Since there's been a few new posts lately I thought I'd provide additional information for those recently joining the thread.

First I'd like to thank everyone for your feedback and opinions, they are always valuable in our efforts to continuously improve the overall site experience for both our authors and customers.

Our reviewing team is composed of highly skilled and qualified people. On top of that, they are receiving feedback and tests on a regular basis to make sure they are as consistent as humanly possible. But even with that, if you submit a borderline image, chances are the outcome might vary depending on which reviewer gets the file. Why? Because in those instances, subjectivity will play a larger part in the final decision. Submit a great image or a very bad one and the consistency will be around 100%. We could put together a list of all the guidelines and policies we could think of, but in the end, there's always going to be those files that are right on the fence and could go either way. Aiming for the top is really the best way of getting a consistently high approval rate, staying clear of the borderline images. We do have many authors with 95+% approvals, so it's certainly not out of reach.

It's often tempting to compare rejections from different sites, but it's also important to keep in mind that images that were approved on another site 5-10 years ago (even if they sold well), might not meet their current standards anymore (this is important for those submitting their existing portfolios to Photodune). Just like it's possible that the standards on site X or Y are simply different.

Even with common subjects, we welcome fresh content, we are simply being a bit more selective. Customers like variety, but they also like finding good images without having to go through 500 weaker ones. Adding new content is definitely something we want, as long as it's adding value to the library and not just diluting it.

As you all know, the industry has changed over the past few years and so has the customer expectations. We feel by being slightly more selective, we are not only making the site more attractive and useful to existing and new customers, but as a bonus are also increasing your chances of sales on files that do get approved. Being more lenient would only have the opposite effect.

With all that being said, mistakes can (and will) happen, and if it's the case, like it's been mentioned by a photographer in a previous reply, we will acknowledge it and address the situation.

So bottom line, if you have multiple rejections you strongly disagree with, I re-invite you to contact us and let us know about it with the list of images you think should have been approved. There's 2 possible outcomes:
1. We overturn our initial decision, approve your images and provide feedback to our reviewers.
2. We confirm initial decision was accurate and provide you with personalized feedback so you have all the information required for your future submissions.

Looking forward to hearing from you!

Best regards,
Gaby Jalbert
Quality Team Leader | Photodune