These ridiculous rejections will drive me away from the agency eventualy, same for other agencies.

We are not in competition with each other, we are in competition with these reviewers!
It's not the agency at fault, it's these guys that feel threathened by our work or just use their power to rob us from our money.
I hate to see those flaming threads amongst us contributors, makes it even worse.
Also, add more value and have more respect for your own work people!

Alright, just wanted that of my chest.

I know!  I uploaded them 10,  images that had sold for thousands of bucks and would you believe,  rejected! the uploads were slightly corrupt, but still, in a way I was lucky to find out before it got any worse.

I recon Photodune needs a bit more experience, etc, perhaps learning the ropes from some of the major agencies.

I think they've given up on reviewing altogether. I have a batch of images uploaded 8 days ago still sitting in the pending queue. Is anyone else getting files reviewed by them at the moment?

My oldest images have been in the queue for 9 days.  As for sales, March is tracking with January.  February was a better month, although PhotoDune is strictly lower middle tier for me.

But I ask myself again why we even give images to new agencies.  Are they really finding new markets and buyers, or are they just undercutting the big agencies and stealing their sales? PD's prices are very low and have no place to go - there are no tiers.  If I make one dollar at PD, is that at the expense of a 3 dollar sale I would have made at DT?  

If a new agency was offering higher commissions, then sure, I'd be on board.  But if the commissions are lower, aren't we just racing ourselves to the bottom?

We share the same opinion

Quote from: stockastic on March 27, 2012, 16:54

If a new agency was offering higher commissions, then sure, I'd be on board.  But if the commissions are lower, aren't we just racing ourselves to the bottom?

One new agency that may have potential is AYCS ; They are very new, but going against the grain of what we're used to seeing from every other agency  which is selling stock for pennies, at least they  allow you to set your own price, and on top of that are paying out 75% commission.
i decided to upload there and I know sales will initially be slow, but I think giving it a year or so may be a better investment than getting 25-30 cents per sale at some of the other newer sites

They need to fix their search - I did one for Boston harbor and got a bunch of spam from other places - apparently they do an "OR" search by default.

I think they've given up on reviewing altogether. I have a batch of images uploaded 8 days ago still sitting in the pending queue. Is anyone else getting files reviewed by them at the moment?

Hi everyone, we certainly haven't given up on reviewing.

Our review turnaround time has been unusually slow lately as we've been pulling in pending bulk imports. It won't be much longer and the review turnaround time will go back to normal.

To adress the comments of wild or inconsistent rejections, we're making some changes to various aspects of the review process that will improve these areas. This should be visible from authors' perspectives very soon.

@ Photodune: The model release system might be worth a turnaround as well. It really is a pain!

@ Photodune: The model release system might be worth a turnaround as well. It really is a pain!

Yeah, that's certainly a project that we're aware needs to be fixed/improved. Hopefully our development team will be able to get to it soon.

Yeah, that's what you get dealing with those small agencies. Yet another reason (for me), to avoid them.

Yeah, that's what you get dealing with those small agencies. Yet another reason (for me), to avoid them.

Which agencies do you supply mate? all top & middle tier?

Good news I went over $100 in earnings so I went to request a payout (it's actually a $50 threshold but I had never looked). The bad news is that requesting today, they'll pay me on the 15th of May. I can't believe that there's such a long wait - I assumed the 15th of this month, having apparently misread the text. I think I'd have done better to choose the other option - to pay me everything I was owed on April 30th.

Other good news is that sales are good enough you can probably expect to get a payout each month.  Once you are getting monthly checks, the one month delay isn't noticed.

Just as a suggestion, I would be careful about waiting until the last day of the month to request.  I guess Australia is quite a bit ahead of us timewise.  When I have waited until the last day of them month to request, it has been the first day of the next month for them, and I had to wait an additional month to get paid.  Got burned that way twice.  Now I just request every time I get $100 or better.  At least that way I can be sure of getting a check each month. 

Those of you who are actively submitting - what's your opinion of the inspections?  Are they sensible and consistent?   I see some changes are in the works, but no schedule was given.

i'm still submitting , but really close to giving up - reviews are consistently arbitrary, overly stringent and ridiculous and sales minimal.  only reason i've gone on thos far is sumbission is easy

I just started uploading to PhotoDune and must say I am disappointed so far.  I realize the site is new, in fact still marked "beta" so Envato if you are listening here are my suggestions for improvement:

1) Approval seems to be taking about a week.  I am at 8 days on my oldest batch.  This is not terrible, but not good either,  I appreciate a site that can turn my images in 3 days or less.

2) Inspection, or inspectors seem a little random and worse, much too eager to reject for: "Unfortunately we're not able to accept your submission at this time as it does not meet our general requirements. Images must be well composed, technically and aesthetically sound, and provide utility for potential buyers."  I have no issues with rejections for quality or if you just do not want that image, it is your site.  I do take issue when an inspector decides there is no value to any of the millions of potential buyers all by themselves.  Most of the images rejected were accepted at other sites, and some have already sold.  Again, not a complaint, I send the same images to all 6 agencies and they can take what they want.  But for a new site, I hate to see you go down the Low Commercial Value route.  If it is a good clean image give it a chance please.

3) Errors for having too many keywords.  Probably the most irritating thing on the site.  I get you only want 50 words, I disagree that 50 is the right number, but it is your site.  But why on earth do make us manually figure out how many keywords there are?  If you know it is over 50 then obviously you counted them, right?  Then put the silly number on the screen.  Do you have any idea how much time I have wasted trying to figure out which ones to delete and get to 50? Without knowing how many I need to delete?  Silly, Silly, Silly.  That time should be spent creating images not counting keywords.

4) The site appears to have been designed with a far lower number of items in mind.  The list for "currently processing" on my dashboard stretches for pages, and I am only uploading a few at a time.  My portfolio is tiny and it seems cumbersome, I cannot imagine how folks with a real portfolio are getting along.  Again, not a complaint, just a suggestion that if you are going to be a stock photo site, you will need a little different look than what works for some of the other items you sell on your sites.  How are you going to handle 20 million images?

5) Acceptance/rejection emails.  Is it possible to get them in a single email?  Maybe there is a setting for this and I missed it.  I only upload 25 at a time but getting 25 emails is still a bunch and those sending 100's or 1,000's of images must be deluged.

Thanks for listening.