Quote from: gbalex on June 12, 2011, 13:11

Quote from: heywoody on June 12, 2011, 10:16

gbalex,

Try searching for "Robin Hood" on the big 4 then try "girl telephone".  There must be tons of examples like this where Shutterstock is providing some product and IS really aren't.

"Generally speaking" the need for Robinhood sales, should rank right up there with a speck of a dog flying around the moon sales. The micros may fill out their sites with obscure, not often sold content.  However the people who use their time and resources to produce that content will not see much in the way of sales. Once again a win win for who?

I wouldn�t argue with that.  However, between the speck of dog and the archetypical stock shot there is a whole raft of subject matter that is covered to a greater or lesser extent.  If these sales didn�t add significantly to the income of the site they wouldn�t have 300,000 contributors, there would be just the few (relatively speaking) pros and semi-pros involved.   The point remains that the better a subject is covered, the more picky the vendor can be about what he accepts without hurting his sales.  HCV for the contributor does not mean that it�s the same for the vendor.  The people who produce this content may not see much in the way of sales but possibly more than they would for more mainstream images that are rejected. 

I don�t know if he is or isn�t a poster boy but if it�s not his fault he shouldn�t be singled out.
Anyway back to the substantive point about how the site is losing money by rejecting high quality content where the subject matter is well covered.  The simple fact is they aren�t.  Consider, a designer is looking for a shot of a pretty girl on a telephone isolated on white and your absolutely brilliant interpretation of just this has just been rejected.  What happens?  The designer just buys another from the thousands of quality examples already there and the site still makes a sale.  On the other hand I submit a reasonably adequate Robin Hood that is nowhere near the technical standard you have set � mine is accepted because the buyer looking for a full length Robin Hood isolated on white would have to go elsewhere and they would lose a sale.  What they are doing makes perfect commercial sense.

Mmmm
The problem of mass rejection seems coming only from one or maybe some reviewers...It's a question of luck.
Yesterday 80% of batch rejected with pictures coming from stage dancing show, " poor lightings", and today other pictures of the same place with same lightings are all accepted. Some reviewers haven't any knowledge about art of lighting. There's sometimes also a problem with "out of focus" with perfectly focused pictures.
Last past 15 days the mass rejection stop for me, but since two three days, it's back again, maybe some reviewers have some vacancies, i don't know but it's not a professional way to operate...

Yes - they are still accepting poor quality images. Do a search on food, newest first and there is stuff getting through with shadows,underexposure, poor composition, too much white space. Or studio shot people on white with blown highlights on the edge of arms and faces, underexposed  faces, hair that disappears into a black background or is frazzled by overexposure of the white background. I just don't get it.

Quote from: luissantos84 on May 24, 2011, 10:25

I will repeat myself they want newbies! they want a picture of everything from every single contributor no matter it�s quality.. so Dreamstime is an agency always looking for new contributors and helping them to join

This doesn't make sense.  It's not in anyone's interest to let in a lot of garbage.  If a newbie is submitting low quality stuff, Dreamstime should and will reject it.

And I don't take comfort in saying "Oh well, Dreamstime isn't worth the time" if they reject my submissions.  They make me quite a bit of money.  So it is incredibly frustrating when they reject something of mine... I'm getting hit with the "too many similar submissions" rejection a lot lately, and in most cases I think these are crazy rejections.

It's true that there seems to be  an inconsistency among reviewers... but reviewing is so subjective... it's human nature that we can't expect everyone to work with the same mind.

To me, the problem is the literal-mindedness of rejecting images as "similar."  Dreamstime is doing contributors, customers and itself a big disservice by clinging to a foolish definition of what makes a "similar" image.

Quote from: helix7 on May 07, 2011, 10:52

Quote from: borg on May 04, 2011, 03:42

Shutterstock now rejects everything! That can not be right!

They're rejecting everything that is common and over-done, and I'm all for it. I'd have a hard time getting an icon set approved these days, but for good reason. How many of the same thing does any one agency need?

Besides, we've been getting away with murder at Shutterstock for years. They had the most lenient approvals, and the overall quality of the collection suffered because of it. I say this new, stricter policy is overdue.

True but they're now rejecting work from many serious contributors that meets much higher quality standards than older files in the collection. They probably don't want to lose their 15m images byline -  but it makes business sense (to me) to clear out the crap that isn't selling first and judge new work on it's merit...not because they have a glut of images.

Quote from: Sadstock on May 04, 2011, 20:38

Quote from: disorderly on May 04, 2011, 10:44

Quote from: borg on May 04, 2011, 03:42

Shutterstock now rejects everything! That can not be right!

That suggests to me that there's something about your images that the reviewers don't like.  When I get mass rejections, I can generally find some common quality to explain it.  I've been able to get my acceptance rate back up by concentrating on those characteristics Shutterstock reviewers find objectionable.  If you can't, I'm guessing you aren't trying very hard.

------------------------------------
Seems a little harsh don't you think?  Do you really know how hard anyone else here tries?  Are you that sure that you know what Shutterstock is doing that you can say its the contributor's fault?  There are a number of threads here and on the Shutterstock forums suggesting that there is a significant change in Shutterstock acceptance policies for some but seemingly not all contributors.    

If it comes off as harsh, it's just in a "truth hurts" kind of way.  I've been submitting to Shutterstock for six years now and have accumulated a portfolio of over 12,000 images.  I've experienced periods of high rejection and have adjusted  my subjects and my workflow to bring my acceptance rate back.  And although I've disagreed with some of the rejections, I've generally been able to see what they didn't like and then to stop doing it.  In any event, I'm not suggesting that borg or anyone else isn't working hard.  But if someone is getting high rejections ("Shutterstock now rejects everything!"), I can only conclude that he or she isn't working effectively.  And my advice stands: go back to your rejections, figure out what they saw that they didn't like, change your shooting or your processing to reduce the problem, submit better images and repeat until your rejections drop to a more reasonable level.  I am confident that assuming that the reviewers all have it wrong and continuing to submit the same kind and quality of work isn't likely to help.  Unless you really don't want to get more images accepted.  In that case, carry on.

Quote from: luissantos84 on May 04, 2011, 21:56

sorry but I disagree with you disorderly.. perhaps you should open borg portfolios and look into them, all his pictures have a clear concept and are well executed, so I think that Shutterstock is now only interested in isolated objects and people pictures even if they aren�t on spot and I am obviously not talking about your work, I am just saying that agencies keep on wanting same pictures they have online and not excited about some conceptual work like borg does so well IMHO

Sorry Mate but you're wrong and Disorderly is right. Do a search on Shutterstock, sort by Newest First and you'll scratch your head wondering why they did accept so much utter crap. If that's what they are accepting then I've no idea how bad they stuff they are rejecting must be.

Thanks for sharing this.  

Are you able to display the consolidated data as a chart rather than geographically?  I don't feel like I can draw any conclusions by examining the data as is.  

I know one of the theories you have is there is a regional trend to the rejections.  Maybe you could consolidate the data by region in a chart?  

the most frustrating rejections continue to  be editorial - some reviewers insist every editorial MUST be newsworthy - but that's not how Shutterstock defines editorial

i sent in a set of urban graffiti recently as editorial - all rejected as not newsworthy - then resubmitted as ordinary & rejected as lacking a release!   that's precisely what editorial is supposed to allow - as witnessed by the many other editorial images

the modified form has a problem - the last question is required even if you answered the one before, so if youu have seen an increase, you're then forced to answer a question that syas yoiu havent seen an increase


also, the date isnt  clear  - is it mm/dd  or dd/mm??

What if a contributor wants to report that Shutterstock rejections are almost non-existent, or that the numbers have stayed the same or fallen or that they are so few and far between that there is no pattern to them? None of those situations are able to be reported on your spreadsheet.

Do you only want to hear from people who are reporting that rejections are rising and not from others even though the latter may actually be the majority? If that is the case then your 'survey' is only ever going to come to one conclusion.

FWIW you can put me down in the 'very happy' camp and I know from others that I am far from being alone in that regard. Sure, you can get the occasional 'rogue review' but that is only to be expected in what is a somewhat subjective process and may well be from a newly-trained inspector who is still gaining experience. Shutterstock are probably inspecting well over 100K images per week so there are bound to be some borderline cases that might be accepted by some inspectors and rejected by others.