I usually try second option but recently I tend to ignore cause same photos are sent and different sites got different criteria.

Mostly inaudible muttering of various curse words?

Mostly inaudible muttering of various curse words?

+1, except that my curse words are very audible.

What gets me are the rejections I get from FT and the same images are accepted at SS and IS and  selling well....what are thinking?

I usually try second option but recently I tend to ignore cause same photos are sent and different sites got different criteria.

I'm willing to bet that the first day I went to the other forum, before I found this one (or maybe before it existed?) people were asking the same questions. Not that you are wrong or that I disagree, but that reviews have been inconsistent and rejections have been different according to agency, for a long time. Maybe it's getting worse?

I don't know if the levels have gone up because my way of dealing with unusual and odd rejections was to ignore them and move on. Yes I found that rejected images on a couple of sites, sold fine on others.

My eventual answer was ShutterStock and iStock and drop the rest. I seem to have a understanding of what those two want and sell of my particular interests, and the reviews have been consistent enough that I can guess ahead what will be rejected and why. Or just don't send in something that they won't take and save it for later. I don't have images from one type or style accepted one week and then rejected the next, or a month later have them say "we don't take this type of mater, it doesn't sell well" when it's just been accepted and sells there!  

Let me put it another way. If I can't get images accepted and the agency doesn't want them, I can't sell them? Why bother submitting them, having them rejected and then selling them on another site. I'll just skip the extra work and only sell on a couple of sites.

The other option that many people have chosen is, send em in, if they get rejected, tough luck, they will sell somewhere else. The ones that get through are up for sale. Forget about rejections because the agency decides what they want and don't want, not us. Complaining or watching the irrational QC and getting upset, changes nothing.

My choice was vote with my feet and leave. Anyone who stays with any agency needs to accept the policies, reviews and the way that agency does business. I pretty convinced that those are the two options available.  

Oh wait, option three is always approved:

I'll usually blurt out "What the *bleep* ever"...

 

I just think about the image that IS rejected over a year ago that was a good seller at other sites. On a whim I resubmitted it to IS with no changes and it was accepted. It is now my number 2 best seller at IS and will probably be number 1 in a few more weeks.

I just realize the reviewers are over worked and many are not very good. I've had images rejected at IS for all sorts of odd things and submitted them later on (even NO RESUBMIT images) and they were accepted and doing well. Some rejects deserved it and i just mumble and agree... and move on.

Quote from: melastmohican on August 11, 2010, 12:33

I usually try second option but recently I tend to ignore cause same photos are sent and different sites got different criteria.

Maybe you should try to stop uploading and work on your side. Since you have almost 4 times more images than sales on Dreamstime, it wouldn't be time wasted

I love your comments, you must be a lot of fun to hang around

There are two or three things you have for sure: modesty, self confidence! (can't wait to hear the 3rd from yourself)

It's tough, but I just get up, get on with it, be a little more careful
And - keep believing in your work!

I know my increased rejections are caused by my camera becoming old, outdated, noisy... its not just the camera, it's the standards at the agencies that are slowly becoming higher and higher as the quality of the work begins to reflect the new cameras and techniques.  I understand that as time goes on, I have to upgrade my own materials and skills to keep up with it. It's been that way since I began in microstock 5 years ago.  Of course when I get rejections I have to stomp and scream and get angry, but that's just the red-headed Irish Leo in me.  Then I calm down and say, "okay time to buy a new camera and upgrade to PS5."

Until then I illustrate. I rarely get rejections on my illustrations.

@pet_chia, the keyword Nazi, LOL... yeah I know what you mean, but as I have been doing this for a long time, I see a pattern, there are two keyword philosophies:  One is that you just use keywords that apply to the image literally, i.e. a book, a flower, a table. The more "liberal" philosophy about keywords is to use conceptual words, ones that are more a stretch of the imagination, or ones that could speak to the potential use of the image, such as a brochure or report cover, or what not.  I think the stock agencies more appreciate the first way to do it (only use words that apply to the image itself), and some reviewers probably do not appreciate all the gazillion "potential uses" that we think of to use as keywords. Plus, there is an insane amount of keyword spamming going on, I think the worst patterns I see of that is by the people that "purchase" their keywords from a keywording service. I'm sure the reviewers are overwhelmed... as a buyer I know I am, I can rarely find just what I want from all of the junk keywords that I come across.

In other words if you get a keyword rejection, be glad its not a technical rejection that you won't be able to fix, just pare them down as much as you can and resubmit.

I'm sitting back and licking my wounds. I went from >90% acceptance at iStock (after the first few months, not overall) to 50% (mostly for 'bad light', i.e. natural rainforest light). That, combined with poor sales of almost everything I uploaded in the last 18 months, has totally knocked me for six. I'm clearly not shooting what buyers want. ost of my selling images are from before I knew about iStock. So I seem not to be learning anything.

You could have put my name in place of yours in the author portion of this, Sue.  I too went from a very consistent 80-90% acceptance rate dating back to late 2008, to about 50% lately.  And yes, most of my rejections are for "lighting."  I was yipping about it in one of the IS forums while probably ticking off the admins.  Then I noticed my site mail had a message, and it was from a Diamond exclusive whose port pretty much makes my mouth water.  He/she mentioned the same thing...their acceptance rate was down to about 50% the last few months and almost every rejection is for "lighting."

So standards have sky rocketed, and I'm honestly at a loss for what they are looking for these days.  I just have to shoot twice as many images to get the number I had envisioned online.  It is what it is.  Once, just once, I'd love to sit down with a reviewer and look over their shoulder while they accept/reject my photos.  Not so I can argue with them, but so I can ask them exactly what it is they are looking for and learn something.  I think that would be far more valuable than the critique forum, where you can guarantee everyone will find something different that they like or hate about your image.  It would be awesome to hear a reviewer say, "I would have done this or that with your image to get it to pop."  Obviously it can never happen - just too many images for them to review.  It's just that after 4 years of countless rejections from several agencies, I can count on 1 hand the number of times I learned something from their response.

If the rejections are legit, I work on improving mt skills.

With IS I find that most of the time the reviewer was right and I overlooked something. After I correct it, they accept it. But not always. Sometimes they seem to use certian types of rejections (e.g. lighting) to say something isn't siutable for stock.

For other sites I've worked with in the past if the rejections were inconsistent or unjustified I'd use some choice profanility and ignore them.

Well to deal with it is no problem at all, if a shot is bad or technically wrong it should be dumped. Having said that, Im making myself a promise. Im not going to entertain sites anymore if they show what I call untrained, uneducated reviewing. I dont want some half-assed part-timer reviewing my shots.
This summer Ive seen such piss-poor editing, obviously from summer staff with total lack of the English language that you get more out of it in a burger bar.

Im not wasting my time any further with total dilletants.