I was watching at the Shutterstock forum and saw this thread that I totally agree with! This is a short version you can have the entire here: http://submit.shutterstock.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=15953

It's the story of a reviewer who can't handle anymore the job. He sent this letter to another reviewer who post it in the SS forum



Here's a small slice of one day in the life of a reviewer ...

I reviewed all day long, about 10 hours I think, and today was one of those days where all I saw were images that were not in focus at all, anywhere in the photo, .... artifacts, noise and blurriness all at the same time, ... underexposed images, ... blown highlights, ... color fringing, ... and over-saturated colors that painfully hurt my eyeballs to look at them....

One person uploaded 34 of the same image of a box, with the box made a different color in each one.

Another person uploaded 23 images of a dead tree stump, underexposed, noisy, colorless, boring old tree stump. What was his fixation with that stump?? Had he never seen one before? Did he think he was bringing something new and exciting to the world?

I reviewed more shots today from the person who only takes �from the hip� shots of strangers walking on the street, in the mall, in the grocery store and clothing stores. They�re crooked, not focused, blurry and noisy. He types in his description � �tilted and blurred to show speed and movement�. Who does this guy think he�s fooling � it�s crooked because he shot from his hip to avoid having to get a model release and blurred because he didn�t grab a focus on the subject! And if the person(s) face in the photo is still a bit recognizable, not a problem for this guy! He grabs the smear tool and smears the offending face into a blurry glob that looks like a huge grease spot on the image! How special is that?

And those * USB plug images with the narrow slit of clear focus area! ... Holy Mary, I see at least a hundred of those every time I review ... I can always tell the photographer is a guy when I see 10 -15 images of a USB plug, taken from every conceivable angle; first his black plug, then his white plug, then both of them together for a nice change of scenery. And don't get me started on the multi-colored ones! God, I hate USB plugs.

CDs, compact discs. Excluding a handful of men photographers ... every other guy in the world sends in multiple pictures of his cds, his cell phone, his TV remote, his ugly, hairy feet (in various poses), his computer keyboard, his ink pen, his booze bottles, his motherboard (is he actually taking his computer apart for this exquisite shot?), along with the infamous USB plug shots. And then he gets out his camera equipment and shoots every lens, every lens hood, his tripod (in various heights) and his old camera. And that gives him one heck of an idea! He has some old film! So he unrolls that and shoots it; he doesn't need that stuff anymore now that he's gone digital. Then he shoots the little black container that the film came in. Over white. Then he goes out to the garage and shoots his tools and tool boxes and then turns to his car. The headlights.! Hell, why not? So we get shots of the headlights, then the side view mirrors

today I reviewed (again) the guy who takes pictures of his tools ... every single screwdriver in his tool box, and he has the large set. He takes a picture of one, then adds one and I get a picture of two, then he adds another for a picture of three ... etc, etc, until he has his entire set of screwdrivers all lined up for the final shot in the series. I hate that man's tools! He must sit up nights just thinking about what formation he can place his screwdrivers in for the next series. He's already done a straight line series, a square series and a circle series with them. And then he went and bought new screwdrivers with a different color handle! He's starting all over again! That man needs to get a life.

And food shots. Strawberries are really popular now, for about the past 2 months I�ve seen every strawberry purchased and eventually eaten by a stock photographer, photographed from every possible angle. I�ve even seen the shots they took while eating the strawberry! Did they hold the camera at arm�s length to get that out of focus shot? Strawberries must be in season. If I have to review one more strawberry shot ... you might as well just shoot me. I can�t even eat them anymore, I pass them right by in the supermarket

During the weeks leading to Easter it was much worse though � we were inundated with eggs for about 90 days straight. Just eggs � eggs on white, eggs on black, brown eggs on white, brown eggs on black, brown eggs on top of white eggs, white eggs on top of brown eggs, and a few colored egg shots thrown in the mix for good measure.

And that reminds me of keywording; don�t even get me started on keywords! Every single egg shot had the words chicken, bunny, bird and Jesus ! in the keywords and there was no chicken, bunny or bird in the shot at all, just a plain old oval egg or two, and I never did see Jesus.

Most of the offending persons mentioned above don�t have a clue about composition or the rule of thirds, don�t know how to do much with their cameras other than press the shutter release, and they definitely do not have an �eye� for art or photography. But it�s not only men who take bad shots.

Women mostly shoot flowers. Today I saw hundreds of blurry, oversaturated flowers with blown highlights and artifacts thrown in for good measure. Women love to pump up the color in some imaging program. And the women who love to do that are either color blind as hell or their monitors are not calibrated. Or both. Something�s wrong because today I saw an image of a pair of beige dress heels, an artificial flower and a white lace thong on the brightest Halloween-orange fabric I�ve seen since last October and she described the background color as yellow!

I never knew food could look so disgusting in a photo. Today I saw the most disgusting oriental chop suey shots that looked like worms in brown slime on a plate. If the lighting had been set properly, it might have not gagged me. But this was so gruesome to look at I had to get up and walk away from my computer and get some fresh air.

So that was a small slice of the entire 10 plus hours I spent reviewing images today. Wonder what tomorrow will bring?

Anonymous Reviewer



Do you ever watched the newest files at IS for example and say that some of these images will never sell? Pictures of rocks and everything. Or deleted 52 pictures of a set of 63 because you considered these not "stock" pictures. If so, thank you for not uploading just for fun and making the microstock collection clean. LOL

Oh this gives me an idea for a shot:

A mushroom cloud of oatmeal dancing on the head of a screwdriver, with oversaturated flowers spewing forth all over 

I go cross-eyed looking at my monitor for more than 15 minutes. 10 Hours??!!
Did this guy never hear of color fatigue? You cannot look at anything for too long or the colors will seem to shift.

This explains why we get some of the really whak rejections sometimes.

did never shoot out-of-focus people in the supermarket though

I got you covered on that one!! 

Ahaha very amusing read. Now I know what I don't have to shoot

if you don't want to deal with drunks don't become a bartender.   

...he went and bought new screwdrivers with a different color handle! He's starting all over again! That man needs to get a life.

Funny, seems to be he is prepared and ready to become a reviewer now! 

Another reviewer this time. I hope the message is understood correctly. LOL

Un-freakin'-believable the amount of CRAP people send in. I had no idea it was that bad.

Ever wonder why queues get backed up? Some people don't know when to stop uploading. Last night...and I'm not kidding...I couldn't sleep, because my mind kept replaying images of seagulls and cemeteries. Why on earth would anyone submit 100 photos with 70+% of the images of seagulls and rows and rows of tombstones? An Alfred Hitchcock wannabe? What's even more amazing about that submission is they were all shot in San Francisco near the Golden Gate Bridge. Out of all of them, only one photo of the Golden Gate. One. Two of cable cars...all with advertising logos, of course.

Only 16 out of 100 images accepted. And then there was the guy who uploaded 441 images, half of which were photos of the Grand Canyon and the other half the Grand Canyon pushed through a motion blur filter for use as a background. After a while, I couldn't tell the difference between any of the images, and just left them for another reviewer. My eyes and objectivity couldn't take it anymore. And then there are the people who resubmit huge batches of images that I rejected only hours before. If they were crappy a few hours ago, they are still crappy now.

That's why.

A pair of bloody wings that looked like they were freshly pulled off a live bird, both laid out neatly on the grass. How gross. I didn't need to see that. And then there's my favorite one. A photo of black. That's right. Black. And it wasn't a mistake. This photo of black was properly titled, described and keyworded. Keywords are equally puzzling. A landscape photo of a cactus set against a large rock with 10 keywords: cactus, rock, desert, mins, health, penis, phallus, erection, funny, humorous. All I could see was "Ouch!"

Is there a camera anywhere capable of shooting 58 megapixel images? Apparently so, because someone uploaded a photo that size, which stalled my computer for a good 10 minutes. For my time and trouble, I earned a few pennies.

It's amazing how many different types of noise exist. And how many more people can't see it or don't bother to look for it. Some images had noise so large I could see it in the preview panel at 300 x 400 pixels before viewing at 100%.

People are filthy creatures. I've seen greasy sunglasses, years of collected dust, fingerprints on wine glasses, pet hair, eyelashes on food, and the most offensive hair of them all...the dreaded pubic. And they like to grab just any old object they can find and pose them as new. Beaten up watches with the color coming off. Broken joysticks with sticky food particles. Sippy cups with teeth marks. God help me if someone sends in a photo of their stained underwear or belly button with lint inside.

Doors. Steeples. Clock towers. Radio towers. Construction cranes. Power lines. Brick walls. Log piles. Grass. Sun flares. Rocks. Waves. Seagulls. Clouds. Dead tree branches. Train tracks. Boats. Street signs. Lamp posts. Roads. Moving cars. Money. Computer mice. CD-ROMs. Colored pencils. Apples. Oranges. And a whole assortment of one-click Photoshop wonders. Water ripples. Pencil etchings. Pastel paintings. Motion blur. Mosaics.

I keep hoping Christmas will end sometime before summer. Aren't there any other holidays or occasions besides Christmas, Valentine's Day or weddings? I'm very thankful computers don't have smell-a-vision, because I would faint from the constant fumes emanating from all those roses and pine trees.

When did pizza turn blue?

When did camera shake become abstract art?

The second saddest part about reviewing is seeing so many photographers with a good eye destroying their images with overfilteration during post processing. I rejected some of the most gorgeous scenics from Japan I've ever seen, because of oversharpening. Perfectly composed cityscapes from Bosnia and interesting office buildings, rejected because of overuse of noise reduction software. And gone are the lovely heirloom gardens, ruined by oversaturation. I hope they don't take the rejections personally and choose to learn from them instead.

The saddest part about reviewing is seeing so many photographers who have contributed to stock for several years continuing to submit poor images. Don't they know the rules by now? One guy with several thousand images on one site alone uploaded so much junk in his last submission that I could only accept 20% of the photos. The rejection reasons ran the gamut. Out of focus. Purple fringing. Poor composition. Overexposure. Copyright violations and trademark infringements. It wasn't like he was a newbie trying to learn what is acceptable. He's been around for a while, and should know how to be more selective.

The queue is caught up now

And now it's time for me to get some rest so I can start another day.



Did you submitted more than 1000 pictures in the last 6 months, your very first 6 months in microstock? Without having an assistant or experience?

Wow -- I don't know how these posts make me feel.  Yes, I'm guilty of submitting many of the "awful" subjects they have listed.  And yes, I've gotten rejections for noise, but about 2/3 of those I can't find the offending noise.  My acceptance ratios in the big six vary from about 80% all the way down to 30% at Fotolia.  

I guess I just don't get it.

And after eliminating all the awful subjects listed by those two reviewers, there is not much left to shoot.  

I feel nothing but sorry for these reviewers.  I see some of these boring, tired shots coming through the queues after they've been approved at some of these sites and have to wonder what on earth the reviewers were thinking to have approved them.  

But after reading the above it is painfully obvious that all we are seeing is the dozen or so of the best ones that squeaked through out of a series of over 100.

As contributors, I imagine we would fare a lot better with our acceptance ratios if we bore these rants in mind when we are uploading.  

ETA:  These folks deserve some gratitude for slogging through all the dross.  I think I would be forced to shoot myself in the head after 10 hours of that!

10 hours reviewing = coffe-chating-forum-watching images-more coffe-food-snacks.   It´s just like us...

I´d probably say the same thing after a few weeks though.

I feel nothing but sorry for these reviewers.  
ETA:  These folks deserve some gratitude for slogging through all the dross.  I think I would be forced to shoot myself in the head after 10 hours of that!

Lisa, I love your work and their rants are not aimed at you, however, they get paid for a job they applied for. Just like microstock photogs complaining about rejections, nobody's holding the checkbook to their heads.

seen it before but still good for a laugh.  anyway, I'm off belly button lint didn't turn up any hits on shutterstock...not one!

Does anyone here know what a reviewer earn for a 10 hour shift?