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Author Topic: Shutter stock rejections arrgghh  (Read 142787 times)

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« Reply #25 on: December 06, 2019, 08:15 »
0
I see bulk submissions of video factories passing right through, could be just my impression but my guess is they don't want to anger their big money makers. It may also be some kind of AI doing it and randomly shooting down submissions. Lets see if this corrects on it's own. 

All rejected footage accepted elsewhere with no issues, hmmm!
For what its worth I think some of the factories get a free pass or maybe only a sample inspected. I find it hard to believe SS inspect every single image at current submission levels. If a factory is making big money it does make business sense to do this whether its "fair" or not. Fairness is not part of this business now if it ever was.

agree,. they need this factory, especially  the in easter europe, to offer important lifestyle and model released images who are the bulk of sale. without them who in the earth rightt now would produce complex lifestyle shooting spending thousand dollar? nobody.
At last we actually agree on something ;-).


« Reply #26 on: January 06, 2020, 05:22 »
+1
The rejections on shutterstock are ridicolous sometimes, but you will have to live with the decision without getting too angry...
I even tried to discuss decisions twice but it did not help at all.
With shutterstock I have the feeling they often (not always) only accept pics with the focus in the middle of the photo. So when I take a pic of a subject which fills the whole space and the main focus (like a head) is in the upper third of that pic it gets rejected as "the main subject is not in Focus".
Have to live with that.....

Uncle Pete

  • Great Place by a Great Lake - My Home Port
« Reply #27 on: January 06, 2020, 10:23 »
+2
The rejections on shutterstock are ridicolous sometimes, but you will have to live with the decision without getting too angry...
I even tried to discuss decisions twice but it did not help at all.
With shutterstock I have the feeling they often (not always) only accept pics with the focus in the middle of the photo. So when I take a pic of a subject which fills the whole space and the main focus (like a head) is in the upper third of that pic it gets rejected as "the main subject is not in Focus".
Have to live with that.....

Right and what I've seen is they don't mind backgrounds being soft, if the center subject is sharp, as much as soft front focus, which normally in photos is fine. Not saying never, but in general, soft in front, gets rejected far more often than soft behind.

Ha Ha, writing and asking for specifics? What planet are you from?  ;D Unless the new advocates are actually able to return more than some boilerplate, stock answers, from the blogs and guides? The chances of getting a specific answer or help is pretty slim. One thing you can do, is post on the SS forum in the critique section and let fellow artists try to see what might have been a problem, which maybe you have overlooked yourself?

https://forums.submit.shutterstock.com/gallery/

Or host a full size image and post a question here? You can always delete that after you get help and comments.

« Reply #28 on: January 07, 2020, 09:09 »
+3
Here is my recent experience with the rejections:

-they increased drastically, as for most of us, mainly due to noise or "not in focus". As I was previously mentioning, I reopened my folder "rejections shutterstock" where I store this files to resubmit them after some additional processing: I slightly increase the clarity, perform some noise reduction, and redimension the picture subtracting 200 px on the largest side. If some of them get rejected again, I redimension again the pictures subtracting again 200px, and continue like this for two weeks. After two weeks, I abandon, but in 99% of the cases, after two attempts, the file gets accepted.

-I automatically copy the rejected files in a second folder for Bigstock rejections, as BS is doing even worse in terms of rejections at the moment. So, the moment I get the rejections from BS, I don't even need to do more work, and immediately resubmit the files that I previously worked for SS. They get accepted pretty easily, except their stupid things like rejecting on commercial medieval buildings for copyright, for instance.

-their system to detect the duplicates is still totally useless. I made a few tests submitting files that I had uploaded two or three years ago simply mirroring the picture, they were immediately accepted.

-They seem to prioritise commercial files, that are reviewed in less than an hour, to editorial, that takes sometimes more than a day... I am not sure to understand why they are working this way.

-As somebody else mentioned before, weekend or night reviewers seem to be the worst in terms of review.

-They have some serious issue with the "non licensable content": some of my files of street views got rejected because they had, in the background, hardly visible, sometimes partly hidden behind branches, logos of Vuitton or Chanel, that don;t even appear in the keywords. Even worse, I noticed a bug, given that in every case, the file before or after the one with the logo got rejected for the same reason, even though there was no problem.

So, people were complaining because SS lacked of rejections, they got them, are they happy now?

« Reply #29 on: January 07, 2020, 10:05 »
0
I have a new one: "this picture is already in our collection". Not similar one, the same one  :o

So, they don't save metadata and is an AI system.


Uncle Pete

  • Great Place by a Great Lake - My Home Port
« Reply #30 on: January 07, 2020, 10:37 »
+1
Here is my recent experience with the rejections:

-they increased drastically, as for most of us, mainly due to noise or "not in focus". As I was previously mentioning, I reopened my folder "rejections shutterstock" where I store this files to resubmit them after some additional processing: I slightly increase the clarity, perform some noise reduction, and redimension the picture subtracting 200 px on the largest side. If some of them get rejected again, I redimension again the pictures subtracting again 200px, and continue like this for two weeks. After two weeks, I abandon, but in 99% of the cases, after two attempts, the file gets accepted.

-I automatically copy the rejected files in a second folder for Bigstock rejections, as BS is doing even worse in terms of rejections at the moment. So, the moment I get the rejections from BS, I don't even need to do more work, and immediately resubmit the files that I previously worked for SS. They get accepted pretty easily, except their stupid things like rejecting on commercial medieval buildings for copyright, for instance.

-their system to detect the duplicates is still totally useless. I made a few tests submitting files that I had uploaded two or three years ago simply mirroring the picture, they were immediately accepted.

-They seem to prioritise commercial files, that are reviewed in less than an hour, to editorial, that takes sometimes more than a day... I am not sure to understand why they are working this way.

-As somebody else mentioned before, weekend or night reviewers seem to be the worst in terms of review.

-They have some serious issue with the "non licensable content": some of my files of street views got rejected because they had, in the background, hardly visible, sometimes partly hidden behind branches, logos of Vuitton or Chanel, that don;t even appear in the keywords. Even worse, I noticed a bug, given that in every case, the file before or after the one with the logo got rejected for the same reason, even though there was no problem.

So, people were complaining because SS lacked of rejections, they got them, are they happy now?

Nice I like people who try and experiment to get information.

I have a new one: "this picture is already in our collection". Not similar one, the same one  :o

So, they don't save metadata and is an AI system.



Also interesting. I haven't gotten that rejection yet. Not that I want to?

« Reply #31 on: January 07, 2020, 10:55 »
0
In this cases, if  are salable photos, try to eliminate noise using PS and reduce the size of the photo 3500px x 3500px for example, and upload it again. If it's a photo so similar to the other, it's not worth the time, just let it go.

« Reply #32 on: January 07, 2020, 11:14 »
0
I use to resumit the same files. When the rejection is not for "similar" they use to accept them, sometimes after several attepmts. Not the similar ones, I can't skip the program.

I'm having more troubles with editorial content, but it is not my main subject. Gonna focus on creative stuff.

Tenebroso

« Reply #33 on: January 07, 2020, 11:59 »
0
I have a new one: "this picture is already in our collection". Not similar one, the same one  :o

So, they don't save metadata and is an AI system.

Artificial Intelligence about art, capable of determining valid or invalid files for agencies and learning from mistakes, has more value than all microstock agencies together multiplied by 10. Impossible. There is no Artificial Intelligence capable of determining similarity between a real giraffe and a giraffe-shaped lamp.

In addition, being Intelligence, they would not make the current ridicule by eating spam and rejecting valid file collections.

As for the economic resources of the agencies, all are in a period of adaptation to the approved law of the famous article 13. This period of adaptation is to avoid fines and high penalties of all servers that store files with fraudulent copyright.

The agencies, like Google, YouTube, Facebook,...... are with the stopwatch running by putting all available means at their disposal to avoid stolen files stored on their servers, since it is a matter of top priority which will prevent them from accessing the EU market if they are not adapting their storage to fight against copyright infringement. Responsibility, the company that stores these files. There is no good faith of anyone, for that they have adaptation time. The clock continues.

Returning to the issue of rejections, I only send files to SS on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.

georgep7

« Reply #34 on: January 07, 2020, 13:03 »
0
semiofftopic, I was browsing software for duplicating bios (whatever, I know you don't care :P ) and saw this. https://github.com/arsenetar/dupeguru/ A simple in system duplicate file finder with fuzzy logic to list but also separate same or similar photos. If this can be done as a simple project. Why agencies don't research and run a larger scale version to eliminate copycats and effectively control similars?

???

« Reply #35 on: January 07, 2020, 14:49 »
0

-They have some serious issue with the "non licensable content":

Had a complete series of graveyard pics rejected as "non licensable" last weekend.

I submitted more of that series nearly a year ago, and it was no problem, and they do sell quite good.

Now I wanted to add more of them and the were rejected as "non licensable" :(

« Reply #36 on: January 07, 2020, 16:13 »
+3
They can't reject as much as I can resubmit.

« Reply #37 on: January 07, 2020, 17:10 »
+5
My turn to suffer.
The following is actually addressed to Shutterstock hoping someone of their stuff is fishing on this forum.
Normally my acceptance rate is very good at all agencies I upload to. My Shutterstock acceptance rate is usually about 95%.

Last couple of weeks I go through an ordeal of insane rejections from Shutterstock for all kinds of nonexistent reasons: focus: the main subject of this image is not in focus, noise/artifacts/film grain, composition, invalid model/property release, titles/captions/keywords must be in English etc to mention a few.
On the other hand Shutterstock is trying to motivate me to produce more content by sending me the Shoot Lists, tries to tell me how important it is to hire and work with models, and emphasizes to have the property release model release signed when applicable.

Shutterstock is contradicting itself. They tell me to hire and pay models, to pay rent for real estate location, pay assistants, and buy the props. That is depending on the shoot pay a large amount of money, spend endless hours to inspect all images one by one, make necessary adjustments, add titles, captions, keywords, double check model/property releases for errors, and finally upload the images.

And here comes the fun: When I submit finished work, the images go to a Highly Unqualified human or robot reviewer who has no idea of what he/she is viewing, and in no time he/she determines that their own model/property release is invalid, image composition is not good enough, focus should be elsewhere in the image, sees noise/artifacts/film grain, title/caption/keywords are unsuitable. And boom!!! Rejects 70-80% of my images, and throws all my Efforts and all the hot cash I paid for Expenses directly to the trash can.

Recently I have had images with or without models new and from photoshoots series they have already accepted, now being rejected for one or more of the reasons above. This drives me crazy as I upload and submit only the best images.
To make a long story short, if any Shutterstock reviewer or other responsible personnel of the agency is listening here, this is what I would like to say:

1.   It was about eight years ago when I started as a contributor at Shutterstock. At that time I had to submit 10 images for evaluation before I was accepted. All ten images passed the very first time. Same happened with other agencies I contribute to.

2.   None of the rejection reasons listed above is applicable to the images I produce. It is bad I cannot fight back as I know I will not be heard. As a rule I produce images specifically for Stock, they are technically within the agency guidelines, and I use high end full frame cameras/lenses.

3.   Massive unjustified rejections of technically and commercially good images Do Not Motivate me to Produce for Shutterstock.

4.   I suggest Shutterstock itself should be brave enough to have a look into the millions of underexposed/overexposed, blurred, poorly composed, aesthetically unacceptable, and similar images in their collections, and Delete Them. They should also Delete their current Reviewers whatever they are.

I personally will not any more pay money for models and real property rental to make images and submit them to Shutterstock for rejection. Neither will I go into the trouble of resubmitting rejected photos. Hope Shutterstock Wakes Up and starts Listening to their Contributors.

Tenebroso

« Reply #38 on: January 07, 2020, 18:18 »
+2
The ridicule they are doing is of an enormously disproportionate size. Meaningless. Since spam is still in SS. As the partner says, go up, then go back up and then go back up. At the time an inspiration arises from the examiner, they will be accepted. We last longer than the underpaid and bitter examiners.

In reality, examiners should be the highest paid department of the agency. SS works because other departments do their job very well. They read you. And they know what happens, but there is who is the most handsome in the SS who decides to reverse in an error.

Getting out of this problem is not easy, knowing the pride of the horse that looks winner. And we, weeping at 03:30 that instead of crying, we must do things well, is what they think.

They are making a fool of themselves. And the competition is rubbing their hands. Complete collections in the rest of the agencies, in SS the quality is castrated

Today, they are the kings of the galaxy. Tomorrow will be another day.

Uncle Pete

  • Great Place by a Great Lake - My Home Port
« Reply #39 on: January 08, 2020, 07:32 »
0
I have a new one: "this picture is already in our collection". Not similar one, the same one  :o

So, they don't save metadata and is an AI system.

Maybe, depending on age? I don't know, but the answer is, it's possible they only save new data for a short time, and rely on AI after that.

Artificial Intelligence about art, capable of determining valid or invalid files for agencies and learning from mistakes, has more value than all microstock agencies together multiplied by 10. Impossible. There is no Artificial Intelligence capable of determining similarity between a real giraffe and a giraffe-shaped lamp.

Returning to the issue of rejections, I only send files to SS on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.

Maybe we could start a thread for bad AI similars on agencies? Some are pretty funny.



This can't explain "this picture is already in our collection" or can it?  ;D



This is Shutterstock shown on Pixi


« Reply #40 on: January 08, 2020, 16:56 »
0
Their "Title must be descriptive of the subject matter..." rejection reason is haunting me. It showed up a few months ago and now it seems to get applied to a random upload every few weeks. One even got rejected where I re-used the description from a previous upload that they had accepted.

It happened again to a vector I uploaded last night. I figured it must be because I repeated a keyword in the second sentence of the description. So I tried again and re-uploaded, deleting most of that second sentence.

Nope!! It got rejected within 10 minutes, same reason.

So... yeah. No idea what they want me to do, and I won't bother uploading that vector again. Adobe has already accepted it, that's much more important.  8)

« Reply #41 on: January 09, 2020, 00:23 »
+1
Every once in a while I get a bad keyword rejection - I have no idea what the bad keyword is, maybe something repeated? eg "sign" "roadsign" "road sign"? I know they don't have time to tell you what is wrong, but it sure would help.


Uncle Pete

  • Great Place by a Great Lake - My Home Port
« Reply #42 on: January 09, 2020, 05:05 »
+1
Their "Title must be descriptive of the subject matter..." rejection reason is haunting me. It showed up a few months ago and now it seems to get applied to a random upload every few weeks. One even got rejected where I re-used the description from a previous upload that they had accepted.

It happened again to a vector I uploaded last night. I figured it must be because I repeated a keyword in the second sentence of the description. So I tried again and re-uploaded, deleting most of that second sentence.

Nope!! It got rejected within 10 minutes, same reason.

So... yeah. No idea what they want me to do, and I won't bother uploading that vector again. Adobe has already accepted it, that's much more important.  8)

I know I wrote a PM but just in case someone else is wondering the same, here's the specific guideline and rejection reason:  https://www.shutterstock.com/contributorsupport/articles/kbat02/000006547

"Title must be descriptive of the subject matter and must be in English. Titles cannot contain special characters, spelling/grammar errors, or repeat words/phrases in excess,"

Grammar? Something resembling a complete sentence, not a string of words with some punctuation. I've been nabbed by a repeating word, which I didn't intend to do.

Every once in a while I get a bad keyword rejection - I have no idea what the bad keyword is, maybe something repeated? eg "sign" "roadsign" "road sign"? I know they don't have time to tell you what is wrong, but it sure would help.


Wouldn't that be nice!

« Reply #43 on: January 09, 2020, 11:34 »
+2
The problem with ridiculous rejection here as well. I used to have almost 100% acceptance rate at Shutterstock, now it is slightly lower at cca 80-85%. But I really do not get some of the rejections. Images with motion blur are almost impossible to get accepted. It is not in focus. How should it be when the purpose of the image is to be blurred? Images in hyperfocal distance, everything sharp from the closest pixel to the farthest one. Again, main object not in focus. What? How come? So I decrease resolution approx. by 25%, sharpen it and try again.

Nevertheless, it is not extremely common. But videos, that is completely different story. From 85 % I am at maybe... 10%? And the rejection reasons are just totally ridiculous. The images are getting accepted but videos from the same spot are not from totally unrelated reasons. I am really expecting that the next reason for rejection of the video will be something like "there is motion in your video". It would really not surprise me.

« Reply #44 on: January 09, 2020, 13:48 »
0
Rejections have become far less predictable. Weekends used to be my time for "out of focus" and "poor composition". Now it can come anytime. I should also point out that the SS now includes clips on the sales map which, IMO, makes for a nice addition.

« Reply #45 on: January 10, 2020, 14:41 »
0
The rejections on shutterstock lately are really unbelievable. The content they are passing up on just makes no sense at all. I wonder if this will be the new way from now on, or is they will change their ways and go back to reviewing images in a more logical and sensible manner?

« Reply #46 on: January 14, 2020, 05:46 »
+1
I had some wildlife photos rejected for lens dust. if they looked carefully they would see they were flies! No point worrying though. Life's too short. Move on and download next lot.
« Last Edit: January 15, 2020, 08:44 by uvox4 »

« Reply #47 on: January 14, 2020, 06:16 »
+2
Even years ago, rejections happened with flies or birds far away. I clone them out for years, that stupidity existed even before artificial intelligence.

« Reply #48 on: January 14, 2020, 06:58 »
+1
I has some wildlife photos rejected for lens dust. if they looked carefully they would see they were flies! No point worrying though. Life's too short. Move on and download next lot.

And the next lot were not rejected for the flies. (lens dust).

« Reply #49 on: January 14, 2020, 14:32 »
0
Rejections have become far less predictable. Weekends used to be my time for "out of focus" and "poor composition". Now it can come anytime. I should also point out that the SS now includes clips on the sales map which, IMO, makes for a nice addition.

'composition' rejections. for me, are usually because the horizon is tilted - i'm usually sensitive to this while editing, but occ'ly one slips by


 

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