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[Removed my comments - sorry about that]

Yep, I'm the airplane specialist. One of my goals is to make it so that whenever someone searches for an airplane they will have a near full page of my images, regardless of how they order the list. The hardest nut to crack so far is "corporate jet".

You can be the penguin specialist. Maybe model yourself after the gold-stickman-thingy guy. I can see it now: penguins at sunset, penguins at dawn. Penguins on mountaintops, a line of penguins hiking through the woods. Penguins driving cars, penguins with umbrellas. Penguins using laptops amidst fields of wildflowers, penguins with hands-free telephone sets. The possibilities are endless...

Seriously, though. You've scored pretty big with a few of your penguin shots - especially in comparison with your non-penguin images. Maybe you should try to figure why they're so popular and work on different variations of that theme. You certainly have enough of a library to work from. There aren't many people who have penguin shots, and you should use that fact to your advantage.

... and (I believe) is part of the photographer training manual, or at least in the Keywording guide article. ...

Nope, it isn't part of the training manual. The only mention of brand name keywords I found was in the wiki, and it was in specific reference to Harley Davidson.

Lesson learnt: I'm now avoiding brand name keywords at submission time on IS.

Given the nature of SS, it is perhaps a blunder on iofotos's part to upload his entire portfolio so quickly - he may have made more sales if he had researched the SS business model and taken a more measured approach. But then again who knows? We don't yet know his productivity level - perhaps he intends to regularly upload to SS.

As far as pros elbowing out amateurs goes, it was fairly obvious that this was coming. It was just a matter of time before the microstock industry became lucrative enough to attract the attention of full-time photographers - that is certainly why I made the jump.

I can easily see how this industry will become increasingly competitive, mirroring just about every other aspect of professional photography. I think that the maxim of generalizing and developing a broad portfolio will become increasingly ineffective. Just like the real photography world, the most successful microstockers will be specialists, with experience/expertise in creating specific images that generalists cannot regularly/easily trump. I guess it all comes down to another maxim: adapt or perish/survival of the fittest.

They were suppose to be rejecting all band names since they introduced the CV. I don't think you'll win that scout one.

Well here's the thing - I've used those exact same brand names for about 100 of my images. It's never been a problem (on any of my sites) before.

That's what irks me about the other two rejections, too - I used the exact same components to make up other composite shots that have been accepted on IS without a hitch.

Maybe I'll just wait a few days and resubmit...

Nice shot, Freezingpics - you sure are getting a lot of free publicity lately!

I was very surprised to have 3 images refused at IS today - one for using brand names in my keywords (the brand names were part of the CV), one for being oversharpened, and one for having too much noise reduction. The keywords were a direct copy of those used on one of my approved images, and all three images were composites made using components used numerous times at IS without a hitch. I don't normally appeal the reviewer's decision, but will for these three.

Putting the three together, I suspect that IS has either a new reviewer, or new standards. Anyone else experiencing strange rejections at IS?

hatman12: I'm very surprised that a mere 40 DLs gets that high a ranking - makes me think there aren't too many people making money using FT.

Last week was by far my best at FT. I'm normally at something like 25 DLs per week: FT is a steady but minimal income generator for me. Revenue has been more-or-less steady at a meager 10c/file/month. I've been on it for 94 days and have only had 230 DLs. To be fair, I stopped uploading there for a couple of weeks because of the low payoff, but then decided to continue with it.

I'm still not altogether sure that it's worth my time posting there - the interface is slow and clunky, and they're overly picky about the images they accept. I have higher acceptance rates, and make much more money, with my other sites.

The two things that jump out at me are the crooked horizon and the reflection in the bottle. The shot has other issues, to be sure, but those are the main two.

Don't eschew noise reduction software because it was part of your rejection woes - instead, try to get better at using it. By using it regularly you will become quite adept with it, so that when a shot comes along that is excellent but too noisy, you will have the skill to make it sellable.

I use the Noise Ninja plug-in with Photoshop something like this:

• Duplicate the noisy layer (or entire image).
• Run Noise Ninja in "automatic profile" mode.
• Zoom to 100% and adjust the opacity of the noise-reduced layer so that sharpness is minimally impacted.
• Merge the original and noise-reduced layers together.

A key benefit with Noise Ninja is that it can work on individual layers. I often take advantage of this on landscape shots, where I can use full strength noise reduction on the sky and (typically) 50% noise reduction on the ground. Far away subjects require keen attention to keep them recognizable - 15% noise reduction is a usual setting.

I use Noise Ninja on every shot I make - even the ones at ISO 50 under studio lighting!

I've attempted to calibrate a few LCD screen without success. It's my guess that only the best (= priciest) LCD screen will display correctly. If I'm correct, then you are SOL: laptops are optimized for portability, not performance.

Submissions are definitely a bit of a black art - I've learned to submit in deliberate order and doses to take advantage of the fact that reviewers are constantly under bombardment.
I'd like to think that by carefully ordering my submissions I'm elevating my acceptance ratio, but who knows - that may just be wishful thinking.

It sure would be nice to have a chat with an experienced reviewer, or to get a peek at a reviewing code manual.