Author Topic: What is up with Fotolia?? (Read 16903 times)

kkart · « **on:** April 10, 2008, 04:04 »

Seriously, what the heck is up with Fotolia, I am this clsoe to taking down everything I have there, I don't make much with them anyhow, they are at the bottom of the pot, but to have my recent submissions thrown back at me with some generic 'type pf photograph' rejection, while BS, SS, and DT virtually accepted all 50. I had all but 2 of my images rejected. What is going on over there??

Peter · « **Reply #1 on:** April 10, 2008, 04:22 »

higher standards. they cant have the same quality standards 2 years ago, and now.

can you post few examples what was rejected, please? Tnx.

sharpshot · « **Reply #2 on:** April 10, 2008, 04:31 »

They are doing well for me. Earnings going up all the time and hardly any rejections.

Peter · « **Reply #3 on:** April 10, 2008, 05:25 »

Quote from: sharpshot on April 10, 2008, 04:31

They are doing well for me. Earnings going up all the time and hardly any rejections.

same here. that's why I want to see those rejections.

Stu99 · « **Reply #4 on:** April 10, 2008, 08:44 »

I got struck with a strange set of rejections today for images too similar

Eg:
Accepted

Rejected for too similar???

Never mind - such is life in microstock, at least their sales are reasonable :-)

Seren · « **Reply #5 on:** April 10, 2008, 08:53 »

Well that's just silly. They're clearly both completely different.

I wonder sometimes if fotolia only wants one picture of every subject in the library.

One apple...
One orange...
One goldfish in a business suit jumping out of a laptop...

Waldo4 · « **Reply #6 on:** April 10, 2008, 09:36 »

I've never had the similar problem, but the type rejection has thus far destroyed my port there. My sales a FT are crap, about equal to BigStock (well behind DT, IS and SS, BigStock is beating them this month too), and I think that a big reason is that 7 of my top 10 overall best selling images across all sites were rejected for type of photo. In my tracking spreadsheet, when I sort by earnings FT is the only one with any significant amount of red (meaning rejection) near the top.

Even though may sales elsewhere are better, DT is the only one that is very accurate at predicting the performance of my port overall, hardly any of my shots that have sold anywhere have been rejected by them, the bulk of shots they have rejected have not sold anywhere, which tells me that their reviewers are the best at understanding shot saleability, whereas FT is simply awful at it.

cshack · « **Reply #7 on:** April 10, 2008, 09:58 »

I don't seem to have much of a problem with SS, DT, BigStock, 123, CanStockPhoto or any of the other smaller sites. However, for the past 2 weeks IS has turned down everything I uploaded. Yes 100% rejected at IS. Now keep in mind that I submit the same images at every site. I really have to wonder if they are trying to get me to close my account? It's almost like they really don't want any new photographers all of the sudden. My acceptance rate at IS is only 30% while at all the others it's 80% or better. What gets me is I shoot with a Canon EOS 20D on white using a 6 light flash system and a light meter for everything. At first when I signed up they accepted about 60% of my shots. I've not changed anything in my studio, nor have I tried anything new on photoshop. But for the past 2 weeks that have really gone way overboard with the rejections. Should I just give up or is this the IS way? If they don't want my work then fine, they should just say it and save me the frustration of constant rejection.

P.S. SS has been very good for me. My acceptance rate there is above 80% and more than 50% of thise images have sold. After only 2 weeks on SS I have sold 80 images with a portfolio of only 60 images. I have only submitted 72 to them. SS is at the top of my list while IS remains at the bottom!!!

Peter · « **Reply #8 on:** April 10, 2008, 09:59 »

Quote from: Stu99 on April 10, 2008, 08:44

I got struck with a strange set of rejections today for images too similar

Eg:
Accepted

Rejected for too similar???

Never mind - such is life in microstock, at least their sales are reasonable :-)

those are very nice images, and shouldnt be rejected as simmilar, for my opinion. Are you sure you didnt have more of those, which were really simmilar in the series?

kkart · « **Reply #9 on:** April 10, 2008, 13:57 »

Quote from: Chode on April 10, 2008, 04:22

higher standards. they cant have the same quality standards 2 years ago, and now.

can you post few examples what was rejected, please? Tnx.

These were accepted at DT, BigStock, and SS, all were rejected at Fotolia, for "Type of Photograph".

dianajo · « **Reply #10 on:** April 10, 2008, 14:02 »

I recently had the too similar rejection too. The only time I've questioned a rejection there but no response to my query. One was a completely empty easter basket, the other had some easter grass in it. Similar yes, but I would say different enough. I would have bought poor isolation better (rejected on another site for just that... but that site rejects 60% of my submissions so I expect it!)

Peter · « **Reply #11 on:** April 10, 2008, 14:09 »

you need property release for house.

shutterdrop · « **Reply #12 on:** April 10, 2008, 16:47 »

FT is becoming a joke, very slow sales with the highest reject rate of all the agencies that I submit to.

They are a candidate for merger.

cascoly · « **Reply #13 on:** April 10, 2008, 17:43 »

agreed - over last few months fotolia has been completely arbitrary and their rejection reasons are useless. i used to have about 50% accepted, now they take about 1-2%, while my acceptance rates at the biggies havent changed.

steve

tdoes · « **Reply #14 on:** April 10, 2008, 17:48 »

I'm getting consistent sales with Fotolia but the reasoning behind rejections I've gotten from them lately have been quite puzzling alot of the times.

madelaide · « **Reply #15 on:** April 10, 2008, 18:44 »

Stu's compalint is very valid to me.

I must really get the nice guy in FT, because of my latest 50 submissions (6 months) I got 6 rejections, 5 of which were images of the same subject that they did not take for the subject, one was for sme technical aspect I do'nt remember.

These are two of my latest uploads, nothing special, and in fact upsized for FT's 4MB minimum requirement.

Regards,
Adelaide

Pywrit · « **Reply #16 on:** April 11, 2008, 06:51 »

I have to agree that something has changed at FT. I was running about 60% acceptance until about 2 months ago. Then, suddenly, my acceptance ratio dropped to about 5% and has remained consistent at that level. What really gets me is the ones they accept are some of the worst images I submit. For instance, I submitted this image just to see if they would accept it:

http://us.fotolia.com/id/6769738

It was accepted! And it is pure crap!

On the other hand, a shot of a railroad snowplow (ie: a special vehicle for clearing snow off train tracks) was rejected for overabundant category. Hmmm! This is the image at 123 http://www.123rf.com/photo_2826467.html

Of course, Over the last few months I've moved away from shooting the isolated shots they do seem to prefer. I am trying to widen my horizons.

Allsa · « **Reply #17 on:** April 11, 2008, 11:06 »

I'm having the same problem, with a big increase in rejections at Fotolia. All of them are for 'type of photograph', meaning there is no specific reason for the rejection. The rejections seem arbitrary and random, like the reviewer made decisions by tossing a coin. I don't get it, I had a very high acceptance with rate up until a couple of months ago or so. If they want to improve the quality of their library, I don't see how random, senseless rejections will accomplish that. Learn from it and move on? It doesn't apply here - because I have learned absolutely nothing from Fotolia rejections.... $:-\$

lisafx · « **Reply #18 on:** April 11, 2008, 15:56 »

Add me to the list. My rejections have skyrocketed there in the past week or two and they are totally random.

.shock · « **Reply #19 on:** April 11, 2008, 15:59 »

in last 350-450 images I have 98% acceptance ratio... don't know what really is problem. Maybe because I'm exclusive and have hight ranking.

lisafx · « **Reply #20 on:** April 11, 2008, 16:03 »

Quote from: .shock on April 11, 2008, 15:59

in last 350-450 images I have 98% acceptance ratio... don't know what really is problem. Maybe because I'm exclusive and have hight ranking.

Usually my acceptance ratio there is in the high nineties also. Another thread speculated about "Atilla the Reviewer" making the rounds to various sites and that seems closest to the truth.

Some reviewer or reviewers at Fotolia appear to be on a rejection rampage. It has happened before.

fotoKmyst · « **Reply #21 on:** April 11, 2008, 21:50 »

Quote from: lisafx on April 11, 2008, 16:03

Quote from: .shock on April 11, 2008, 15:59
in last 350-450 images I have 98% acceptance ratio... don't know what really is problem. Maybe because I'm exclusive and have hight ranking.

Usually my acceptance ratio there is in the high nineties also. Another thread speculated about "Atilla the Reviewer" making the rounds to various sites and that seems closest to the truth.

Some reviewer or reviewers at Fotolia appear to be on a rejection rampage. It has happened before.

you don't say!
i had 20% acceptance but after a whole week of "rejection rampage"
of "this is a snapshot" i threw in the towel, and even deleted the accepted photos.
i don't want to deal with that reviewer . i don't need the aggravation, it's not like it's my lifelihood.

there are other companies to submit and the reviewers treat you so much better even when they refuse your photo. they actually write you something creative criticism , not just "this is a snapshot" 20 times over and over and over.
that's crap and poor professional attitude.

anonymous · « **Reply #22 on:** April 12, 2008, 10:13 »

I had 8 of 9 refused for the "Fotolia sells photos to use in brochures and magazines...yours is not stock..." reason. Prior I haven't had any problems (97% acceptance). But they're still in my top 3 best agencies so I have no plans on stopping uploads. Try uploading at a different time of day when another reviewer is at the helm...Atilla must sleep SOMETIME.

Waldo4 · « **Reply #23 on:** April 12, 2008, 11:43 »

Hmmm....just rejected a cotton field for overabundant type. 84 results when using keywords "cotton field" almost every relevant file of the 84 has sold several times (including another one of mine), one of those keyword combos where for a relevant file a DL is virtually guaranteed.

Yet two days ago they accepted an isolated apple which returned 4257 results and has less than a 50% sales rate. Mmmmm..k

scottbeard · « **Reply #24 on:** April 12, 2008, 12:17 »

Quote from: lisafx on April 11, 2008, 15:56

Add me to the list. My rejections have skyrocketed there in the past week or two and they are totally random.

I have found that over the last 2 months or so Fotolia have been more picky.

But I wouldn't say their rejections are random.

I submitted 10 photos last week - 5 isolated objects and 5 of my pet cat (in full knowledge of course that the cat ones are clearly less stockworthy, but I interested to see!!!)

Fotolia accepted 5 isolations out of 5. They accepted 1 cat out of 5. The rejection reasons were 2 "overabundant" and 2 "type of photo".

I think the rather vague rejection reasons they use can make their rejections SEEM random. But if I sit back and think about it, they nearly always accept the best photos and reject the worst.

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Author Topic: What is up with Fotolia?? (Read 16903 times)

kkart

Peter

sharpshot

Peter

Stu99

Seren

Waldo4

cshack

Peter

kkart

dianajo

Peter

shutterdrop

cascoly

tdoes

madelaide

Pywrit

Allsa

lisafx

.shock

lisafx

fotoKmyst

anonymous

Waldo4

scottbeard

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