MicrostockGroup
Agency Based Discussion => iStockPhoto.com => Topic started by: PeterChigmaroff on October 13, 2008, 14:39
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I must wonder if my files are put through a stupidity filter prior to reaching the temple of inspectors at iStock. I am getting incomplete address rejections for releases. (not all images of course that use the same release). There is absolutely not a single item missing from the address info. Perhaps it is the colour of ink or the way the model formed his 7's that has disagreed with this purveyors of BS.
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I take it that you aren't exclusive?
;D
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I get those from IS and DT.
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Lucky you, I usually get over filtered, which sometimes is very amusing, when I go to great lengths to do virtually nothing to the shot except for some minor sharpening of the RAW then reduce the opacity to 15%. I almost think that using a polarizer in the bright Florida sky makes them think its over filtered. ARGH!
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I get over-filtered a lot too for no apparent reason other than some inspectors have little tolerance for images shot in the bright desert sun. I can't remember filtering ANY stock shot with either my 1Ds or my Mark III ds.
I get a lot of incorrect white point also when it's dead-on correct. That stems from those inspectors who don't like the color values of sunrise and sunset even when it makes the shot.
So we just move on.
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I've been getting the "We found the overall composition of this file's lighting could be improved." rejection which seems to lead to an automatic No Resubmit.
I'm getting the impression that's the choice used when they don't like the file.
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its becoming ridiculous - I get 'artifacts' and 'overfiltering' all the time. And when one of those files gets through, it gets mad downloads.
So why would they bother? I just got a phone call from Minnesota saying that they loved the over-processed file so much, they would like to see more. And they also wanted the plain JPEG too for other reasons.
Interesting stuff, but the people at iStock just don't get it - horrible policies
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perhaps using a polarizing FILTER is what gets you the overfiltered. It seems somewhat random to me, as do the rejections for incomplete MR. I have had them rejected for not having my signature, for not having my address, for not having the subject's birthday... (and the same MR taken before and after that). since I have plenty of images to send them my paltry 15 a week, I never bother resubmitting, but just send the next 15. It almost seems that the ones SS rejects for poor light are accepted at IS and vice versa. I have never had any pics with the bright popping colors accepted at IS, but I have heard if you can manage to get one in, they sell like mad. Since I stopped trying to send them my best sellers, but just send them everything once it gets to the top of the queue, I am surprised by how many images that aren't accepted elsewhere or are poor sellers are accepted. oh well. I suppose they know what they want, although it doesn't seem that way.
I have come to the conclusion that artifact = anything that is associated with a digital picture - digital noise, jpeg artifacts, banding, jagged histograms, tired inspectors, sensor dust... I have no idea what distorted pixels are though.
--=Tom
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You know, I just had a black & white with my application rejected as overfiltered. Now I was expecting this shot to get rejected as uploading it was an accident with a file of similar name and it has a Chrysler written in bright chrome across the front (not to mention the logo). Still it just seems petty when there is a blatant oops, not going to the quality of the shot, to go in effect hey your stuff sucks. On the other hand I'm now motivated to take some more B&W's and sell elsewhere.
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I used to a lot of those over-filtered rejection, with photos not filtered at all. At this stage I have a standard noise reduction setting I put each and every photo though in Photoshop. I haven't had a single rejection for over filtering since I started filtering the photos!
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I used to a lot of those over-filtered rejection, with photos not filtered at all. At this stage I have a standard noise reduction setting I put each and every photo though in Photoshop. I haven't had a single rejection for over filtering since I started filtering the photos!
CCK,
Can you tell us a bit more about your settings? Would a pass through Noise Ninja help?
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resubmit
:D
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resubmit
:D
It's good advice and certainly well worth doing, trouble is the pathetically low allowable submission limits, especially when starting off, doesn't make it practical to resubmit. There must be an extra stipend paid for every image rejected.
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I was surprised today when this illustration was rejected at iStockphoto for not being a stock image:
(http://69.90.174.249/photos/display_pic_with_logo/92377/92377,1223496176,2.jpg) (http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-18606718-flat-panel-television-set.html)
Oh well. Everyone else took it, so it doesn't matter.
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Or submit somewhere else. Some of my best selling images as SS were rejected by IS and vice versa. Each has it's own market -- a rejection is not necessarily a comment on the innate quality of your work, but it's suitability to that particular market.
If the goal is to sell images (vs. please a particular inspector) then I say submit broadly and shrug off the occasional rejection.
And to your original question "Can inspections become more inane?" I'm going to guess "yes?" was I correct?
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I just had this one rejected at IS with the reason:
"We could not find a clear center focal point for this file."
Now, If I can just work out how to focus an illustration, I can resubmit it!
(http://69.90.174.250/photos/display_pic_with_logo/4500/4500,1222185119,1.jpg)
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Or submit somewhere else. Some of my best selling images as SS were rejected by IS and vice versa. Each has it's own market -- a rejection is not necessarily a comment on the innate quality of your work, but it's suitability to that particular market.
If the goal is to sell images (vs. please a particular inspector) then I say submit broadly and shrug off the occasional rejection.
And to your original question "Can inspections become more inane?" I'm going to guess "yes?" was I correct?
It's has become more than the occasional rejection and in most cases has nothing to do with the salability of an image but rather an often undefinable reason, like over filtered when there was no real filtering or finding a artifacts when a sister image had no artifacts. Here is one example, the image with the globe was accepted but the other one was rejected because the line was over filtered. The line? Same line same guy same everything but backgraound.
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Or submit somewhere else. Some of my best selling images as SS were rejected by IS and vice versa. Each has it's own market -- a rejection is not necessarily a comment on the innate quality of your work, but it's suitability to that particular market.
market needs, or maybe just that being #1 and #2, they check out each other
and reject the contributors popular images ;D
just guessing. as it is a fact (based on the many forum input) that SS favourites are almost certain rejects by IS, and v.v.
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I just had this one rejected at IS with the reason:
"We could not find a clear center focal point for this file."
Now, If I can just work out how to focus an illustration, I can resubmit it!
As far as I know, focal point is not focus, but a point of attraction.
Regards,
Adelaide
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i think also, it all depends on who you know at the site.
i've had some rejection when my color correction is a wee bit off, still white , but a bit warm, or cool, and the reviewer rejected my image.
yet , i see the featured images they have on their home page, a shot that is so obvious shot with home lights, all over yellow.
how do you approve of that? when you disapprove of a studio shot that was cc
for a cooler tone? a cool white, or a warm white is acceptable even in commercial photography. you see it in highly paid studio shots.
on the other hand, a shot taken in fluorescent (at the airport, for instance)
, or with home tungsten lamp (in your kitchen) is considered amateurish.
so, really, once again, it's not how good your image is. it's how well you know the reviewer.
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I only ever have problems with releases at DT and SX.
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I am at the point where I do not care about rejections. I upload all my stuff to most of my sites and they take whatever suit them.
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Lucky you, I usually get over filtered, which sometimes is very amusing, when I go to great lengths to do virtually nothing to the shot except for some minor sharpening of the RAW then reduce the opacity to 15%. I almost think that using a polarizer in the bright Florida sky makes them think its over filtered. ARGH!
Amen. I live in FL also and use a circular polarizer a lot. If I had a dime for every shot that gets rejected for "over-filtering" I wouldn't have to work at this at all. grrr!!
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Oh boy, I use CPL all the time :-)
During my last trip I got discussion with a friend who claims that using graduated ND filter is waste of time if you can have the same effect in PS in seconds. I guess how inspectors think, everything is photoshopped :-)
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Although sometimes I've been tempted, I never have allowed myself to get mad at a rejection and try to charge it to the "inanity" of the inspector or to some dark conspiracy theory. IMHO taking a second look at the file and searching for what is worng or borderline has taugth me more than a year in an photgraphy school. Now and then, in rare ocasions, I haven't been able to find the supposed flaw, but a system where humans inspects 60.000 or so images at week, sporadic human errors are inevitable, and that's what resubmission and Scout are for.
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After months of trying to make sense of the "rejection" process, I've finally decided that there IS none. It all depends on who is reviewing and whether or not the image appeals to said reviewer. I've re-submitted stuff several times and the images either make it or they don't. But the "over-filtering" bit with a CPL is especially irritating in a state that has a lot of sun and water. Whaddo they want us to do, anyway? Blow out the image entirely? So......I just shoot, process, submit, etc., and leave my ego offline. ;)
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Although sometimes I've been tempted, I never have allowed myself to get mad at a rejection and try to charge it to the "inanity" of the inspector or to some dark conspiracy theory. IMHO taking a second look at the file and searching for what is worng or borderline has taugth me more than a year in an photgraphy school. Now and then, in rare ocasions, I haven't been able to find the supposed flaw, but a system where humans inspects 60.000 or so images at week, sporadic human errors are inevitable, and that's what resubmission and Scout are for.
Loop, I try not to get too P**sed at the process but what prompted me to start this thread was the rejections i got for incomplete releases when the release was indeed complete. No artifacts or funny filtering *NOT* but for paperwork that was in order. Yes human error crashes several planes a year so I can't expect inspectors to be perfect every time. Am happy though they aren't pilots, that's for sure.
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.... IMHO taking a second look at the file and searching for what is worng or borderline has taugth me more than a year in an photgraphy school. Now and then, in rare ocasions, I haven't been able to find the supposed flaw, .....
true, but what can you conclude when 5 agencies accept and 1 doesnt -- and there's no consistency -- 4 out of 5 accept each image but it's a different agency rejecting
there's almost as much variation among reviewers at a given site as there is among agencies overall. [with the exception of FT which rejects wholesale]
so, yes, it's worth trying to see what the reviewer didnt like, but usually not worth the effort of re-processing to try to get it accepted.
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I think there are some inspectors who have a good idea of what and what isn't acceptable. However there seems to be a fair amount of amateurs at work as well.
I wonder how many inspectors a group of images would have to go through before all images have been rejected. It seems there are so many goofy rejections that it would happen quickly.
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I was surprised today when this illustration was rejected at iStockphoto for not being a stock image:
([url]http://69.90.174.249/photos/display_pic_with_logo/92377/92377,1223496176,2.jpg[/url]) ([url]http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-18606718-flat-panel-television-set.html[/url])
Oh well. Everyone else took it, so it doesn't matter.
IMO not being stock is most annoying. most of my highest earners have received that one (those that are actually on IS have gone through scout).
closely followed by overfiltered...
I too had half a dozen rejections this week for model release which I have never had before (the model release is 18 months old and used on dozens of images)
but I have finally got to the point where I dont care who accepts what and consider that every site has a random element, I heard a while back IS had over 100 reviewers. getting 100 people to decide on anything, esp whether a photo is any good is impossible, throw into that the mix of abilities between reviewers, personal image styles and you've got a pretty strong random element (unless of course you're a perfect photog / artist :)
Phil
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If you want a critique of that TV, I'd say you need to work on it more. It looks like a black rectangle with a blue rectangle, a curvy line, and oval and another square underneath. Too simplistic. I know the other sites will accept almost any illustration, but iStock likes their submissions to look like you spent a little more time on the design.
Same for that universe/earth picture. The styles of the background and the planet just don't mesh at all. You've got this somewhat realistic background, and then the shiny plastic earth with no clouds.
I don't think those rejections are at all surprising. Discouraging to you though, yes.
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I wish Istock realized how bad they are hurting themselves with their policies. By rejecting good stock images or severely limiting non-exclusive submissions they are losing millions of dollars. I have a backlog to submit to them of about 3000 images that would have earned THEM at least 10,000 a month. By allowing me to sumbit 30 a week (and I am a diamond member) and rejecting half of it they are robbing themselves of profit.
Most professional stock photographers can not afford being exclusive to any site, especially in microstock. Istock has a few exclusives that submit excellent images (like Lise Gagne), but I wonder if they realize that they would increase their income 10 times by being non-exclusive. In a way we are lucky that people like Lise are not competing with us on other agencies:) However, apart from these select few, most of Istock's exlusive content is not impressive at all - so by limiting good non-exclusive content they are purposefully and consistently decreasing the quality of their library....
The disambiguation system they got from Getty is totally unnecessary pain in the neck and not only useless in increasing search efficiency, it actually hurts it. I mean, look where this "wonderful" system got Getty itself and others that tried to adopt it (like Photoshelter that just went under).
And this is all too bad, providing that Istock was a pioneer of microstock industry, but looks like it is now is being strangled by their own corporate inefficiency, bureaucracy and shortsighted decisions.
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I wish Istock realized how bad they are hurting themselves with their policies. By rejecting good stock images or severely limiting non-exclusive submissions they are losing millions of dollars. I have a backlog to submit to them of about 3000 images that would have earned THEM at least 10,000 a month. By allowing me to sumbit 30 a week (and I am a diamond member) and rejecting half of it they are robbing themselves of profit.
I'm always surprised that so many people are concerned for the welfare of iStock. It's nice to hear. :)
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Not that it is my image, or any of my business:-), but couldn't help myself... The TV design to simplistic?... What about those amazingly complex photos of the calendar pages that you have recently got approved on Istock? I mean, wow.... :)
If you want a critique of that TV, I'd say you need to work on it more. It looks like a black rectangle with a blue rectangle, a curvy line, and oval and another square underneath. Too simplistic. I know the other sites will accept almost any illustration, but iStock likes their submissions to look like you spent a little more time on the design.
Same for that universe/earth picture. The styles of the background and the planet just don't mesh at all. You've got this somewhat realistic background, and then the shiny plastic earth with no clouds.
I don't think those rejections are at all surprising. Discouraging to you though, yes.
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Not that it is my image, or any of my business:-), but couldn't help myself...
I'm sorry, I must have missed where I asked you for a critique of anything. I was trying to point the poster in the direction that might help their Illustration work accepted at iStock.
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Microstock, in itself is very simplistic. There are some complex images to be sure but for the most part I don't see a lot of ground shuttering imagery. It's good, it's just not complex for the most part. And I agree that iS is shooting itself in the foot. And I don't really give a * except that I miss a lot of opportunities to make money. This should be obvious. Who doesn't want the best chance to make as much money as possible? What's interesting is the production companies that are coming into microstock, Exactly zero of them will go exclusive with IS, In the past it didn't much matter. But now with more and more really good producers the disparity of collections will grow and it will grow quickly as these companies only submit 15 or 20 images a week to IS and several hundred or a thousand to the others. I see the IS collection eventually being too limiting to be effective. By then we'll be seeing rejections for artifacts in model releases or some equally inane thing.
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Not that it is my image, or any of my business:-), but couldn't help myself... The TV design to simplistic?... What about those amazingly complex photos of the calendar pages that you have recently got approved on Istock? I mean, wow.... :)
The question is whether it is good stock. Be sure to check back and take a look at those calendar photos in a few months. I guarantee you at least a few of them will be in flames. That is good stock.
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I wish Istock realized how bad they are hurting themselves with their policies. By rejecting good stock images or severely limiting non-exclusive submissions they are losing millions of dollars. I have a backlog to submit to them of about 3000 images that would have earned THEM at least 10,000 a month. By allowing me to sumbit 30 a week (and I am a diamond member) and rejecting half of it they are robbing themselves of profit.
Most professional stock photographers can not afford being exclusive to any site, especially in microstock. Istock has a few exclusives that submit excellent images (like Lise Gagne), but I wonder if they realize that they would increase their income 10 times by being non-exclusive. In a way we are lucky that people like Lise are not competing with us on other agencies:) However, apart from these select few, most of Istock's exlusive content is not impressive at all - so by limiting good non-exclusive content they are purposefully and consistently decreasing the quality of their library....
The disambiguation system they got from Getty is totally unnecessary pain in the neck and not only useless in increasing search efficiency, it actually hurts it. I mean, look where this "wonderful" system got Getty itself and others that tried to adopt it (like Photoshelter that just went under).
And this is all too bad, providing that Istock was a pioneer of microstock industry, but looks like it is now is being strangled by their own corporate inefficiency, bureaucracy and shortsighted decisions.
Such over simplification and hyperbole followed by snide comments hardly sheds much light on the subject.
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To give credit where credit is due I had 4 of 4 files come back from Scout as overturned and were accepted. I'll certainly make more use of Scout in the future.
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To give credit where credit is due I had 4 of 4 files come back from Scout as overturned and were accepted. I'll certainly make more use of Scout in the future.
Don't waste your time with Scout. Even if the rejection is overturned that file will be buried so deep that no buyer will find it. It all got to do with the time that the file is submitted and the number of views and downloads that it receives in a given time period. A file that only appear online weeks after it was submitted will be heavily penalized by the search algorithm because it received no views and downloads during this time. It takes a long time for Scout to respond to a request for a re-evaluation. The time period between initial submission and final acceptance can be many weeks and that file will disappear in the dark depths of IS. This is one of the big advantages that exclusives have. Their review time is much shorter than those of non-exclusives and their images appear much quicker online which should benefit them in searches.
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How about this one, a resubmission after trimming down several keywords.....
(http://69.90.174.248/photos/display_pic_with_logo/69557/69557,1219210863,1.jpg)
and IS's rejection reasons:
We regret to inform you that we cannot accept your submission, entitled Washing Hands, for addition to the iStockphoto library for the following reasons:
"The following keywords used for this file do not appear to be fully relevant to the
subject.
{[ Washing Hands, Soap Sud, Body Care (Beauty), Cleaning, Body Care (Beauty),
Hygiene, Cleaning (Moving Activity), Cleaning (Moving Activity), Clean (Good
Condition), Soap Sud, Soap Sud, Washing (Cleaning), Washing (Cleaning), Clean (Good
Condition)]}
The keywords used for this file do not appear to be fully relevant to the subject."
Now I ask you, if I can't use those keywords, what remains besides "hands" and "water" ???
Is this stupid or what??
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Wow! They seem relevant to me, with the exctption of {Clean (good condition)} and they probably had tagged that one represent something like clean used car.
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I've just had the world child taken out of an image where the main focus is a child. ???
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I had an image of a beach sunset with purple coulds rejected for one single word: Cloud :D
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You should raise this on the new keywords forum. It's definitely a mistake and they will surely sort it out.
How about this one, a resubmission after trimming down several keywords.....
([url]http://69.90.174.248/photos/display_pic_with_logo/69557/69557,1219210863,1.jpg[/url])
and IS's rejection reasons:
We regret to inform you that we cannot accept your submission, entitled Washing Hands, for addition to the iStockphoto library for the following reasons:
"The following keywords used for this file do not appear to be fully relevant to the
subject.
{[ Washing Hands, Soap Sud, Body Care (Beauty), Cleaning, Body Care (Beauty),
Hygiene, Cleaning (Moving Activity), Cleaning (Moving Activity), Clean (Good
Condition), Soap Sud, Soap Sud, Washing (Cleaning), Washing (Cleaning), Clean (Good
Condition)]}
The keywords used for this file do not appear to be fully relevant to the subject."
Now I ask you, if I can't use those keywords, what remains besides "hands" and "water" ???
Is this stupid or what??
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wow, by the sounds of things here, IS is not building a strong foundation of fans here. my problem with IS isn't on keywords, although i do have problems with that too. i eliminate lots of "irrelevant " keywords, and i end up with "not enough" keywords.
but in essence, my rejections were mostly due to "over-processed". even that, i am confused as i shoot RAW and only "processed" them in ORF stage, and a bit of levels. nothing more.
anyway, i have so little with IS, i don't think it even matters anymore.
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This thread is becoming 'over the top' comical.
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This thread is becoming 'over the top' comical.
comical in the sense that istock rejections are over the top comical
or
comical in the sense what are your non-exclusives complaining about?
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Is it possible that some of the reviewers do not understand English? Could be getting rejections because we need to enter keywords in some other language. ;D
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Is it possible that some of the reviewers do not understand English? Could be getting rejections because we need to enter keywords in some other language. ;D
roadrunner, IS is based in Calgary, Alberta Canada. they understand English thoroughly.
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ya, I'm getting more and more images rejected on account of "irrelevant" keywords. And I do take care now to trim it down to the basics.
I think it's another tactic to discourage independents. ;)
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it's strange. you are all getting rejections due to irrelevant keywords.
i have never had that problem. they only reject my images due to over-processing.
i guess, one reason or another, it's still a rejection, right?
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"Your file appears to have been up-sampled from its original size. As part of the standards of iStock, we only accept files at their native resolution. "
I think they just looked at the EXIF and the XXXL size of my stitched (from 8 or so images) panorama didn't match the camera resolution despite the fact that I decreased the file to fit that size. I suppose stripping EXIF will become one more stupid thing I have to do before submitting to IS.
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"Your file appears to have been up-sampled from its original size. As part of the standards of iStock, we only accept files at their native resolution. "
I think they just looked at the EXIF and the XXXL size of my stitched (from 8 or so images) panorama didn't match the camera resolution despite the fact that I decreased the file to fit that size. I suppose stripping EXIF will become one more stupid thing I have to do before submitting to IS.
Writting a note for the inspector saying it's a panorama helps.
I just got this image rejected as not suitable for stock:
(http://www1.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/7522043/2/istockphoto_7522043-connected-to-the-world.jpg)
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Yup I had that too.... In my case i was shooting something on white and it was quite tight, so I increased the white background just a tiny bit around the edges to give a bit more space around the object. Rejected for "upsizing"! And yeah, just submitted a panorama stitched from 3 images - wonder if it's going to be same thing.
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All my composites and panoramas have something like the following at the beginning of the description (and although I'm now exclusive, this worked for years when I wasn't):
++Inspector note: This is a composite hence size > 20D max ++
Stripping the EXIF is more likely to get the equivalent of an IRS audit as they'll be looking closely to see what you hid.
Many times the inspector strips the note on approval. Sometimes they don't but as I go in and do the lightbox links after approval, I strip it if they don't.
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Is it possible that some of the reviewers do not understand English? Could be getting rejections because we need to enter keywords in some other language. ;D
roadrunner, IS is based in Calgary, Alberta Canada. they understand English thoroughly.
iStock headquarters are in Calgary, but there are over a hundred inspectors, located around the globe. If you are properly disambiguating your images, your keywords are translated automatically for the inspectors, the same way they are translated for a customer who is searching in a language other than English.
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I routinely strip exiff from all my submissions. Never noticed any special attention given to my files for that reason
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Some of you may find benefit in this post:
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=78794&page=1 (http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=78794&page=1)
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Some of you may find benefit in this post:
[url]http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=78794&page=1[/url] ([url]http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=78794&page=1[/url])
Thanks for sharing that post, it was most helpful
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This thread is becoming 'over the top' comical.
[/quote/]
Hey, we all need a laugh now and then. We might as well joke about the absurdity of some of these rejections - otherwise we'd all wind up in a fool farm somewhere, or throwing our cameras onto concrete slabs. My husband actually did that the other day (it was an accident) but lucky for him all he broke was his CPL. ROFL! ;D
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For me this like like you learn monkey to wash potatos and they are washing them but they dont know why. Anyhow the kids of monkey learn that from they parents but still dont understand why they are doing that.
I think that iStock revievers are looking too much from point of view of horse glases and dont know what the world looking around them. Maybe they are payed much better if they have bigger amount of rejections but they dont reject all images from you because in this case iStock will not have any earnings from you if that directed horses reject all of you uploaded images, so they allways balanced that they approved between 50-60% of youre uploads (in my case because I dont shooting people because of old Stalin reason- "Peoples means problem - No peoples No problem". I understand that what I am shooting can shut everybody, but with that kind of photos I have over 95% acceptance ratio on the other "Big" microstok agencies + on Alamy)
For them it is steady income for iStock headquoters is sensibly growth of they portfolio.
I am scared if getty will by jupiter and other and other agency an if getty has same Pain in the ass method like iStock that will be very bad.
Why dog lick his balls? because he can...
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Why dog lick his balls? because he can...
;D ;D ;D thank you Suljo, you made my day.
hrhportia, you are right, we need to laugh sometimes.
too bad your hubby didn't smash his camera on the reviewer' s head
that would be a little more satisfaction for him ;D ;D
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Over the last couple of months watching this forum, the istock forum and trying to upload images to istock I've formed a couple of theories to try to explain some of the more inane rejections. Please keep in mind that these are only speculations.
1) Recent upsurge in uploaders, possibly due to economic conditions, giving a lot of laid-off people more time to shoot and upload.
2) Reduced number of downloaders, again due to the economy.
3) Because of (1) and (2), there is a motivation to cut the stream of incoming uploads down to a fewer, better pictures. This results in pressure on reviewers to reject more content, which causes them to come up with more far-fetched reasons for rejection.
5) They want to cut down on keyword spam and "send a message" so they told their reviewers to chuck out any photos with keywords that seem even slightly inapplicable.
6) Evidently they have a fair number of reviewers not fluent in English, resulting in some ridiculous keyword rejections. Perhaps it also works the other way - an uploader inputs non-English keywords, they get mangled by the translator, and an English-language reviewer says "what?" and rejects.
7) It seems that possibly they hire reviewers from their own uploader community. These people would (a) have a conflict of interest in evaluating other photographers' pictures, and (b) might not be good judges of what is stockworthy and what is a good photo for use in graphic design as opposed to technical merits. Hiring reviewers from the downloader community would be a lot better.
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ah what's the point...
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For the tiny amount of cash you get, the upload criteria is stupid. If I had the quality of Alamy or Getty, I would contribute to them.
Message to buyers: You get what you pay for.
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1) Recent upsurge in uploaders, possibly due to economic conditions, giving a lot of laid-off people more time to shoot and upload.
2) Reduced number of downloaders, again due to the economy.
3) Because of (1) and (2), there is a motivation to cut the stream of incoming uploads down to a fewer, better pictures. This results in pressure on reviewers to reject more content, which causes them to come up with more far-fetched reasons for rejection.
post hoc ergo propter hoc. (Sorry, I'm on a West Wing watching binge lately).
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Over the last couple of months watching this forum, the istock forum and trying to upload images to istock I've formed a couple of theories to try to explain some of the more inane rejections. Please keep in mind that these are only speculations.
1) Recent upsurge in uploaders, possibly due to economic conditions, giving a lot of laid-off people more time to shoot and upload.
1A) Giving a lot of laid-off people more time to review photos. ;D
If I was forced to make only one guess, I'd say, tighter standards for acceptance because after 35,000 photos of tomatoes and sliced tomatoes, it's been covered. Only the best of the new submissions make it and if there is something new, it will get in easier than something that has been shot over and over for five years. Just a guess.
Enter "business handshake" 3806 photos. Pumpkin 14,982. Tomato, 35,200 photos! Flower 254,870! These subjects are probably covered? :) And they call the business handshake an overshot cliche photo?
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[/quote]
And they call the business handshake an overshot cliche photo?
[/quote]
As an aside, I met the guy who shot the first handshake image for stock many years ago at a stock conference. No RF or micros back then. I think he said at that time he had grossed over $250k on the image. Ahhh, the good old days. Mind if I tell you some old war stories? Hey is that snoring I hear?!!
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"Your file appears to have been up-sampled from its original size. As part of the standards of iStock, we only accept files at their native resolution. "
I think they just looked at the EXIF and the XXXL size of my stitched (from 8 or so images) panorama didn't match the camera resolution despite the fact that I decreased the file to fit that size. I suppose stripping EXIF will become one more stupid thing I have to do before submitting to IS.
Writting a note for the inspector saying it's a panorama helps.
You miss the original intention of IS. You made 2 major mistakes.
1st You must plug wire in da ass
2nd World LUBRICANT is missing
;D
I just got this image rejected as not suitable for stock:
([url]http://www1.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/7522043/2/istockphoto_7522043-connected-to-the-world.jpg[/url])
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???
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Just got 12 rejects in a batch of 15, uploaded 2 weeks ago, and reviewed now. Reject reasons are various, mostly inappropriate keywords and artifacts at full size. They also don't accept abstract designs on T-shirt but they do on neckties.
This one was rather funny:
(http://69.90.174.250/photos/display_pic_with_logo/50227/50227,1225005811,7.jpg)
Moire pattern showing up in suit. Please correct or repair: (the raw was correctly exposed and no changes have been made except cloning out of the pimples in the face - is there a raw tailor in the audience?)
(http://cjoint.com/data/lgqYyRYl1w_yourImage.jpg)
And this one:
(http://69.90.174.252/photos/display_pic_with_logo/50227/50227,1224598592,6.jpg)
A number of clouds appear very oddly off-color and unreal in this file: (sorry guys but that's how clouds are in the tropics near sunset)
(http://cjoint.com/data/lgq2bK6LvE_yourImage.jpg)
I think I rest my case. Keywording/disambiguating especially for Istock isn't worthwhile if they just accept 3 out of 15, given that it takes 30 minutes. Moreover my recent D200/raw stuff almost never gets downloaded, but my old 3MP P&S jpg does. Life is too short for Istock, I presume.
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11 of 15 rejected (10 of them - 'over filtered'). No sales for 9 days. Sudden move from #2 earner to #999....
Sad, but this is their choice.
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The end of world is coming...
I dont know how was the formation of stars, or some new reviewer looks at my pic, Obama comes to be president, or Appollo 11 lands on Moon... but my photo of isolated Boxing gloves was APPROVED
- 1st scarry thing is that I have no "name it luck" with uploading Isolated objects (about 30% of success), on Clipping path images I think that percentage is 10 or 20%. For that reason I dont define on my keywords that file is ISOLATED with clipping path.
Any how I am doing my job with that around 10 maybe 15 years. My first Photoshop was before 2.0 which hasnt Canvas size or rotate for few degrees, maybe 90 CW or 90 CCW
OK stop with my brag, I only work this things about isolation for ELLE, Story, Elle Decor and few other less known magazines for about more than 5 years.
2nd I have 8 images in pending before that so it is logical that my new uploaded image will bee reviewed last.
3th scarry and unusual thing is that in my acceptance mail below general template words that how my image is approved there was ADDITIONAL APPROVAL NOTE
The following keywords used for this file do not appear to be fully relevant to the subject.
(Protective Workwear (Clothing)???
What is OK. When I read that thing I dont belive what I am read. Is it possible that some of reviewer is human? He or she dont fckoff me up because I post ONE or TWO unproper or bad keyword???
This day I must remind in my reminder. In other words miracle happens?!?
As you see for me as not native english speaker that is (for side of IS) cool gesture I hope thats not happened by accident or nonloosed humanity of new rewiewer.
- I hope that my opinion will read IS spys and finnaly sugest to they headquoters to do simple things which will be in mutually interest without loosing both nervs, resources, bandwith, time and power on the minor things.
For now I will not talking of very THIN line between oversaturated images and flat dull colors, stray areas which are too blured or too spiked because I see lot of images from Getty and IS on 100% view which are deserved to do lobotomy for reviewers which approved this.
For now lets stay on this minor thing what happens to me on my 3th point - dont fuck contributors for one or two bad keyword...
Is it too much???
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11 of 15 rejected (10 of them - 'over filtered'). No sales for 9 days. Sudden move from #2 earner to #999.... Sad, but this is their choice.
wow Unclegene, how do you explain losing 997 places in 9 days? i hate to even look where i am :o
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Moire pattern showing up in suit.
flemingdreams, i do see the moire effect. but i wonder if it's the reflection from the material of the suit, as some textiles are trouble to light. could it be reduced with a polarizer i wonder.
although polarizers may not work in this case. just guessing.
will be good to know if you solved that problem. share it with us
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For now I will not talking of very THIN line between oversaturated images and flat dull colors, stray areas which are too blured or too spiked because I see lot of images from Getty and IS on 100% view which are deserved to do lobotomy for reviewers which approved this.
Suljo, ;D at least you retain your sense of humour. ;D
the list of rejection reason (see above) are the same ones i get too in my rejections.
so maybe we have the same reviewers.
pity though, as i find IS exclusives are such helpful people. i write them in my network and all of them write me back with good encouragement. but IS just keep rejecting my images.
not many rejections, though, as i only upload to IS maybe 10 images a month. they take so long to review. and so far, my acceptance is like 20 %. so i am not wasting too much sleep on IS.
sorry i had to enter 3 postings. don't know how to add them all in one.
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Huh
I just want to not talk so badly about iStock but I gave another rejction mail from them.
It is MRI scan of human head.
OK I will be fair that I use few inpropriate worlds, but my knowledge is minor about that.
They message is
{[ Encephalitis, Insomnia, Alzheimer's Disease, Epilepsy, The Human Body (Human Attribute), CAT Scan (Medical Scan), Headache, Human Skeleton (Human Bone), Human Skeleton (Human Bone), Surgery, CAT Scan]}
If it is x-ray MRI scan of human head, how the reviewers know that person has not have these symptoms of what they quoted in my missmatched keywords?
In my point of view is not who is right or not, but if they send me this mail that I use inpropriate words, just detete that and in that case send me mail that image is approved ad we delete that keywords???
Any how from time time to time I have mail from IS that they erase some of my keywords from my old or too old images???
After that I will not want to talk about some kind of conspiracy but that images are not sold anymore or very slow after that action from IS "proper correction"???
Hallo spys from IS proceed this post to HQ (or maybe it is fact against you earnings...)
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Because, if they delete your poor words, you don't learn the lesson on how to keyword. An xray is an xray, not every disease on the planet.
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In my point of view is not who is right or not, but if they send me this mail that I use inpropriate words, just detete that and in that case send me mail that image is approved ad we delete that keywords???
Any how from time time to time I have mail from IS that they erase some of my keywords from my old or too old images???
After that I will not want to talk about some kind of conspiracy but that images are not sold anymore or very slow after that action from IS "proper correction"???
you have a point there. if they can email you with keywords deletion, they can do the same at review time and still approve the image. what harm does it do ? unless they just don't want our images.
actually, i have never got rejected for keywords. mostly the same "THIN line between oversaturated images and flat dull colors, stray areas which are too blured or too spiked " reasons.
except one day i got an email to say they replaced some keywords on one of my images.
i emailed them to say, "oh, so nice of you to help me". better than to scream at them ;)
and funny enough, a few days later, i got a sale . 65 cents, woo hoo!
not on the same image, but some very old image.
still, i was surprised to see a sale, as i never got a sale with IS, even after all the rejections, and the acceptance of the very few images they took.
anyway, Suljo, i suggest you try some other stock sites, and not waste your energy
getting angry at iStock. like you say, they don't sell anyway.
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Because, if they delete your poor words, you don't learn the lesson on how to keyword. An xray is an xray, not every disease on the planet.
Has anyone considered that Best Match is based on how many words match the search of the number of words in the keywords? So someone with ten words and three match will show before someone with 30 words and three that match? 30% match comes before 10% match. More inane words, conceptual words, and keyword spamming with things that are not in the image, and your images will fall to the bottom faster than a guy named Louie wearing cement sneakers. :o
As for Encephalitis, Insomnia, Alzheimer's Disease, Epilepsy, The Human Body (Human Attribute), CAT Scan (Medical Scan), Headache, Human Skeleton (Human Bone), Human Skeleton (Human Bone), Surgery, CAT Scan None of these are x-rays. I'm surprise they didn't just reject the image and close your account for keyword spamming.
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Because, if they delete your poor words, you don't learn the lesson on how to keyword. An xray is an xray, not every disease on the planet.
As for Encephalitis, Insomnia, Alzheimer's Disease, Epilepsy, The Human Body (Human Attribute), CAT Scan (Medical Scan), Headache, Human Skeleton (Human Bone), Human Skeleton (Human Bone), Surgery, CAT Scan None of these are x-rays. I'm surprise they didn't just reject the image and close your account for keyword spamming.
Give the guy a break. At least most of the words are somewhat related to the image. It's not as if he added keywords such as "sex", "Christmas", or "business" to an image of an xray.
Plus, most of those keywords shouldn't even be in the DA in the first place. For example, when you search for "Epilepsy" on IS, there are 42 images shown in the results, but none of them really display the word properly. So why should those images be allowed, but all others rejected?
And that is the problem with only allowing keywords that are visible in the image. There are just too many keywords in the DA that nobody could ever really capture in an image.
What about photos of emotions or concepts? Take the word "love". If you search for the word "love" on IS, you will find people in fields holding out their hands, people holding hands, people hugging, hearts, etc. Just because there are two people holding hands or hugging doesn't mean that they love each other. They might just be friends. Or one of them might be going through a tough time and the other is comforting them. Or they might have lust for each other. Love is an emotion that can never really be shown in a visible sense. It can only be felt. So if IS is going to be strict and say that keywords have to be seen in the image, then they should remove all of those keywords from their dictionary. They just shouldn't allow them. That would solve the problem once and for all. You wouldn't have some images accepted and some rejected.
And then there are the DA keywords such as "Boeing", "Porsche", "Ferrari", etc that are Patents or Trademarks that you aren't even supposed to be submitting. Yet there they are in all their glory when you do a search. So why were these images allowed, yet most others rejected?
I have no problem when people add keywords that are somewhat related to the concept of the image. DT's download report has shown that many times buyers will purchase images using keywords that are hardly related at all. It's just the way some buyers think. I don't see a problem with someone searching for "Christmas" and finding images of snow or holly. I do have a problem if they find something totally unrelated, such as a sandy beach (even though there are many places in the world that are warm and sunny during Christmas).
On top of all of that, I checked some of your images and although you use very few keywords (which probably hurts your sales), you are just as guilty (as much as we all are). An image of a pumpkin with leaves does not portray "Halloween". An image of an ambulance is not "scenic". So you might want to take that stick out of your eye, before you point out a speck in someone else's.
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Hey, that's a scenic roadway. ;D It's not a Halloween pumpkin, until someone carves it, I agree. Guilty of including a related holiday. But you are correct.
You are correct about concept words that don't appear in images, they aren't there, but they relate. Insomnia, Alzheimer's Disease, Epilepsy? Give me a clue how that relates to an x-ray? Concepts and feelings make sense for a message within an image.
As for your other points, you are also correct. Your logic is that since other people spam keywords, we should all be able to continue this.
You are also correct about the trademark names, which should not appear.
Point was, and I didn't want to have to go into details, an x-ray isn't a cat scan, isn't a skeleton or skeletal image and those words are not conceptual.
What you are saying is that buyers looking for something will suddenly want to buy a different unrelated photo, with different content, because the happened to see it based on spammed keywords. If you are a buyer, do you want to waste time looking at photos of something other than what you need?
If someone searches for the words in my keywords, the images will come up. They won't search for pumpkin and find a photo of a watermelon, which if you looked, does come up for pumpkin. Weird. Does it hurt sales or help them to have an accurate match? Does it help or hurt in the search best match if my words have a higher percentage of match?
Has anyone considered that less is more when the words are accurate? Did anyone consider that the reason their images are dropping in the searches is that the search algorithm penalizes for more words that don't match and rewards higher percentages of matching words? Some agencies track views and if you get many views and no sales, may be dropping the image in the searches, instead of lifting it.
What worked for getting views last year, might not be the best policy for getting ranking or views this year.
As far as sales, if I had good images, they would sell. Since I have mostly snapshots, not especially stock oriented, I don't expect them to be hot sellers. Guess what? They aren't. :D
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Some agencies track views and if you get many views and no sales, may be dropping the image in the searches, instead of lifting it.
As far as sales, if I had good images, they would sell. Since I have mostly snapshots, not especially stock oriented, I don't expect them to be hot sellers. Guess what? They aren't. :D
second statement first, racephoto. at least you're honest even to blame yourself ;D
first statement , i see your point . i used to wonder why i get so many views yet no sales.
then i reduced my keywords to minimum of 8 for most, except for BigStock 10, which is their minimum i think. something i picked up from some of you ppl here a month or so ago,
(i think madelaide or jsnover, or someone like that)...
resulted that i get sales (although mostly subs) for 5, 3, even 2 views. so perharps you are right. maybe my images are being picked up in search priority.
i guess the good thing about this forum is we learn from all of the good oldtimers who are not jealous about sharing their ideas with us. this is why i keep participating here .
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Some agencies track views and if you get many views and no sales, may be dropping the image in the searches, instead of lifting it.
As far as sales, if I had good images, they would sell. Since I have mostly snapshots, not especially stock oriented, I don't expect them to be hot sellers. Guess what? They aren't. :D
second statement first, racephoto. at least you're honest even to blame yourself ;D
first statement , i see your point . i used to wonder why i get so many views yet no sales.
then i reduced my keywords to minimum of 8 for most, except for BigStock 10, which is their minimum i think. something i picked up from some of you ppl here a month or so ago,
(i think madelaide or jsnover, or someone like that)...
resulted that i get sales (although mostly subs) for 5, 3, even 2 views. so perharps you are right. maybe my images are being picked up in search priority.
i guess the good thing about this forum is we learn from all of the good oldtimers who are not jealous about sharing their ideas with us. this is why i keep participating here .
Only a guess! Hypothetical. Supposition. :) Not an old timer, just older than you. Ask people who have been doing this for four years. Maybe try some of the first page Black Diamonds and Diamonds.
Since the best match algorithm is not cast in stone, but on a computer, agencies have been known to tweak it for better sales. I'm not saying this as a negative, but they are not out to cater to sellers, the primary goals are selling to customers and making money for the agency. We are third on a list of those three.
Just so I'm clear about "less is more" the concept is simple. Include every possible word that is actually in the image, some conceptual words that fit, descriptive words may be searched too. Use some restraint, leave out words that when a buyer searches will lead them to an image that doesn't contain that item. Beer is not "food". (well for some people?)
I'm not trying to imply that if you have a baked potato on a plate that you have only "potato, plate, baked, brown, legume, butter, cheese" Etc. Starch, vegetable, isolated, close-up, nobody (if there are no people), spud, isolated, cutout and more. But there's no reason to include "ingredient, dieting, snack, garlic (if you can't see garlic in the picture), salt, recipe, wealth, which do nothing to add to the description. Funny is "Baked Potato" photos that include Raw, Uncooked, Boiled, steamed, mashed, organic, fried, red (it's an isolated baked Idaho and there's not a speck of red in the photo) and some other words that contradict the actual subject. That's IS where they police the keywords and it's not bad.
Some people have a habit of including the make and model of camera and their location, in keywords (not on IS that I saw). As if I want a baked potato from Scotland to show up when I'm searching for photos of Scotland? "English Food, UK food, British Cuisine", texture, detail, objects, fat, farm, farmer, feeling, eat, oven, grill ? None of these things appear in the photos of just baked potatoes or isolated baked potatoes. This is a dumb photo of a backed potato, not something complex. Use your imagination how the bad results are exponential when the subjects are more complex.
Whoopee a photo has 150 views a month and no sales, because buyers keep hitting it in the search for something else. Views mean nothing, if the keywords aren't accurate. But someone else has photos with many less views and they have more sales. Any agency that ranks photos by views should have figured out by now that sales count, not views, because of the way keywords have become polluted.
For people who still want to argue that vague keywords that draw buyers to photos of things they aren't looking for are a bonus. You are sitting home and see a show about photography you want to watch on TV, you turn it on and there's some watercolor lesson. Next night, same station you want to watch an interesting documentary, you turn it on and find a cartoon. This happens day after day. How long does it take to say, this channel and the guide are messed up. You lose trust in the station and the schedule.
Agency + bad keyword search results = lost revenue. (maybe lost customers)
Photographer + unrelated keywords = views without sales.
If there's someone out there who believes that unrelated keywords and poor keywords, make for better sales, please explain how?
Views don't pay the rent or put food on the table. Tricking someone into viewing your image is more likely to just piss them off. :o
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. I'm not saying this as a negative, but they are not out to cater to sellers, the primary goals are selling to customers and making money for the agency. We are third on a list of those three.
It really is more circuitous than that. None can exist to their full potential without the other. Take away or destroy too much of any one thing and the others dwindle as well. It's impossible to make the buyer happy without great images in the right quantity that are easy to find.
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I'm not trying to imply that if you have a baked potato on a plate that you have only "potato, plate, baked, brown, legume, butter, cheese" Etc. Starch, vegetable, isolated, close-up, nobody (if there are no people), spud, isolated, cutout
just being ultra picky, but a potato is not a legume [beans, peas] it's a tuber
however, this does point out a source of inaccurate keywords - sellers who include words they THINK are correct when theey're not -- check out antarctica images and you'll find many with keyword arctic and vice versa
steve
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Hi All,
To answer the original question. NO! My favorite I get over and over is is my image has been upsized. I am shooting on a 22 megapixel camera. Upsizing?. We start every image in Raw as a 100 mg. 16-bit Tiff and down size from there for Micro. Getty has rarely rejected one of our 50 mg. images for technical reasons in 10 years. I get 30% rejects at Istock.
Voicing your problems in clear terms is the best way to help communicate your message. There are important people reading these sites the more clear and concise the letters the better the chance for having the issue addressed.
Keep Shooting!
AVAVA
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I'm not trying to imply that if you have a baked potato on a plate that you have only "potato, plate, baked, brown, legume, butter, cheese" Etc. Starch, vegetable, isolated, close-up, nobody (if there are no people), spud, isolated, cutout
just being ultra picky, but a potato is not a legume [beans, peas] it's a tuber
however, this does point out a source of inaccurate keywords - sellers who include words they THINK are correct when theey're not -- check out antarctica images and you'll find many with keyword arctic and vice versa
steve
Nothing wrong with being right. I must have had peanuts on my brain. Funny thread elsewhere with the person pointing out that searches are being made for balon instead of ballon. To which someone pointed out, yes, but it's balloon! ;D Legume was a cut and paste of keywords I found with photos, my mistake for putting it in the good keywords batch.
Zeus wrote It really is more circuitous than that. None can exist to their full potential without the other. Take away or destroy too much of any one thing and the others dwindle as well. It's impossible to make the buyer happy without great images in the right quantity that are easy to find.
Always true. As a volunteer sometimes this comes up when the group we work for complains and someone will say, without the volunteers, we wouldn't be able to function. I've also pointed out that without the group we serve, there would be no need for volunteers. ::)
Of course, the agency can't sell photos with no photographers, but we can't sell without an agency, and without buyers, there's nothing. One big happy family.
I was hinting that in the eyes of a photo agency, the pecking order starts at the top, they are in it to make a profit. The customer needs must be served or they are out of business. This isn't a charity or free lunch program, the contributors are last in line when it comes to most business decisions. If you look at it the other way around, as a supply chain, we're first in line. The point I was trying to make was that search engines are designed for the benefit of buyers, and the agency making money, not photographers. Maybe I didn't do a good job of making it clear that I was talking about the topic, keywords, best match and search algorithms.
While best match sometimes seems to be out of wack and people are finding their photos that used to be up front. dropping for no logical reason, the only conclusion I can make is that the agency is making changes that they think will increase better matches for buyers and doesn't really care if I sell the photo, you do or someone who signed up yesterday. The other point which I haven't dared to mention is, everyone can't be dropping, because someone has to be going up to fill those spots at the front.
Obviously I've had a boring day between writing messages, searching search engines, uploading files on a different computer, quick editing a Birthday party I shot last night, sending things out to be printed and finding my Winter with weekends off are driving me stir crazy!
Not an amazing discovery but word order, and on some sites proximity, matters in your keywords. (just what we needed?) Depending on the site, don't call me any names if it does at IS but doesn't at SS. :) I haven't spent another couple of hours testing anyplace but IS. I was plugging in some test changes at Alamy also, but I'd have to wait for the next re-indexing to see if that changes placement of the altered photo. However Alamy does their ranking and does disclose some of their search weighting, also how they distribute photos so one person doesn't come up with all the photos on the first page. OK, easy one, word order counts there too, plus how close the words are together.
More keywords, lower proximity than if some has less words and the same matching order.
This could be like discovery that the Earth isn't flat and everyone already knew that hundreds of years ago, and I just missed the obvious.
I'm still trying to figure out why people believe that adding words of obscure relevance, or even the dreaded keyword spamming, makes for better sales? Yes, more views. Yes, if someone uses those obscure words in their searches. While people are knocking themselves out for 40 keywords, there comes a point where even the dunce who thinks a potato is a legume will find potato photos if they search with that word in there for some strange reason. If I'm looking for a baked potato photo to buy, I'm not going to search for "tuber, tubers, brown, skin, red, organic, steamed" and a whole bunch more. I'll search for "baked potato" and if I want one sliced I'll add that, with butter fine.
Anyone else here ever heard of Occam's Razor? "All other things being equal, the simplest solution is the best."
The inspectors are trying to clean up a morass that has been created by years of not policing keywords. Agencies are trying to change the way we identify what's in our photos. If everyone has to abide by the same rules, nothing should change. The best photos should still sell more than average photos and the snapshots will languish at the bottom of the heap.
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Hi All,
To answer the original question. NO! My favorite I get over and over is is my image has been upsized. I am shooting on a 22 megapixel camera. Upsizing?. We start every image in Raw as a 100 mg. 16-bit Tiff and down size from there for Micro. Getty has rarely rejected one of our 50 mg. images for technical reasons in 10 years. I get 30% rejects at Istock.
Voicing your problems in clear terms is the best way to help communicate your message. There are important people reading these sites the more clear and concise the letters the better the chance for having the issue addressed.
Wow
thats I talk about in most of my dirty posts that IS has inconsistent kind of revjuvering. In one hand you can nor reach them with sharp big and simple things, and on the other hand they accept things which are for bluke, mabe for exclusives only???
I work for snoby agency which for nooble reasons but they are buying images from getty and I must tell you that this images is out off all standards.
If that revievers from IS are so clever why they dont go to Getty, they will find there lots of alien stuff on crappy images from glorified photographers for no reason, only because they sneakers are little visible from their ass with little name on it, but its not because they images are OVERFILTERED, OVERUSED NOISE PROGRAMS, ISOLATIONS CONTAINS STRAY OR BLUR AREAS and ALL crap on which I am smiling when I got rejection from IS. Forgive me if I am to rude but most of Getty photographers if they come in hands of IS revievers, hm some of them will kill himself if this kind of creatures of revievers will deciding of their lives.
;D
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I did a simple photo of the new British 1 pence coin, Fotolia accepted it almost immediately, here it is
http://en.fotolia.com/id/10085836
But after about 9 days IS rejected for the following reason:
The following keywords used for this file do not appear to be fully relevant to the subject.
{[ Harp, Lion, Number 1 (Number)]}
So Harp, that will be the thing on the left, Lion, that will be the thing on the right, One, that will be the denomination indicated on the top?
My acceptance rate at IS is running at 53%, I am new to Alamy with a small portfolio but have a 100% acceptance rate so far, makes you think...?
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The following keywords used for this file do not appear to be fully relevant to the subject.
{[ Harp, Lion, Number 1 (Number)]}
So Harp, that will be the thing on the left, Lion, that will be the thing on the right, One, that will be the denomination indicated on the top?
Come on. Do you seriously think that someone who is searching for a harp or a lion is going to choose this coin? And there is no "number 1" at all. There are two words spelling out "one penny". The tag you selected is for an actual number, a numeral character.
Some of the whinging in this thread is just hilarious.
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Makes me think "How much does he make on Alamy with that %100"...
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Makes me think "How much does he make on Alamy with that %100"...
If you want to point on me I will tell you. With 29 images in 6 months 515,93$ and on my acc exactly 333,33$ when they substract they commision.
As you see I am too lazy to upload to them but after second sale I give motivation and upload 15 more. I have low budget camera Canon 350 and for them try to shoot simple things in few shoots and join them in one big file.
last time I looked on you gallery and try to enlarge you some shoots on IS but I cant do that. Whats the point? I just want to see some of you famous isolations...
;D
I think at last that this 2 photos whicha are sold at Alamy are not on IS because of stupid moronic reason of revierers that they are not suitable for Stock???
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The following keywords used for this file do not appear to be fully relevant to the subject.
{[ Harp, Lion, Number 1 (Number)]}
So Harp, that will be the thing on the left, Lion, that will be the thing on the right, One, that will be the denomination indicated on the top?
Come on. Do you seriously think that someone who is searching for a harp or a lion is going to choose this coin? And there is no "number 1" at all. There are two words spelling out "one penny". The tag you selected is for an actual number, a numeral character.
Some of the whinging in this thread is just hilarious.
I'm no genius but if I had an image with a harp in it I'd probably keyword it 'harp'. Last time I did math (one=1). I think you meant 'whining' or did you?
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I'm no genius but if I had an image with a harp in it I'd probably keyword it 'harp'. Last time I did math (one=1). I think you meant 'whining' or did you?
Dictionary: whinge (hwĭnj, wĭnj)
intr.v. Chiefly British., whinged, whing·ing, whing·es.
To complain or protest, especially in an annoying or persistent manner.
[Dialectal alteration of Middle English whinsen, from Old English hwinsian.]
whinger whing'er n.
whingingly whing'ing·ly adv.
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I'm no genius but if I had an image with a harp in it I'd probably keyword it 'harp'. Last time I did math (one=1). I think you meant 'whining' or did you?
Dictionary: whinge (hwĭnj, wĭnj)
intr.v. Chiefly British., whinged, whing·ing, whing·es.
To complain or protest, especially in an annoying or persistent manner.
[Dialectal alteration of Middle English whinsen, from Old English hwinsian.]
whinger whing'er n.
whingingly whing'ing·ly adv.
I love it when I learn something new, thanks.
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The following keywords used for this file do not appear to be fully relevant to the subject.
{[ Harp, Lion, Number 1 (Number)]}
I'm no genius but if I had an image with a harp in it I'd probably keyword it 'harp'. Last time I did math (one=1). I think you meant 'whining' or did you?
Did you even look at the photo?? There is a cropped off section of a harp that is on a coin. If a designer is looking for a harp, I can tell you that is NOT what they are going to be purchasing. It doesn't take genius intellect to figure that one out, just common sense.
The term that was removed specifically designated (Number). 1=number, one=word
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I got a keyword rejection last week for this: I placed a diamond necklace over the heel of a black high-heeled dress shoe. The wingnuts at iS rejected it, saying that the words "diamond" (as in precious stone) and "necklace" (as in jewelry accessory) were not appropriate to the image.
Okay, how do I describe a diamond necklace without using the words "diamond" and "necklace"???? At first, I couldn't believe the rejection; on second thought, I seriously considered nuking IS's corporate headquarters. ARRRGGHHH!!!! Does a potential "inspector" have to have a double-digit IQ to qualify for the job? If that's the case, we're all in serious trouble here. :D
Portia
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So I had an image selected by Snapvillage as their editors pick or whatever they call it on the home page and it was the 1 out of 15 that was rejected by IS. It's funny I wonder why that one was the one that got chosen to be rejected, many of the accepted images were from the same shoot and processed the same. Their loss I guess.
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I got a keyword rejection last week for this: I placed a diamond necklace over the heel of a black high-heeled dress shoe. The wingnuts at iS rejected it, saying that the words "diamond" (as in precious stone) and "necklace" (as in jewelry accessory) were not appropriate to the image.
Okay, how do I describe a diamond necklace without using the words "diamond" and "necklace"???? At first, I couldn't believe the rejection; on second thought, I seriously considered nuking IS's corporate headquarters. ARRRGGHHH!!!! Does a potential "inspector" have to have a double-digit IQ to qualify for the job? If that's the case, we're all in serious trouble here. :D
Portia
This one is clearly a mistake, as humans are apt to make from time to time (except for all of you of course). As instructed in the following thread, you can send a sitemail to Jordan or you can post a thread there:
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=78246&page=1 (http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=78246&page=1)
You'll have much more likely opportunity of having the mistake corrected by bringing it to the appropriate person's attention, than by posting insults here. But of course if that is your ultimate goal, rather than getting your file approved, feel free to disregard my advice.
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I hesitate to comment on any keywording 'mistake' without first seeing the image in question.
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I hesitate to comment on any keywording 'mistake' without first seeing the image in question.
Here you go
http://www.istockphoto.com/file_closeup/business/business-concepts/609908-treasure-chest.php?id=609908
http://www.istockphoto.com/file_closeup/sports-and-leisure/2590785-the-red-carpet.php?id=2590785
Well if you like, you can start at your own backyard , and comment whats keyword "vector" doing there , and I just scratched the surface with 2 random files on your portfolios first page.
So if there is part of the harp , its not ok to use it ,but its ok to use vector on 3D renders ?
I'm not a saint either , but I don't pretend to be one.
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I hesitate to comment on any keywording 'mistake' without first seeing the image in question.
Obviously my comments were based on her representation of the work as a high heel draped with a diamond necklace. If this is not what is actually in the image (rhinestones or other costume --non precious-- jewelry for instance), then they were correct in removing that word. But you're right that it's probably not a good idea to assume anything without seeing the image.
ETA:
Maybe this is it?
http://www.dreamstime.com/dress-shoe-image6679443 (http://www.dreamstime.com/dress-shoe-image6679443)
http://www.123rf.com/photo_3691137.html (http://www.123rf.com/photo_3691137.html)
It's hard to tell much without zoom. I registered at 123 so that I could be allowed to zoom, and at a 66% zoom, if this is the same image you uploaded to IS, I can imagine there might be other reasons for the rejection.
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Well if you like, you can start at your own backyard
Unfortunately, I was not here complaining about a specific rejection, as hrhportia was, so there was no need to go trying to critique me. Nevertheless, "vector" would be an inappropriate keyword, and must have snuck by when I was cleaning out the auto-DAing on my two thousand files. So thanks so much.
I also did not say anything about sainthood. I commented that you can not automatically agree with people's assessment of keyword removals without seeing the image. 98% of the people complaining about iStock keywording turn out to be wrong.
Speaking of images, how about a link to your images so we can see how hot you are?
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Well if you like, you can start at your own backyard
Unfortunately, I was not here complaining about a specific rejection, as hrhportia was, so there was no need to go trying to critique me. Nevertheless, "vector" would be an inappropriate keyword, and must have snuck by when I was cleaning out the auto-DAing on my two thousand files. So thanks so much.
I also did not say anything about sainthood. I commented that you can not automatically agree with people's assessment of keyword removals without seeing the image. 98% of the people complaining about iStock keywording turn out to be wrong.
Speaking of images, how about a link to your images so we can see how hot you are?
Unfortunately, I was not here complaining too , even If I have good reasons to do so , and I think some times there is no need for keyword rejections , but reviewer just finds few words balancing on the edge
and presses the button. Sometimes they just pick few perfectly good words , so I had illustrations done with texture brushes rejected for grunge , scans of old paper rejected for "background" etc.
But seeing that you are not so perfect at keywording :) , your posts are too arrogant , especially the comment about the that persons income on Alamy.
You were not here complaining about a specific rejection, as hrhportia was, so there was no need to go trying to critique you ?
Its not about that..
I agree that there are many complaints that are not on valid ground , but that's not the reason to attack a person in his income direction , and show your big fat muscles there.
You want to see "how hot am I ?
Here you go ,feed your ego .....
http://www.istockphoto.com/user_view.php?id=836626
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But seeing that you are not so perfect at keywording :) , your posts are too arrogant , especially the comment about the that persons income on Alamy.
Obviously you missed the point that 100% approvals at a site where you may make less than the site with 50% approvals may not be so great. That's what I was bringing up.
You were not here complaining about a specific rejection, as hrhportia was, so there was no need to go trying to critique you ?
I was not complaining about any rejection at all.
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98% of the people complaining about iStock keywording turn out to be wrong.
I don't think the % is correct, it's probably much less.
This image:
(http://www1.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/2775147)
had Rose (Temperate Flower), rosebud (), Ripple (Wave), Rippled (Physical Description), and Copy Space (Composition), among others that were indeed stretched concepts (such as Valentine's Day and Passion), removed. Many other examples were given here in other threads, and certainly many other examples exist.
Regards,
Adelaide
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But seeing that you are not so perfect at keywording :) , your posts are too arrogant , especially the comment about the that persons income on Alamy.
Obviously you missed the point that 100% approvals at a site where you may make less than the site with 50% approvals may not be so great. That's what I was bringing up.
You were not here complaining about a specific rejection, as hrhportia was, so there was no need to go trying to critique you ?
I was not complaining about any rejection at all.
I know that you were not complaining about rejections thats what I wrote , I was trying to say that , you were too rude to a person , at least for my taste.
I wasnt complaining either but since I joined the party , I will try to explain my point of view.
I had some reviews that I dont agree with , and whit beeing strict like that , they can easily remove half of my images as well as yours for bad keywords, not like those vectors of yours which were clearly a mistake , but for example "waiting" thats used in your Cinema billboard image etc , or the fact that I cant use "background" or "abstract"on my grunge textures etc.
There is a fact that there are some people that are trying to manipulate that " easy on trigger reviews" and complain without valid ground , there is just a matter what you find acceptable and what I find acceptable , but I dont think there is a reason for clapping someone If you dont agree with him on a doubtful matter like that harp and number one is.
Anyway I went over the line too with posting in the way I did , and Im sorry , Im having few bad days generally so the best thing I can do is stay away from conversations cause I pick myself conflict easily.
Hope you understand what I was pointing at.
By the way , "just to feed your ego" ;), thats one great portfolio you have
Well sorry sjlocke
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Ok, peace out.
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98% of the people complaining about iStock keywording turn out to be wrong.
I don't think the % is correct, it's probably much less.
You can make 60% of statistics say anything you want 90% of the time.
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That is only true 42% of the time...
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hey, my friend found out the fastest way to get images reviewed.
she answer a forum that complain why it takes so long to get your images reviewed. and she made fun of IS.
result: every day an image is reviewed.
result also: every image is rejected with all the different excuses you all mentioned here.
woo hoo! now we all know how to get review quickly with IS.
don't thank me, thank my friend, ;D ;D ;D
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To all the Istock exclusives out here:
defending the obvious wrong, doesn't make it right.
At Istock, right now, reviewing times are almost 3 weeks.
That's wrong.
The keywords based rejection are ridiculous.
One of my images with a Christmas tree was rejected due to 'winter, holidays' not being relevant to the file.
I have never, not ever, spammed an image, and I will never do so. I respect the buyers too much to try such cheap alternatives.
However 'winter, holidays' not being relevant to a Christmas tree is a ridiculous idea.
Please resubmit?
And wait 3 more weeks?
Christmas done and dusted by then. Maybe next year...
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At Istock, right now, reviewing times are almost 3 weeks.
That's wrong.
Why is that wrong?
One of my images with a Christmas tree was rejected due to 'winter, holidays' not being relevant to the file.
I'm sure we'd love to empathize with you, but mentioning rejection issues without posting the image in question makes it really hard. If your tree image is wrong in your eyes, you should post it in the keywording forum. They are very responsive lately.
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Istock need more reviewers or to give them [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRuNxHqwazs[/youtube]
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lol vonkara it's awesome. i like the green hulk muscle radioactive slime ... ;D ;D
but i don't get the baby and kenya ??? ???
btw did you do this video? did you submit it to IS? ;D ;D
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However 'winter, holidays' not being relevant to a Christmas tree is a ridiculous idea.
I agree with you about "holidays", if in the CV they have this meaning of festivities.
Now, with "winter" I have to disagree, unless the image is really winter-related (snow, etc). If it's just a christmas tree (pine or whatever), not a leafless one, without snow on it, then it's not "winter". Christmas is in summer in the Southern Hemisphere, should we tag Christmas images with "summer" as well?
However, I think that, given the current long review times, it is unfair to reject an image for a couple of wrong keywords, especially when they are not obvious spams, but stretches. It will only mean more time of the inspector crew to review them again later when resubmitted.
Regards,
Adelaide
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adelaide, and also by that time, it'll be too late for christmas.
it's unfair, i agree.
oh well, maybe next christmas , anaire... if you're still interested in IS 8)
oh no, to other religion and some other nationalities, christmas is in february.
so there's still time ! 8)
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to other religion and some other nationalities, christmas is in february.
other religions? christmas?
I must have missed that lesson back in school ::)
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For some eastern orthodox churches, Christmas is in January. I haven't heard of the one in February. There's always Chinese New Year though :)
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For some eastern orthodox churches, Christmas is in January. I haven't heard of the one in February. There's always Chinese New Year though :)
oops,did i type that? i guess i did, lol .
i really meant culture instead of religion. and not in february but until february.
polish christmas does not end till february. so they might buy christmas images till february.
(hopefully, for anaire).
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To all the Istock exclusives out here:
defending the obvious wrong, doesn't make it right.
At Istock, right now, reviewing times are almost 3 weeks.
That's wrong.
That's not wrong, and not rigth. It is the way it is in this moment. Uploading is free, and to upload or not is a free decision too.
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I have to agree this time (100% crop)
(http://www.stockxpert.com/zoom_image/dozoom/26847441/e63caf6c75263c4852db87d0059f40d4/125/166)
http://www.stockxpert.com/browse_image/view/26847441
Rejected for artifact and purple fringing
It have some... at 400%
They have taken too much of [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRuNxHqwazs[/youtube]
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To all the Istock exclusives out here:
defending the obvious wrong, doesn't make it right.
At Istock, right now, reviewing times are almost 3 weeks.
That's wrong.
That's not wrong, and not rigth. It is the way it is in this moment. Uploading is free, and to upload or not is a free decision too.
Really the problem is expectations are ingrained. I don't think that 3 weeks is that long, however if it was one week or less for a long time I have to ask why its changed to 3 weeks. And if its 3 weeks, why not 6 weeks? Nothing wrong with that. There's a lot of defenders out there and that's probably good. However even the mighty slip. I think a little bit of complaining is good thing especially when its backed with a reasonable argument.
Peter
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is it customary that some images wait for inspection much much longer than other images with similar numbers? should I contact support? have they forgotten about them??
for instance, I have now some images pending that start with 771 and 773 and the queue for non-excl has long time ago progressed beyond that (two days ago), it is now 776 and 775?
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The model release form at istockphoto is easy to fill in.The only problem i got once was the inspector wanted the first FULL name of the witness.So why doesn't the model release form ask for the FULL name.
I also use a circular polarising filter when shooting water and landscapes and don't get over filtered rejections,which are usually the result of tweaking the levels/adjustments to much in adobe.
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I seem to be getting them reviewed out of sequence at the moment . I had some reviewed yesterday while others that have been up nearly 3 days earlier are still waiting.
is it customary that some images wait for inspection much much longer than other images with similar numbers? should I contact support? have they forgotten about them??
for instance, I have now some images pending that start with 771 and 773 and the queue for non-excl has long time ago progressed beyond that (two days ago), it is now 776 and 775?
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I seem to be getting them reviewed out of sequence at the moment . I had some reviewed yesterday while others that have been up nearly 3 days earlier are still waiting.
is it customary that some images wait for inspection much much longer than other images with similar numbers? should I contact support? have they forgotten about them??
for instance, I have now some images pending that start with 771 and 773 and the queue for non-excl has long time ago progressed beyond that (two days ago), it is now 776 and 775?
i have 12 waiting for inspection and 4 i uploaded on sunday were reviewed wiyhin 24 hours and 3 passed and the other 12 have been waiting 4 days now to be inspected
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I have to agree this time (100% crop)
([url]http://www.stockxpert.com/zoom_image/dozoom/26847441/e63caf6c75263c4852db87d0059f40d4/125/166[/url])
[url]http://www.stockxpert.com/browse_image/view/26847441[/url]
Rejected for artifact and purple fringing
It have some... at 400%
They have taken too much of [youtube][url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRuNxHqwazs[/url][/youtube]
it's not realistic, it's not fair.
i can understand if you inspect the image at 100% and find fringe and noise.
or even a bit of clip highlight at one tiny area (tiny, i mean tiny. ).
but to check the image from just a graph instead of eyeballing , and then rejecting it
because the graph says you're out of neutral grey, or your lighting is not balance,
this is ridiculous.
i get some too, esp. when i submit high key images. my rejection is due to LENS FLARE, softens your image detail.
what lens flare? the image is soften before i like high key images for its ambience.
another instance would be, steam on the glass. again, LENS FLARE, degradation of image.
out of focus. it's not out of focus, it's steam on the glass.
we have to live with all this. as the last word, is still with the reviewer.
as vonkara 's fantastic vid shows. they hold the hulk power ;)
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my files are still waiting. first of them uploaded on 06-Nov-08 (Id numbers starting with 7710). I see non exclusive queue has progressed to 778* and upload date of 15-Nov-08. Is something wrong? It's 9 days overdue. I could have improved them and reuploaded them had they been rejected. What did I do to deserve to be in a doghouse? what to do to let me out? :D
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my files are still waiting. first of them uploaded on 06-Nov-08 (Id numbers starting with 7710). I see non exclusive queue has progressed to 778* and upload date of 15-Nov-08. Is something wrong? It's 9 days overdue. I could have improved them and reuploaded them had they been rejected. What did I do to deserve to be in a doghouse? what to do to let me out? :D
There is a thread in the istock help forum about some files that got stuck. You might want to check it out.
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my files are still waiting. first of them uploaded on 06-Nov-08 (Id numbers starting with 7710). I see non exclusive queue has progressed to 778* and upload date of 15-Nov-08. Is something wrong? It's 9 days overdue. I could have improved them and reuploaded them had they been rejected. What did I do to deserve to be in a doghouse? what to do to let me out? :D
There is a thread in the istock help forum about some files that got stuck. You might want to check it out.
I read it but is it not the case that not a single week goes bye on istock that something stops working or brakes down.The biggest and best in the world,but unfortunately they cannot attract the finest programmers.The opening on the new Berlin office will hopely improve the quality of staff and in the futute lets hope istockphoto is run from Europe and Calgery can return to it's limited ' cowshed' existance.
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my files are still waiting. first of them uploaded on 06-Nov-08 (Id numbers starting with 7710). I see non exclusive queue has progressed to 778* and upload date of 15-Nov-08. Is something wrong? It's 9 days overdue. I could have improved them and reuploaded them had they been rejected. What did I do to deserve to be in a doghouse? what to do to let me out? :D
There is a thread in the istock help forum about some files that got stuck. You might want to check it out.
I read it but is it not the case that not a single week goes bye on istock that something stops working or brakes down.The biggest and best in the world,but unfortunately they cannot attract the finest programmers.The opening on the new Berlin office will hopely improve the quality of staff and in the futute lets hope istockphoto is run from Europe and Calgery can return to it's limited ' cowshed' existance.
I wasn't defending them, or their programming, just offering a possible reason for why the files might not have yet been inspected. That was the question, was it not?
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Good people from the support (thanks to them for quick response) informed me that it was indeed the problem with the database and that they have reset the status of my files. now they are just regularly pending for approval :) hope they would get approved and hopefully quickly.
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Glad to hear you got it resolved. Hopefully they put you on the fast track. ;)
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Good people from the support (thanks to them for quick response) informed me that it was indeed the problem with the database and that they have reset the status of my files. now they are just regularly pending for approval :) hope they would get approved and hopefully quickly.
I got an answer to my support ticket within 24 hours and the 8 files are now back in the list for inspection.