I tend to agree with Powerdroid on Istock and its standards.  Istock are perfectly willing to accept saturated images with a lot of "pop" as long as you don't add artifacts in the process. 

If you shoot at ISO 100 and properly expose, you can add a fair amount of vibrance and contrast to the RAW file without introducing any artifacts and IS will usually accept them.

But to answer the original question, I started in 2005 and have pretty much the same images on every site.  IS is by far my best earner at 40%.  The next closest contender is Fotolia at 22%.

I think you misunderstand me.  I think IS and SS have *different* standards.  IS prefers less editing at all.  SS prefers (and sells more) with higher contrast, higher saturation, more sharpened images.  It's two opposite approaches.  I have a hard time getting stuff in at IS (35-40% usually) and I'm not going to do what feels like a half-ass edit to make IS take it.  I want the image to look the best it can so it sells.  I don't think slightly undersaturated, slightly undersharp, slightly low contrast is a good image.  I know IS wants the designers to have leeway - and that's fine - but I'm not editing twice.  So iStock takes what they want from what I send em.  And like I said, I'm good with that.

I'm understanding you, mantonino.   I agree completely.   I just had a crappo upload with IS.  Shot down 75% of the pix..   why?    A lot of them were tweeked.  With IS  you dont even want to sneeze at the original file!!  Curiously, IMHO,  many of the pix were rich, yet not overdone. Personally, I don't like overly saturated images, they start to look totally fake...  but this is the kicker for me.   Many of the rejected ones were shot down for   "Flat/dull colors".   WTH?    Made no sense at all.   I'm not one to bellyache about rejections... 99.99% of the time, I couldn't care less.   But I have to admit,  this batch and the rejection reasons...  did... tick me off.  It takes so frackin long to upload to IS... and then to have 75% of it shot down,  especially for   flat/dull colors... kind of irked me,  cause they were anything but  flat & dull.
      For me  SS & IS  are about equal in payout $$..   however,  my port is about half as much on IS.  As far as which has higher standards???    SS takes stuff IS rejects on me... but also,  IS has taken stuff SS rejected..
so go figure.

   Ticked as I am today with IS...   I'll be back with another batch next week...   "It is what it is"
Rejections and  even  wacko rejections are the nature of the beast.   =tom

Quote from: lisafx on April 02, 2010, 16:24

I tend to agree with Powerdroid on Istock and its standards.  Istock are perfectly willing to accept saturated images with a lot of "pop" as long as you don't add artifacts in the process. 

read your comment after I posted mine above... and I must admit Lisafx,  you are correct..  that was a problem with some of those that they rejected in my last batch...    =tom

Believe me, I learned the hard way.  They will kill you on those artifacts...

Do you use Lightroom or ACR to edit the RAWs?  The vibrance slider is great for upping saturation without artifacts.  Really helped my acceptance rate

My mistake, I'm wrong.  iStock is the best.  They rule.  That's why they're #2 on the poll... Shutterstock users are just lying.

Whatever - if you're happy with what you're doing,  you're fine.  I started in 2004 and iSuck is not my #1 - therefore the title of this post is in error.

My mistake, I'm wrong.  iStock is the best.  They rule.  That's why they're #2 on the poll... Shutterstock users are just lying.

People who don't make much at iStock will rate it poorly.  It's easier to get accepted and quickly start selling at Shutterstock, which is why it's number 1.  But the whole argument here is that those who can master iStock will realize greater earning potential there.  Unfortunately it seems those who are doing so are in the minority.

Agree with Sharpshot sorta.  There are istock people and non-istock people.  I WANT to be an iStock person - but I'm simply not re-editing everything twice.  I don't do stock full time so for me to edit once for SS (which makes me $1000s a year) and once for iStock (which so far makes me about $100 a year) doesn't make sense.  I edit for SS and if iStock likes it, great.  If not, oh well.  I usually get buzzsawed at iStock reviews so then I don't sub again for a month.  I've been on since late '04 but refuse to push every week just to get them buzzsawed so I don't bother.  I cashed out $997 from stock last month - I'm happy enough with that.  Yes, I want to increase iStock but it's not a high priority for me.

if I'm correct your nil to mil?

well I think fixing your IS problem would make all your stock better

IS is a strong performer for me and it's growth pretty much reflect how much i upload. so, i give it tops for consistency. however, i have just a slightly larger port on ss, not being a quantity person and its $ performance is just shy of is, in terms of downloads. but ss really blew is out of the water in the last two months with many el's, of which i have not gotten a single one at is. so, if the el performance continues at ss (fingers crossed), then, it's about 3-500%  better.

My mistake, I'm wrong.  iStock is the best.  They rule.  That's why they're #2 on the poll... Shutterstock users are just lying.

I definitely think there's a strong argument to be made in favor of SS.  I don't think image quality issues are the only reason someone might make more there than IS.  Upload limits at IS are another big reason that some people might be doing better at SS.

Personally I don't often manage to output more than Istock's 30/week so it's a moot point for me, but for big producers it surely must have an effect.