Author Topic: Is Shutterstock for real??? (Read 32461 times)

Tryingmybest · « **Reply #50 on:** October 11, 2015, 00:05 »

Try again with the same 10. I'm almost certain they will get accepted. You got stuck with one of the exceptional reviewers. You'll make more money being on IS and SS. Once you get a nice automated workflow, you can work with other agencies.

Microstockphoto · « **Reply #51 on:** October 11, 2015, 00:50 »

This thread is comedy gold, karma's a bitch, aint it op?

mojaric · « **Reply #52 on:** October 11, 2015, 05:25 »

You may be right RoseTinted but a statement as "shutterstock loose me" or "they loose me" is certainly not the right attitude....shutterstock doesnt give a *** of who are you and how many prices you have won

I understand frustation but i still suggest you to retry and contribute to SS , not for proud or curriculum, but just because they are the best selling microstock agency...btw with your background im sure you can find some alternatives

authenticcreations · « **Reply #53 on:** October 11, 2015, 05:43 »

I agree with Mojaric.

I know SS can be difficult but just giving up on them is just hurting yourself. If you dont want to submit for now it is fine but i would at least keep your portfolio there. It will not solve the problem to leave. Like i said this is like self destruction. For most people SS is the heart of Microstock and the other agencies sub earnings.

Mirco

cobalt · « **Reply #54 on:** October 11, 2015, 06:18 »

What surprises me is that they don´t do anything about it. They have enough money to train their people well and create an inspection experience that is the best in the industry.

I know they are taking 600 000 files a week, but the interesting content is now often to be found on the smartphone agencies and none of those files would get into SS.

And yet that is the content everyone wants and what they have themselves on Offset.

Very strange.

etudiante_rapide · « **Reply #55 on:** October 11, 2015, 07:54 »

without looking at the 10 you submitted , as SLocke asked, it's hard to be objective to sh*t on ss and side you.
but as already shown by old timers like from the other threads whining or justified complaining,
i can only say one of many things.

1) when i entered micro , many ppl incl lisafx, sjlocke, stacy newman,etc said, "if i had to do it today, i would not be so confident as when i joined IS, a long time back" (or something like that).

that was in the days when ss was in the upper 90s close to 100% on the poll results on this page
and IS was top contender and the others were quite good .
today, dt is a joke, as with BigStock, etc... and IS,.. well, you know..
and ss is like the remake of history of IS before they eff-up.

there is no more transparency in ss, and the review system is totally anal. lots of conflict of interest, if u ask me.

so lastly , my explanation of why you got rejected big time is that
most likely you got a reviewer who sees you as a big threat to be part of ss
as u would be taking a big chunk out of his/her pie.

if u submitted a real 10 of lousy laughable ~~snapshots~~ ... like the kind of stuff
you see sign-up/log in home page ie. capcha or that ~~really out of focus~~ pix of the lady with the black and white striped shirt holding the camera ..
i would bet you would pass the test with flying colours

Mantis · « **Reply #56 on:** October 11, 2015, 08:41 »

Quote from: cobalt on October 11, 2015, 06:18

What surprises me is that they don´t do anything about. They have enough money to train their people well and create an inspection experience that is the best in the industry.

I know they are taking 600 000 files a week, but the interesting content is now often to be found on the smartphone agencies and none of those files would get into SS.

And yet that is the content everyone wants and what they have themselves on Offset.

Very strange.

I'm a fairly straight shooter here and I have to say that I really liked IStocks old inspection process. There were times when inspectors would write me a private note saying "this is a nice image, look at the top right, set Photoshop this way and then you will see what I mean". I REALLY appreciated them helping in that way and I not too often challenged the rejection because most of the time they were right, not all though. That editing discipline I still apply today even though they have poopoo'd their acceptance criteria. SS is the opposite. Very strict, but unknown guidelines, whether personal dislike for an image, images competitive with the inspectors, software pre-screening for sharpness, spending zilch time to really look at images, metrics they are measured against (# accepted v # rejected=job performance criteria), if one is bad they all must be bad rejections, etc. Bake into that the odd rejection reasons. That broadens the mystery. The lack of action & communication from SS almost smells of some kind of guilt, or exposing something they don't want us to know because it would be embarrassing to them. Why they just do not fix the behind the scenes problems is a mystery in and of itself as well. I am wondering if they started farming out inspections (maybe some but not all) to basement personnel to handle the flow of images and to cut costs for the shareholders and they also do not want us to know that. Every agency is trying to cut overhead and farming out inspections certainly could be one contributing factor. Link that to other broken process pieces within the inspection process and you have the critical mass of real system failures.

My last batch of 110 images wasn't too bad. I think I got 10 rejected. But other times quite the opposite. It's like probability. Flipping a coin, or for some, rolling a dice and hoping for a six.

gbalex · « **Reply #57 on:** October 11, 2015, 10:02 »

Quote from: JPSDK on October 10, 2015, 01:59

I have met many old school photographers, professionals in the trade during 1990 and up to 2010, doing stock or "police and accidents".
They often failed to adapt to global crowdsourcing. Where people from Ucraine and Uri from Denmark simply produced a better product, because they produced a more precise, more striking content without distractions, that could be used globally and not only in the local media..
They could not compete or adapt. Their artistic development was halted because of greenhouse effects and lack of competition and it was characteristic that they said: " I like to shoot photos" and " I dont like to photoshop too much".
Which is exactly what you say.
So I think you should ask yourself if the istock greehouse has limited you and if you are competitive in a global crowdsourcing environment.

And I dare you: show us some of your photos.

Really 18+ likes

How soon we forget that IS "used to" have the toughest reviews in micro.

I do think SS farms out its reviews by region and who you get is the luck of the draw. Take a good long look at the new images coming in to shutterstock. Many of those images would have never made the reviews at the former IS.

The review process is flawed.

langstrup · « **Reply #58 on:** October 11, 2015, 10:02 »

I really dont see the point of this thread as long as the images you submitted are not shown here. Or at least a link to your portfolio on IS.

Just not serious!

Rose Tinted Glasses · « **Reply #59 on:** October 11, 2015, 12:08 »

[/quote]

Really 18+ likes

How soon we forget that IS "used to" have the toughest reviews in micro.

I do think SS farms out its reviews by region and who you get is the luck of the draw. Take a good long look at the new images coming in to shutterstock. Many of those images would have never made the reviews at the former IS.

The review process is flawed.
[/quote]

I am not sure if IS was the toughest in the review process, but they were very tough once upon a time and I learned a lot of very good information during that process. If an image was rejected they were clear on why it was rejected and you could fix it - more often than not. And I have never had 90% rejection during the toughest period of IS days.

This whole notion of submit the same 10 images again you might get a different reviewer is not my game.

Anyway, that is enough from me, I just wanted to share what I thought was a very bizarre first experience in the review process at SS.

Pauws99 · « **Reply #60 on:** October 11, 2015, 12:24 »

I always found IS to be tough but fair until they flipped to accept everything. I think SS have a certain type of stock style they like and if you don't fit then you are in trouble.

ravens · « **Reply #61 on:** October 11, 2015, 13:05 »

Maybe you could still learn something. If you think your photos are too good to be ever rejected, your photography will no longer progress.

ShadySue · « **Reply #62 on:** October 11, 2015, 13:18 »

Quote from: Rose Tinted Glasses on October 09, 2015, 11:50

http://www.microstockgroup.com/shutterstock-com/shutterstock-reviewers-beating-me-up-anyone-else/ here is 37 pages of people throwing a fit, or so I thought. This seems to be the norm, and it's a dance that I don't want to do. Sure before I thought it was a laughable post, but now from personal experience I can say I want nothing to do with it.

Why didn't you add your tuppenceworth to that thread?

BTW, I have more sympathy than may be perceived with those wanting to give up iS exclusivity. iS is on a one-way trip to nowhere. Even those exclusives who did well via Getty will have their income cut via the new UltraPack reductions for image packs there, now available to everyone, as well as the behind scenes mega-low deals we already have experienced.

dnavarrojr · « **Reply #63 on:** October 12, 2015, 07:04 »

When I joined Shutterstock, I bypassed all of the BS by contacting them ahead of time, giving them a link to my portfolio and then arranging to send them a hard drive with a CSV file. They did all the work importing everything and I had like a 99.9% approval. Of the 8 files they rejected, I simply re-uploaded them and got 6 accepted with no edits.

Mantis · « **Reply #64 on:** October 12, 2015, 08:11 »

I failed my first submission and I was pissed. I think most were underwater and I know what makes up a good UW pic. I think I had 7 of 10 rejected. All I did was submit another batch but with only one underwater image and the rest a cross section of images and all accepted. It is frustrating to get rejections indeed but that's this game. Doesn't mean it's fair by any means, just that it is what it is. Should SS fix it? Yes. Will they? They haven't yet, even in the face of being formally contacted by several big players about this mess they've created. I know one BIG player who has gone glamour and stopped micro stock altogether because of Istock and Shutterstock. She is extremely successful in her new business.

YadaYadaYada · « **Reply #65 on:** October 13, 2015, 10:29 »

Quote from: gbalex on October 11, 2015, 10:02

Quote from: JPSDK on October 10, 2015, 01:59
I have met many old school photographers, professionals in the trade during 1990 and up to 2010, doing stock or "police and accidents".
They often failed to adapt to global crowdsourcing. Where people from Ucraine and Uri from Denmark simply produced a better product, because they produced a more precise, more striking content without distractions, that could be used globally and not only in the local media..
They could not compete or adapt. Their artistic development was halted because of greenhouse effects and lack of competition and it was characteristic that they said: " I like to shoot photos" and " I dont like to photoshop too much".
Which is exactly what you say.
So I think you should ask yourself if the istock greehouse has limited you and if you are competitive in a global crowdsourcing environment.

And I dare you: show us some of your photos.

Really 18+ likes

How soon we forget that IS "used to" have the toughest reviews in micro.

I do think SS farms out its reviews by region and who you get is the luck of the draw. Take a good long look at the new images coming in to shutterstock. Many of those images would have never made the reviews at the former IS.

The review process is flawed.

I also liked the tougher reviews on IS. Maybe they will come back with the new CEO?

I think you are also right about SS, some reviewers are in NY the rest are farmed out to incompetent services.

The review process is horribly flawed and inconsistent.

The OP did miss some words in his rant about how wonderful he is and how SS is missing his work. SS accepts half a million images a week, they don't really care about any one of us. Those photos passed, didn't they?

This applies to all of us Your image is not in focus or focus is not located where we feel it works best. http://www.shutterstock.com/blog/why-images-get-rejected-for-focus it helps to understand what the rejection really means. It isn't just about sharpness.

DavidZydd · « **Reply #66 on:** October 14, 2015, 11:18 »

Quote from: Dumc on October 09, 2015, 10:25

There is a reviewer at SS who rejects everything except 1 photo. You probably stumbled on him.

I think, I've met two times with this reviewer:
-other reviewers accepts more than 95% of my vectors
-this reviewer accepted only 10-20%

He/she rejected even types of my images, that had 100% acceptance ratio after several hundred images uploaded.

DavidZydd · « **Reply #67 on:** October 15, 2015, 10:14 »

Quote from: sigalavaca on October 09, 2015, 11:59

Good to know that it's not only with us beginners. I am just starting and as a test to see how it goes, I selected 100 images to upload to DT, IS and SS. DT accepted 100, IS 80 and SS 18.

That's interesting! DT simply hate most of my works, but SS loves them (except one reviewer).
I haven't tried IS because they listed everything that I make in their we don't need list.

stuttershock · « **Reply #68 on:** October 15, 2015, 15:36 »

Quote from: Rose Tinted Glasses on October 09, 2015, 09:40

WOWSER!!! [...] I thought I would test the waters and consider the world of being non-exclusive and start with Shutterstock. What a joke that turned out to be. [...] a shot "out of focus" [...] The other reasons were totally bizarre as well. Three of the images for lack of composition???

Needless to say I won't be going with that agency. (...)

pretty similar to my own experience there. If they are over-saturated with photos (not too hard to believe, and their mass-market business model is increasingly failing) why are they trying so hard to seduce still more photographers into that outfit?!?

IMHO, they're a total waste of time (for photo submissions).

aly · « **Reply #69 on:** October 15, 2015, 19:28 »

Has anyone ever got a notice of TECHNICAL GLITCH-please resubmit? What does this mean?

Hongover · « **Reply #70 on:** October 15, 2015, 19:46 »

I got rejected quite a few times before I got in to SS. It took a while, but once I got in, things have been good.

We all play by the same rules. It doesn't matter if you have 25 years or 25 days. Just because you have 25 years doesn't mean the rules will be different for you. If you got a rejection, it just means you're going to be facing a lot of competition when you do get accepted.

Don't take rejection so personally. You're never too old to learn from it. Your posting sounds a lot like entitlement than anything else.

stock shooter · « **Reply #71 on:** October 15, 2015, 19:54 »

Quote

I have well over 1,000 images on GI as a house contributor. I have made my living full time from stock for 25+ years. I have worked for some top name magazines as a regular contributor. I have done several ad campaigns. I have won awards for my work. I have coffee table books to my credit

The fact that you would bother with micro stock in the first place baffles me.

leaf · « **Reply #72 on:** October 15, 2015, 23:54 »

Quote from: aly on October 15, 2015, 19:28

Has anyone ever got a notice of TECHNICAL GLITCH-please resubmit? What does this mean?

It means that there was a problem with uploading - like the file is corrupted or something and you should try again.

Pauws99 · « **Reply #73 on:** October 16, 2015, 04:57 »

Quote from: Hongover on October 15, 2015, 19:46

We all play by the same rules. It doesn't matter if you have 25 years or 25 days.

Thats the point I don't think we all get judged in the same way......opinion I know but I doubt the sheer volume of complaints from some very capable people is because they have suddenly become less comptetent.

Rose Tinted Glasses · « **Reply #74 on:** October 16, 2015, 10:14 »

Quote from: stock shooter on October 15, 2015, 19:54

Quote
I have well over 1,000 images on GI as a house contributor. I have made my living full time from stock for 25+ years. I have worked for some top name magazines as a regular contributor. I have done several ad campaigns. I have won awards for my work. I have coffee table books to my credit

The fact that you would bother with micro stock in the first place baffles me.

The rejects from various other agencies and/or secondary images have to go somewhere and they end up on microstock. Excellent secondary income from seconds and or rejects. Best images to high end RF markets and/or RM and the sloppy seconds go to microstock. It's really not that complicated.

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Author Topic: Is Shutterstock for real??? (Read 32461 times)

Tryingmybest

Microstockphoto

mojaric

authenticcreations

cobalt

etudiante_rapide

Mantis

gbalex

langstrup

Rose Tinted Glasses

Pauws99

ravens

ShadySue

dnavarrojr

Mantis

YadaYadaYada

DavidZydd

DavidZydd

stuttershock

aly

Hongover

stock shooter

leaf

Pauws99

Rose Tinted Glasses

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