy with similars is going a little too far (imho something very remotely similar is not similar, and decent variations from one shoot arent similar either), this is a decent step in unclogging the database, it'll be good to see those pages and pages with same results (apart from slight angle changes) gone.

gostwyck · « **Reply #18 on:** March 29, 2011, 15:56 »

Quote from: Megastock on March 29, 2011, 12:55

How do you know it is stupid policy?

Well, it might be one of the reasons why their share of the market has roughly halved over the last 5 years. The buyers have been voting with their money and nearly 90% of them nowadays choose to shop elsewhere. It's got to be a fair bet that their market share will halve again over the next 5 years too.

It's not just 'similars' from vast series of images either. They virtually closed down entire subjects to new submissions several years ago __ depending upon the bizarre whim of the reviewer at the time anyway. I remember capturing a particularly good stock image of a popular national flag in 2006. DT rejected it as they felt they had 'enough flags now'. It was a 12MP image taken with the 'brand new' 5D whereas all their other images were a maximum of 6MP, most of them taken with P&S cameras (it was 2006!). Fortunately I persisted and slipped it through a few weeks later where it quickly became the best-selling image in it's subject, as it was elsewhere too.

I'm sorry but I could give you lots of examples of DT rejections of perfectly good and unique stock images that buyers on all the other sites seem to find useful. I certainly don't see how that helps them or their buyers.

lisafx · « **Reply #19 on:** March 29, 2011, 16:27 »

I'll have to wait and see how it's implemented before I form an opinion one way or the other. If they really are just removing near duplicates, then that will most likely benefit the search and everyone who isn't producing a bunch of near duplicates. If they go all scorched earth and remove vast numbers of images from series, that will probably be going too far.

So in a nutshell - if they are removing the other guy's images, they're fine. If they're removing mine, not so fine

pancaketom · « **Reply #20 on:** March 29, 2011, 17:53 »

I have always thought the way the DT search engine will return a whole row of similars in a row is bad, but rather than take the effort to change this (or perhaps put the similars behind one of them or something like that), they are taking a sledgehammer to things.

As usual, the proof will be in what they actually do. I remember IS was once going to get tough on spammers, as far as I could tell they never did.
If they actually clean up their image collection that will be fine, if they delete for example a picture of a sailboat and a rowboat because they are similar to the aircraft carrier, then it won't be fine. Based on my pessimistic view of things there, I suspect the latter. Also, just because someone else has a picture of something doesn't mean I don't want one in my port too.

Reading some of the DT posts on their boards, you'd think the way to make money at DT is to not submit anything and delete all but your level 5 images. Now I bet that would improve the RPI and RPD, but the bottom line is going to hurt.

It is nice that we still get 50% for level 5 images, but dropping down to 30% for level 1 has really hurt the submitter, especially in the long tail images.

They said trust us, your income will go up when they lowered commissions. Mine went down for over a year and only now are back to the level they were before the drop (with plenty of new images).

I think trying to get people to combine multiple images into one is a particularly lame effort. Isn't microstock micro enough? Also it makes the thumbs look like crap.

I also agree w/ Lisa - as long as they don't remove my images it is fine.

heywoody · « **Reply #21 on:** March 30, 2011, 14:52 »

Quote from: alexmk on March 27, 2011, 18:55

Of course not.
Actually I thing Dreamstime folks should take some extra classes from IS reviewers.

Now that's a truely horrible thought !!

Xalanx · « **Reply #22 on:** March 30, 2011, 15:45 »

Quote from: heywoody on March 30, 2011, 14:52

Quote from: alexmk on March 27, 2011, 18:55
Of course not.
Actually I thing Dreamstime folks should take some extra classes from IS reviewers.

Now that's a truely horrible thought !!

Yes, it's horrible. In fact they should take classes from pretty much ANY other big agency, at pretty much ANYTHING regarding stock imagery.

fritz · « **Reply #23 on:** March 30, 2011, 18:53 »

Quote from: Xalanx on March 30, 2011, 15:45

Quote from: heywoody on March 30, 2011, 14:52
Quote from: alexmk on March 27, 2011, 18:55
Of course not.
Actually I thing Dreamstime folks should take some extra classes from IS reviewers.

Now that's a truely horrible thought !!

Yes, it's horrible. In fact they should take classes from pretty much ANY other big agency, at pretty much ANYTHING regarding stock imagery.

+1

velocicarpo · « **Reply #24 on:** March 30, 2011, 21:03 »

Dreamstime made waaaaaay too much misstakes over the last years and this is just another one. As a buyer, I left already.

The income from over there is nothing but a joke and continue to decline. Commission cut didn`t help. I`m glad that many of the newcomer Agencies start to pass by soon and may make uploading to them pointless for me.

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Author Topic: Stupid policy! (Read 18480 times)

fritz

Sean Locke Photography

fritz

sharpshot

digitalexpressionimages

anonymous

Elenathewise

digitalexpressionimages

WarrenPrice

Mantis

sharpshot

hose

djpadavona

djpadavona

Megastock

MatHayward

hose

Artemis

gostwyck

lisafx

pancaketom

heywoody

Xalanx

fritz

velocicarpo

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