Hi Jason,

I�m also a newbee. I deliver my pictures to multiple agencies since 8 month. The starting phase was the most work intensive time. First I started like you with iStock, Fotolia and Zoonar. With the first sold picture I impoved my work and now I know what the market is looking for and what the agencies want.

My basic advice:
1. take the lowest ISO possible ever
2. use always raw format
3. get Lightroom and photoshop to improve and category your images
4. export your pictures from lightroom always in sRGB
5. don�t use the saturation slider in lightroom! (pictures getting noisy)
6. use some workflow tools like mymicrostockupload.com (this saves very much time!)
7. analyse the accepted/rejected images (this also possible with mymicrostockupload.com)
8. analyse your earnings of each agency

With a few of month time difference on my first uploaded images I look to all rejected images at 100% and yes the agencies have right in the most cases of rejection!
I make a consequent rework of the rejected images and upload again. Yes this is working fine.

I had the same problem like you on Shutterstock. So I took the best seller of the other agencies and tried to upload. It�s important to become a contibuter here because you have the best sellings here!

Good Luck!

Hi there,

Thanks for posting this! I just uploaded my first ever MS images to BigStock today. I've been taking photos for many years but have quickly realised that 99.9% of these are no good for MS sites. The 10 I uploaded today are a mixture of old photos and new ones shot specifically for MS. I think every photo I submit to a site in future will be new.

I've spent the last week looking closely at what makes a good MS image. It's actually been really interesting; I love the idea of having to create a unique image for an old concept. I'm looking around my house thinking up all sorts of ideas!

There's lots of technical aspects that I need to learn about but it's all good experience.

Thanks to everyone else as well for all the tips

Good luck,
Vic

welcome to the ruthless S&M world of ms 
as for * with SS, here is the good news...
new images are not selling at all. most, or some of us, have more or less sat on our ar$e for months
since one no longer has to feed the beast.

secondly, is SS a big earner for most of us? yes. but that is only if u got in early to have your placement in the search , and now, u r just cruising with those images found on page 1.

thirdly, i do not think the trend to needing SS to make money in ms is ongoing, from the consensus of long-serving contributors who have been complaining of either having their new works rejected en masse, or having little or no earnings to their new images. 
there is a trend moving AWAY from SS rather than TO SS, with an eye for the more recent agencies
with a new vision ( Stocksy, if u can get in, Pond5, Canva,etc)
ie, agencies that hopefully u will see earnings of less dl but more commissions per dl,
as subs continue to be the flavour of the day with SS, and now IS.

whatever, cheer up mate... as Brian says,

For life SS is quite absurd
And death's drop in earnings/mass rejections the final word
"life's a piece of sh*t ... when u look at it !!!